听人家背地里谈论,孔乙己原来也读过书,但终于没有进学,又不会营生;于是愈过愈穷,弄到将要讨饭了。幸而写得一笔好字,便替人家抄抄书,换一碗饭吃。可惜他又有一样坏脾气,便是好喝懒做,坐不到几天,便连人和书籍纸张笔砚,一齐失踪。如是几次,叫他抄书的人也没有了。孔

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问题     听人家背地里谈论,孔乙己原来也读过书,但终于没有进学,又不会营生;于是愈过愈穷,弄到将要讨饭了。幸而写得一笔好字,便替人家抄抄书,换一碗饭吃。可惜他又有一样坏脾气,便是好喝懒做,坐不到几天,便连人和书籍纸张笔砚,一齐失踪。如是几次,叫他抄书的人也没有了。孔乙己没有法,便免不了偶然做些偷窃的事。但他在我们店里,品行却比别人都好,就是从不拖欠,虽然间或没有现钱,暂时记在粉板上,但不出一月,定然还清,从粉板上拭去了孔乙己的名字。

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答案  From the gossip that I heard, it seemed that Kong Yiji had studied the classics but never passed the official examinations and, not knowing any way to make a living, he had grown steadily poorer until he was almost reduced to beggary. Luckily he was a good calligrapher and could find enough copying work to fill his rice-bowl. But unfortunately he had his failings too: laziness and a love of tippling. So after working for a few days he would disappear, taking with him books, paper, brushes, and inkstone. And after this had happened several times, people stopped employing him as a copyist. Then all he could do was resort to occasional pilfering.

解析     ①此处“谈论”其实是指人们的闲言碎语,故译为gossip较贴切。
    ②这里“进学”不是指学业上有进步,而是指科举时代童生应岁试、科试而取中入县学成了秀才,即考取了功名,故译作pass the official exam/nation。
    ③翻译时补充主语He,以满足英语句子的形式构架。
    ④用包含头韵的laziness and a love of tippling译汉语四字结构“好喝懒做”,是以音韵形式弥补结构形式在翻译中的缺失。其中,tippling又与前面failings构成尾韵,形成内容上的回环。
    ⑤“书籍纸张笔砚”亦即常说的“文房四宝”,可以翻译为“the four treasures of the study(writing brush,inkstick,inkstone and paper)”。
    ⑥“没有法”“免不了”都可找到直译,但未必就是佳译和妙译。这里用all he could do将两种意思都合于其中。
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