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我们先来看第一句。
“徐霞客一生周游考察了16个省，足迹几乎遍及全国。”
徐霞客是什么时候的人？那时候中国的行政区划是怎样的？为什么要说“足迹几乎遍及全国”？ 那时候中国到底有几个省？
英语讲究逻辑，讲究精确。可是这开宗明义第一句就让人犯胡涂。
现在我们再来看看“参考译文”中是怎么用英语来表达这一句病语的。
(1) During his lifetime， Xu Xiake (1586-1641) visited 16 provinces， leaving his footprints in nearly every corner of the country.
(2) During his lifetime， Xu Xiake traveled around and conducted surveys in 16 provinces， leaving footsteps in virtually every part of the country.
周游考察 (1) visited; (2) traveled around and conducted surveys
足迹几乎遍及全国 (1) leaving his footprints in nearly every corner of the country; (2) leaving footsteps in virtually everypart of the country
以上我们看到，参考译文甲几乎完全漏掉了“周游考察”的主要意思。
那么“足迹几乎遍及全国”这一小片呢？参考译文甲真的译得好笨哎！请好好体会 footsteps 和 virtually every part of 这样的表达法。(就是嘛，这样读着才顺哪！)
我们再来看第二句和第三句。
“他在考察的过程中，从来不盲目迷信书本上的结论。他发现前人研究地理的记载有许多不很可靠的地方。”
作者把话说颠到了，其实应该是“他从来不盲目迷信书本上的结论。在考察的过程中，他发现前人研究地理的记载有许多不很可靠的地方。”
(1) He never completely depended on books to guide him in his tours nor blindly accepted the conclusions given therein. As a result， he found many inaccuracies in the travel notes written by his predecessors.
(2) When conducting surveys and investigations， he never blindly embraced the conclusions recorded in previous documents and discovered that the documentations made by his predecessors in their geographical studies were not quite reliable in many aspects.
可惜，两位参考译文作者都没有真正看出这一点。
值得一提的是，译文甲中有一个不大不小的错误。“不很可靠”应该是 not quite reliable，而不应该是 inaccuracies.
另外，译文甲实在是马虎潦草了一点。“书本上的”当真就用books啦？“研究地理的记载”怎么变成 travel notes了呢？“盲目迷信”好像是blindly embrace更好一点吧？
我不大会敲字，真得有点累了，暂时停一下，下次接着评。反正原作者是看不见的辣。（嘻嘻！）
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