hannah+egg

31(242)
Li Po’s gifts as the brightest star in the early T’ang galaxy lay in three traits: first, his discernment of the futility of superficial embellishments in traditional poetry, which he tried to correct by fully exploiting the possibilities of folk song. Second, while other poets were mindful of the earthly rewards which could be derived from successful versification, Li Po was entirely free from all such utilitarian considerations. In the third place, while most of his contemporaries would make a special effort to put up fronts of patriotism and heroism, Li Po was always forthright enough to reveal his own feelings and reactions unashamedly and unadornedly.
作為初唐傑出詩人當中最閃亮的明星，李白的才氣具有三項特點：第一，他洞察到傳統詩中無用的表面裝飾，並試著充分利用民歌來修正之。第二，儘管其他詩人察覺到成功的詩可以得到世俗的報酬，李白卻完全不考慮如此的實用價值。第三，儘管當時之人多在詩中建立特別的愛國主義和英雄主義陣線，李白總是夠直率地坦露自己毫無顧忌和未加雕琢的情感和反應。

#1 不定冠詞

 1.1 中英德語的不定冠詞

一個男人/ a man/ ein Mann (德文陽性名詞用ein)

一個女士/ a lady/ eine Frau (德文陰性名詞用eine)

一個蘋果/ an apple/ ain Apfel (英語母音開頭字前用an，德文無此區別)

一個孩子/ a kid/ ein Kind (德文中性名詞用ein)

＊中文沒有所謂的冠詞

 

1.2 英德語不定冠詞基本用法一致

1.2.1 表示「一」、「某一個」

A professor from the University of Foreign Languages visits us.

一位外語大學的教授來拜訪我們。

Ein Professor von der Fremdsprachenhochschule besucht uns.

1.2.2 表示一個群體

A leader mustn’t be divorced from the messes.

領袖不能離開群眾。

Ein Leiter muss sich micht von den Massen losloesen.

1.2.3 表示第一次提到的事物

Last night we went to a movie. The movie was quite interesting.

昨天晚上我們去看電影，那部片相當有趣。

Gestern Abent gingenwir zu einem Film. Der Film war Ziemlich interessant.

28(240)
Wang Wei was an artist par excellence, never losing sight of his creative talents in watercolor painting while he was writing poetry, thus deserving the praise of posterity in its saying that there was always a picture in his poems. A great lover of natural beauty and enjoyer of leisurely living in his county villa, he was also a devout Buddhist. His love of meditation of scenic beauty, and of pictorial art, is thoroughly reflected in his poetry, thus founding the school of nature poets. Before we examine his nature poetry, let us look at his ballads, which were extremely popular in his lifetime. Since is narrative poems written in the style of ballads were all carefully dated, three of his masterpieces were written before he was twenty-one. In him we see the key of the development of T’ang poetry as Wang Wei trained himself in his younger days as a narrative poet in conformity with the pervading tradition of the so-called new yüeh fu. He left this kind of composition for pure lyrics in the latter part of his life. Similarly, the trend of T’ang poets was first to seek liberation and training in yüeh fu and finally to outgrow this type. The following are among Wang Wei’s best loved shorter poems.
　送別 王維
　失題 王維
　終南別業 王維
　山居秋暝 王維
　竹里館 王維
　酬張少府 王維

29(241)
Wang Wei’s life was enriched by a younger contemporary whose poetry wa more varied and more romantic. Li Po (701?-762?), who was claimed as a native son by many different regions, was born in present-day Shantung Province. All his life a seeker of freedom and a lover of wine, he had joined various groups in living as a recluse. We have noted before that to Tu Fu, Li Po was one of the great Immortals in Wine Drinking. According to the T’ang dynastic History, he was, on one occasion, so completely drunken that he forgot all the basics of court manners and went so far as to order a commander of the imperial guard and a favorite of the emperor to remove his boots.
王維的生命因為後輩李白更富變化和浪漫氣息的詩作而豐富。李白(701?-762?)出生於今山東省，卻被很多地方歸為當地人。李白終其一生都是自由的追尋者、飲酒的愛好者，在他隱居的那段時間，參加過許多團體。我們先前曾提過對於杜甫來說，李白是飲中八仙之一。按照唐書的記載，有一次他醉得太徹底，忘了宮廷基本禮儀，竟然命令宮廷衛士和皇帝的寵臣（高力士）為他拖靴。
Even the unconventional Emperor Hsüan Tsung felt offended by this violation of etiquette and decreed his dismissal. Later, during the An Lu-shan rebellion, he joined the staff of an imperial prince who had been plotting for political independence, and after the collapse of that princely court, Li Po was sent into exile to the far southwest to the country of Yeh Lang. After his eventual parole, he died of intoxication on his way back to the capital. Around the life and death of Li Po so many stories were spun by posterity that probably not a single one was reliable, including the one saying that he lost his ife by plunging into the river in an attempt to grasp the reflected moon, which he felt was even more beautiful than the real one.

