抄作业机器人卖断货？我只会两只笔绑在一起...
应付抄写作业，学生购买“写字机器人”
Chinese Girl Finds a Way Out of Tedious Homework: Make a Robot Do It
Some would say she cheated. Others would say she found an efficient way to finish her tedious assignment and ought to be applauded for her initiative.
有些人会说她作弊。另一些人可能会说她找到了一种有效率的方法来完成她乏味的作业，这样的主动性应该获得称赞。
tedious
表示“枯燥乏味的；冗长的”，英文解释为“something that is tedious continues for a long time and is not interesting”举个🌰：
The work was tiring and tedious.
这工作既累人又枯燥。
The debate lit up Chinese social media this week after the Qianjiang Evening News reported that a teenage girl had found a loophole for her homework: She bought a robot that mimicked her handwriting. Instead of having to manually copy phrases or selections from a textbook dozens of times, a repetitive task common in learning Chinese, she could just teach the robot to do it for her.
本周，《钱江晚报》的一则报道在中国社交媒体上点燃了辩论：一名十几岁的女孩发现她的家庭作业的漏洞后，买了一个能模仿她字迹的机器人。她不必人工抄写教科书中的短语或选项数十次（这是学习中文时常见的重复性工作），她可以教导机器人为她做这件事。
loophole
通常指法律中的“漏洞，空子”，英文解释为“a small mistake in a law that makes it possible to avoid doing something that the law is supposed to make you do”，如：a loophole in the law 法律上的一个漏洞。
On Weibo, a popular social media platform, commenters who had suffered through endless hours of similar homework themselves were split, though most appeared to be sympathetic or even impressed.
在社交媒体平台微博上，曾经也在重复的家庭作业上花费了无数个小时的评论者们对此事意见不一，尽管大多数人似乎都对此感到同情，或甚至是印象深刻。
“Give her a break. How meaningful is copying anyway?” one commenter asked.
“放过她吧。抄写有什么意义呢？”一位评论者问。
give sb a break
1）表示“给…一些休息时间；让…有机会搁下日常的活动或工作”，英文解释为“to allow someone some time away from their work or regular activities”举个🌰：
I babysit every Friday to give her a break.
每周五我都负责照看孩子，好给她一点休息的时间。
2）表示“停止批评…；饶恕…”，英文解释为“to stop criticizing or annoying someone, or behaving in an unpleasant way”举个🌰：
Give her a break - she's only a child and she didn't mean any harm.
饶了她吧——她还只是个孩子，况且她并无恶意。
“The difference between humans and other animals is that they know how to make and use tools,” another reasoned. “This young lady already knows how to do this.”
“人和其他动物的区别，就是会制造并使用工具，”另一则评论说。“小姑娘已经会第一步了。”
Proficiently reading and writing in Chinese requires knowing thousands of characters. Copying them repeatedly is often seen as a necessary step in learning how to write them. In addition to being tested on individual characters, they may also be asked to a literary text from memory — an assignment usually dreaded by students.
熟练地使用中文阅读和写作需要认识成千上万的汉字，而反复抄写通常被视为学习如何书写汉字的必要步骤。除了就个别单字进行测试，学生们还可能被要求记忆并默写文学文本——这是一项通常会令他们感到畏惧的作业。
dreaded
表示“可怕的，令人忧虑的，畏惧的”，英文解释为“making you feel afraid or anxious – often used humorously”举个🌰：
She couldn't put off the dreaded moment forever.
她不可能把这一可怕的时刻永远推迟下去。
Like Bart in the opening sequence of “The Simpsons,” students can also be punished by being made to write out texts repeatedly; unlike Bart, they are often ordered to copy whole textbook chapters, not just single sentences. Chinese curriculums in both the sciences and humanities prize rote memorization.
就像巴特(Bart)在《辛普森一家》(The Simpsons)开场那集中一样，反复抄写文本也是惩罚学生的方式；与巴特不同的是，他们经常被要求抄写整本教科书的章节，而不仅仅是单句。科学和人文课程皆崇尚死记硬背。
prize
作动词，表示“珍视，高度重视”，英文解释为“to think that someone or something is very important or valuable”举个🌰：
The company's shoes are highly prized by fashion conscious youngsters.
