2010年阅读题:
Even those reviewers who wore their learning lightly , like George Bernard Show and Ernest Newman , could be trusted to know what they were about.
《考研真相》的翻译是:即使像 George Bernard Show 和Ernest Newman 这些评论内容轻松活泼的评论家,人们也相信他们所作的评论。
我对这句话不太理解,特别是红色部分。另外,“know what they were about”中的they 指代什么呢?
reviewers who wore their learning lightly ----wear有表现的意思,learning 是学识,lightly是轻松的,这个lightly是形容词,放在宾语learning后面,应该是修饰learning的。这个短语的意思可以这样翻译:表现得对学识(文章的意思是评论内容)很轻松的评论家们。
those reviewers(主语) ,could be trusted(谓语被动形式) to know (表目的)what they were about(做know的对象).
倒过来的意思是 somebody trusts the reviewers to know what they were about. 根据你给出的中文意思,they 应该是指reviewer,其实如果无上下文的话,they也可以理解为sb。
[Even] those reviewers (who wore their learning lightly) , [like George Bernard Show and Ernest Newman ,] could be trusted to know what they were about.
who wore their learning [lightly] 后置定语从句修饰reviewers,其中lightly是状语修饰wear(释义见下或者自己查字典)
wear:If you wear a particular expression, that expression is on your face and shows the emotions that you are feeling.
like George Bernard Show and Ernest Newman 插入语,示例reviewers
主结构见蓝色粗体部分
could be trusted to know what they were about.
查查trust的释义“If you trust someone to do something, you believe that they will do it.”
被动语态还原成正常格式就是(people) could trust those reviewers to know what they were about.
they很自然的是指those reviewers
bty: 我对于这句话的翻译会是“甚至是那些喜欢卖弄学问的评论家们(像萧伯纳和欧内斯特·纽曼)也知道自己在做什么,这一点足以让人信任。”
damn it,(you know what it means)……