30(242)
Probably more than any single individual, Li Po was the epitome and summation of his age, spending his life variously as he did in running away from the crowd to the mountains and forests, in drinking to intoxication at wine shops and the imperial court, in practicing alchemy to attain physical immortality, and in wandering in scenic areas close to rivers and lakes. Distinctly different from his contemporaries who sought eagerly to elevate themselves in the official hierarchy by advertising their talents in poetry writing, Li Po persistently sang in praise of freedom.
安能蹙眉折腰事權貴，使我不得開心顏！

25(238)
Although Ho Chih-chang did not leave to posterity his compositions written in conformity with popular ballads, many of his contemporaries were experts in ballad writing. One such distinguished poet was Kao Shih (700?-765), a native of Puohai County near the North China Coast, who, when he was young, was not interested in earning his livelihood. He would not even exert himself in the writing of poetry until he had passed the prime of his life. Once he tried his hand at this dynastic art, his success was immediate. His poems were recited far and wide. Bending his nature to accommodate himself in various indifferent secretarial posts, he was finally discovered by Emperor Hsüan Tsung while the latter was in distress.
雖然賀知章沒有留給後代他當時所流行的樂府詩，但當代許多人卻都是樂府詩的專家。有一個特別的詩人，高適(700?-765)，生於中國北方靠海的渤海縣，年輕時不事營生，甚至要到過了盛年，才懂得利用寫詩的才能。當他一嘗試創作唐詩，很快就得到成功。他的詩被傳唱千里。由於他違背自己的天性，委身於各種冷漠的官方文書當中，最終在憂患之中被玄宗所發現。
Thence onward he held various high posts until his death in 765. Although his special traits as a poet cannot revealed in translation, they can be summed up briefly as his willingness to benefit from the examples of old ballads and to use the same balladlike and carefree lines in the writing of even lyrical poems, and his experiment with the use of lines of varying length to simulate the irregularity of daily speech. While he aimed at elegance in diction, he did not hesitate in employing slang expressions.
燕歌行 高適
漢家煙塵在東北，漢將辭家破殘賊。
男兒本自重橫行，天子非常賜顏色。
摐金伐鼓下榆關，旌旆逶迤碣石間。
校尉羽書飛瀚海，單于獵火照狼山。
山川蕭條極邊土，胡騎憑陵雜風雨。
戰士軍前半死生，美人帳下猶歌舞。
大漠窮秋塞草衰，孤城落日鬥兵稀。
身當恩遇常輕敵，力盡關山未解圍。
鐵衣遠戍辛勤久，玉筋應啼別離後；
少婦城南欲斷腸，征人薊北空回首。
邊庭飄颻那可度？絕域蒼茫更何有。
殺氣三時作陣雲，寒聲一夜傳刁斗。
相看白刃血紛紛，死節從來豈顧勳？
君不見沙場征戰苦？至今猶憶李將軍。

26(239)
Another poet who had attained great popularity was Ts’ên Ch’an (722?-770?). The fact that his poems, as soon as they were released, would be avidly copied by scribes was probably due to the fact that in them the readers found many new verse forms and new cadences. For example, Ts’ên introduced the new rhyming scheme of a complete change in each triplet.

27(240)
Even more outstanding was Wang Wei (699-759) on account of his many-sided accomplishments. Besides being a major poet, he was also a great pioneer in calligraphy and painting, as well as music. Despite his involvement in politics and his imprisonment by the rebel, An Lu-shan, he seemed to be able to maintain his tranquility through his years of storm and stress until his death in 759.