该公司的鞋备受时尚年轻人的青睐。
rote
rote本身作名词，表示“死记硬背”，英文解释为“when you learn something by repeating it many times, without thinking about it carefully or without understanding it”。
什么是rote learning？
Rote learning is a memorization technique based on repetition. The idea is that one will be able to quickly recall the meaning of the material the more one repeats it.
机械学习是一种单纯依靠记忆学习材料，而避免去理解其复杂内部和主题推论的学习方法。平时多称为死记、死背或死记硬背。
与rote learning相反的有：meaningful learning, associative learning, and active learning.
The Chinese newspaper reported that the girl had spent about 800 yuan, or $120, that she had saved from Lunar New Year presents to buy the robot.
根据《钱江晚报》报道，这名女孩花了大约800人民币（约合120美元）的压岁钱购买了机器人。
She finished a slew of text-copying assignments in two days, much faster than her mother expected, the newspaper reported. The mother discovered — and then smashed — the machine while cleaning the girl's room, according to the article.
据报道，她在两天内完成了大量文字抄写作业，比她母亲预期的要快得多。文章称，母亲在打扫女儿的房间时发现了并摔碎了这台机器。
a slew of sth
表示“大量/许多的某物”，英文解释为“a large number of things”，如：a whole slew of cheap motels 许多廉价的汽车旅馆。
smash
表示“打碎；破碎”，英文解释为“If you smash something or if it smashes, it breaks into many pieces, for example, when it is hit or dropped.”举个🌰：
Someone smashed a bottle.
有人打碎了一个瓶子。
Such technology typically uses robotics to drag a pen across an anchored piece of paper. Some of the products feature pre-loaded handwriting styles, while some allow users to digitize and copy their own handwriting.
这种技术通常会使用机器人技术让笔在选定好的纸上书写。有些产品有预安装的手写样式，有些则允许用户数字化和复制他们自己的笔迹。
The robots are a modern update to a technology that has long existed. At its most basic level, it's easy to create custom stamps that replicate a signature. Barack Obama was the first American president to use an autopen to sign legislation, though presidents since Harry Truman have used them for correspondence.
机器人是对长期存在的技术的现代更新。在最简单的技术层面上，它可以轻松创建复制签名的自定义图章。贝拉克·奥巴马(Barack Obama)是第一位使用自动签名机来签署法案的美国总统，尽管自哈里·杜鲁门(Harry Truman)以来，总统已将其用于通信。
A New York-based company, Bond, uses similar robots to send “handwritten” notes by the thousands. The company says it is “dedicated to recreating the nuance and beauty of human writing.”
总部位于纽约的Bond公司使用类似的机器人来发送成千上万的“手写”笔记。该公司表示，它“致力于重现人类写作的细致差别和美感。”
nuance
表示“（声音、感觉、外貌或意义等方面的）细微差别”，英文解释为“A nuance is a small difference in sound, feeling, appearance, or meaning.”
It's also not the first time intrepid Chinese students have found ways to cut corners on their copying assignments.
这也不是勇敢的中国学生第一次走捷径来完成他们的抄写作业。
intrepid
表示“无畏的，勇敢的”，英文解释为“willing to do dangerous things or go to dangerous places – often used humorously”，如：intrepid explorers 勇敢的探险家。
cut corners
表示“（做事）图省事，贪便宜，取捷径”，英文解释为“cut corners to do something in the easiest, cheapest, or fastest way”。
“Back in the day, we already felt so smug for tying two pens together,” one Weibo commenter said.
“我们那会用两只笔绑在一起就觉得很得瑟了，”一位微博评论者说道。
smug
表示“自满的，自鸣得意的，沾沾自喜的”，英文解释为“showing too much satisfaction with your own cleverness or success – used to show disapproval”。
来源：The New York Times
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