口译练习 Day 14：The Wisdom of Animals

The Wisdom of Animals

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Animals don’t set out to teach us anything at all – but we all have a lot to learn from our interactions with them nevertheless.

Imagine that we come back from work unusually late. It’s been a tricky day: a threatened resignation, an enraged supplier, a lost document, two delayed trains…But none of the mayhem is of any concern to one friend waiting by the door uncomplicatedly pleased to see us: Pippi, a two-year-old Border Terrier with a continuous appetite for catching a deflated football in her jaws. She wants to play in the usual way, even if it’s past nine o’clock now, with us in the chair and her sliding around the kitchen, and, unexpectedly, so do we. We’re not offended by her lack of overall interest in us. It’s at the root of our delight. Here, at last, is someone wholly indifferent to almost everything about us except for our dexterity at ball-throwing, someone who doesn’t care about the Brussels meeting, who will forgive us for not warning the finance department in time about the tax rebates and for whom the Lisbon conference is beyond imagining.

One of the most consoling aspects of animals – it might be a dog, a sheep, a lizard or a beetle – is that their priorities have nothing whatsoever to do with our own perilous and tortured agendas. They are redemptively unconcerned with everything we are and want. They implicitly mock our self-importance and absorption and so return us to a fairer, more modest sense of our role on the planet. 

A sheep doesn’t know about our feelings of jealousy, it has no interest in our humiliation and bitterness around a colleague; it has never emailed. On a walk in the hills, it simply ambles towards the path we’re on and looks curiously at us, then takes a lazy mouthful of grass, chewing from the side of his mouth as though it were gum. 

Ducks nibble at the weeds, waddle down to the water and paddle about in circles without any interest in which century it happens to be from a human point of view; they’ve never heard of the economy; they don’t know what country they live in; they don’t have new ideas or regret what happened yesterday. They don’t care about the career hurdles or relationship status of the person who sprinkles a few bread crumbs near them.

Time around animals invites us into a world in which most of the things that obsess us have no significance – which corrects our characteristic over-investment in matters which make only a limited contribution to the essential task of existence – which is – to be kind, to make the most of our talents, to love and to appreciate.

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打卡任务清单：

必做的标配打卡任务，可提高英语听力、提高翻译能力；

可选的高配打卡任务，可练习口译笔记、提高口译能力。

标配打卡任务清单：

1 集中注意力仔细听一遍英文音频/视频，有意识地抓句子主干、概括大意；

2 看视频/听音频进行跟读影子练习；

3 再听一遍音频/视频，边听边做口译笔记；

4 对照文本记下文中没听懂和没看懂的发音和术语含义（通过在线搜索，积累专业术语储备）。

5 选一段你认为代表整个文本核心内容的句子进行笔译练习，以双语对照的形式贴在评论区。

高配打卡任务清单：

1 集中注意力仔细听一遍英文音频/视频，基础好的可以直接边听边练习记笔记；

2 看视频/听音频进行跟读影子练习；

3 再听一遍做口译笔记或补充之前的笔记，可根据具体情况适当停顿，希望比第一遍多抓住信息点；

4 打开音频或视频，对照文本进行实时视译，之后记下文中没听懂和没看懂的发音和术语含义，通过在线搜索，积累专业术语储备。

5 选一段你认为代表整个文本核心内容的句子进行笔译练习，以双语对照的形式贴在评论区。想练习交传和同传的小伙伴可以自己录音，自己听后评估或找partner反馈。

如果完成打卡任务，请在评论区，朋友圈评论区或文字发布区写下完成清单数字并附上一段话的双语对照译文。

口译练习打卡系列回顾，可以随时开启你的打卡练习之旅~