美语情景对话 第510期:Technology 科技

Todd: So, Jeff, let's talk about technology. These days we have all types of new technology, computers,

托德：杰夫，我们来谈谈科技吧。现在有各种各样的新科技，比如电脑……

Jeff: Can we just end this right now. I don't like technology, so can we talk about something else.

杰夫：我们能不谈这个话题吗？我不喜欢科技，我们谈些别的吧。

Todd: What? You don't like technology.

托德：什么？你不喜欢科技。

Jeff: No, I don't like technology.

杰夫：对，我不喜欢科技。

Todd: What do you mean you don't like technology.

托德：你说你不喜欢科技是什么意思？

Jeff: Technology is, I think it's gone against what it was originally invented for, and that is for convenience to make people's lives more easy and to give them more free time, and I think it's totally gone against what it was originally invented to do.

杰夫：我认为科技和最初发明的理念背道而驰，最初发明这些技术是为人们的生活提供更多便利，使人们拥有更多自由时间，可是我认为现在科技已经违背了这一最初的理念。

Todd: Yeah, but technology does make your lived easier, like it saves us time, it communicates,

托德：是的，不过科技的确使你的生活更方便了，而且也为了我们节省了时间，像交流……

Jeff: But does it save us time?

杰夫：真的节省了我们的时间吗？

Todd: I think so. I mean, before you had to type something up, now you can just type it up on a word processor. It's quicker. Before you had to walk to a phone. Now the phone is in your pocket. You can just pick it up and call anytime, anywhere in the world.

托德：我是这样认为的。你看，以前你只能去外面打印，可是现在能用文字处理器打印，这样更快捷。以前你必须要去外面打公用电话，现在电话就在你的口袋里。你可以随时拿起电话，和世界各地的人通话。

Jeff: Kind of. I kind of agree with that, but sometimes that walk to the phone is sort of pleasant and you had time to think about other things, but now as you're walking to the phone, you're typing something into your PDA while you're listening to your MP3 player, and then you get into your car and you drive to your office and the first thing you do is check your e-mail and then right after that you check your voice mail and then you send an e-mail to someone and then, I think it's just sort of, it's cluttered. It's cluttered our lives versus clean it up.

杰夫：有点儿道理。我有点儿同意这个观点，不过有时去外面打电话是种放松，你有时间可以想想其他的事情，可是现在你边走边讲电话，一边听着MP3一边在平板电脑上打字，开车到办公室以后，第一件事就是检查电子邮件、语音信箱，然后你给某个人发电邮，时间排得非常满。实际上你的生活更混乱了，而没有清净。

Todd: Yeah, but maybe if you did not have that, then you would probably have something else that would just clutter up your life. I'm sure people were busy before they had technology.

托德：对，可是如果没有这些科技，那也可能会有其他事情让你的生活变得混乱。我确定以前没有这些科技的时候人们也很忙碌。

Jeff: Mm, I agree. I think they were busy but maybe more wholesome things, or less, I think, I think you, we, our mind's are sort of, our minds are always bombarded with images or news and a lot of this stuff is not needed but because it is there we use it. I don't think we have to see so much news or read so many different things on the internet and see so much on television and the DVD player, get our news on our MP3 players and our hand-held, our little hand-held computers, our PDA's. I think it's just, we fill our time now with things that are not really needed or not maybe as useful or as clean as the old days: reading and writing and poetry, and when was the last time you wrote a letter to one of your friends and a nice hand-written letter, and put it in an envelope and put it in the mailbox.

杰夫：我同意。我认为以前的人们忙碌的事情更健康，现在我们的头脑中总是充斥着各种画面和新闻，而这些事情其实没有必要，可是我们却在使用这些技术。我认为我们没有必要在网上浏览过多的新闻、阅读太多的东西、看过多的电视节目和影片、在MP3和掌上电脑上获得各种新闻。现在我们的时间都被没有必要的事情占据了，这些事情可能没有过去那样有用和有益：以前人们会读书、写诗，你上一次给你朋友亲笔写信，装进信封里然后放进邮筒寄出去是什么时候？

Todd: About three or four years.

托德：大约三四年前吧。

Jeff: Or a postcard even.

杰夫：那明信片呢？

Todd: Four years.

托德：四年前。

Jeff: So, I think it's, technology is good but I think it's sometimes defeats it's own original purpose.

杰夫：所以我认为科技虽然很好，但是有时却违背了我们的初衷。

译文属仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载

重点讲解：
1. go against
违背；违反；
eg. He hasn't the courage to go against the stream of public opinion.
他没有勇气逆舆论潮流行事。
eg. It goes against my principles to deceive a man.
欺骗人是违背我的处世原则的。
2. type up
把（手写稿）打印成文；
eg. I wanted the whole play typed up properly and neatly.
我想把整个剧本非常整洁地用打字机打出来。
eg. I need you to type up this memo.
我需要你帮我打这份备忘录。
3. clean up
打扫；清扫；把…弄干净；
eg. The mayor has decided to clean up the city.
市长决定清除城市里的一切不良现象。
eg. I need some help in cleaning up the mess.
我需要帮手帮我打扫这乱七八糟的东西。
4. bombard with
连珠炮似的质问（或批评）；使大量面对；
eg. During the storm the phone company was bombarded with reports of downed wires.
暴风雨期间电话公司收到许多有关被吹倒的电话线的投诉。
eg. The choices we make to smoke cigarettes or eat hamburgers are strongly influenced by the messages their producers bombard us with.
我们吸烟或吃汉堡包的决定受到了它们的制造商对我们狂轰滥炸的信息的强烈影响。