25(238)
Although Ho Chih-chang did not leave to posterity his compositions written in conformity with popular ballads, many of his contemporaries were experts in ballad writing. One such distinguished poet was Kao Shih (700?-765), a native of Puohai County near the North China Coast, who, when he was young, was not interested in earning his livelihood. He would not even exert himself in the writing of poetry until he had passed the prime of his life. Once he tried his hand at this dynastic art, his success was immediate. His poems were recited far and wide. Bending his nature to accommodate himself in various indifferent secretarial posts, he was finally discovered by Emperor Hsüan Tsung while the latter was in distress.
雖然賀知章沒有留給後代他當時所流行的樂府詩，但當代許多人卻都是樂府詩的專家。有一個特別的詩人，高適(700?-765)，生於中國北方靠海的渤海縣，年輕時不事營生，甚至要到過了盛年，才懂得利用寫詩的才能。當他一嘗試創作唐詩，很快就得到成功。他的詩被傳唱千里。由於他違背自己的天性，委身於各種冷漠的官方文書當中，最終在憂患之中被玄宗所發現。
Thence onward he held various high posts until his death in 765. Although his special traits as a poet cannot revealed in translation, they can be summed up briefly as his willingness to benefit from the examples of old ballads and to use the same balladlike and carefree lines in the writing of even lyrical poems, and his experiment with the use of lines of varying length to simulate the irregularity of daily speech. While he aimed at elegance in diction, he did not hesitate in employing slang expressions.
燕歌行 高適
漢家煙塵在東北，漢將辭家破殘賊。
男兒本自重橫行，天子非常賜顏色。
摐金伐鼓下榆關，旌旆逶迤碣石間。
校尉羽書飛瀚海，單于獵火照狼山。
山川蕭條極邊土，胡騎憑陵雜風雨。
戰士軍前半死生，美人帳下猶歌舞。
大漠窮秋塞草衰，孤城落日鬥兵稀。
身當恩遇常輕敵，力盡關山未解圍。
鐵衣遠戍辛勤久，玉筋應啼別離後；
少婦城南欲斷腸，征人薊北空回首。
邊庭飄颻那可度？絕域蒼茫更何有。
殺氣三時作陣雲，寒聲一夜傳刁斗。
相看白刃血紛紛，死節從來豈顧勳？
君不見沙場征戰苦？至今猶憶李將軍。

26(239)
Another poet who had attained great popularity was Ts’ên Ch’an (722?-770?). The fact that his poems, as soon as they were released, would be avidly copied by scribes was probably due to the fact that in them the readers found many new verse forms and new cadences. For example, Ts’ên introduced the new rhyming scheme of a complete change in each triplet.

27(240)
Even more outstanding was Wang Wei (699-759) on account of his many-sided accomplishments. Besides being a major poet, he was also a great pioneer in calligraphy and painting, as well as music. Despite his involvement in politics and his imprisonment by the rebel, An Lu-shan, he seemed to be able to maintain his tranquility through his years of storm and stress until his death in 759.

22(236)
The reflection of the spirit of the age on the current philosophy of life was one dedicated to the breaking of all shackles in search of freedom and naturalism. We might use famous poem written by Tu Fu on the “Eight Immortals of Drinking” as a mirror in this regard:
飲中八仙歌 杜甫
知章騎馬似乘船，眼花落井水底眠；
汝陽三斗始朝天，道逢麴車口流涎，
恨不移封向酒泉。左相日興貴費錢，
飲如長鯨吸百川，銜杯樂聖稱世賢。
宗之瀟灑美少年，舉觴白眼望青天，
皎如玉樹臨風前。蘇晉長齋繡佛前，
醉中往往愛逃禪。李白一斗詩百篇，
長安市上酒家眠。天子呼來不上船，
自稱臣是酒中仙。張旭三杯草聖傳，
脫帽露頂王公前，揮毫落紙如雲煙。
焦遂五斗方卓然，高談雄辯驚四筵。

23(237)
This distinguished company, as we can readily see, was representative of high society; a prince royal, a prime minister, a Buddhist, a Taoist, poets and artists. On appearance, the conduct of this group seemed decadent, but decadence, in their case, was actually a protest against accepted rules and customs and a manifestation of a new kind of naturalism as expressed in a life philosophy.

24(237)
The first of these eight immortals, Ho Chih-chang (659-744), was a leading figure in T’ang literature whose biography is worthy of our notice. A native of scenic Kueichi, close to Hangchow, he had enjoyed an immense reputation since young manhood. As he climbed up the hierarchical scale he succeeded in retaining his unconventionality. According to the Old T’ang Dynastic History (Chiu T’ang Shu), besides being romantic in nature and gifted in humorous discussion, he became even more untrammeled toward the end of his life, visiting out-of-the-way lanes and cities and scribbling rolls of poetry after intoxication.
賀知章(659-744)是飲中八仙第一人，是唐代文學的領頭人之一，他的生平也值得我們注意。賀知章生於風景秀麗的會稽，在杭州附近，年輕時候就已享有極大的名聲。由於他爬上了達官階級，得以成功地保持獨特的一面。依照舊唐書的記載，除了天性浪漫、談吐幽默之外，他一直到晚年幾乎都能無拘無束地拜訪街坊小巷、小城市，而且在喝醉酒時完成了許多創作。
Although he seldom revised his writings, his first drafts, were all readable. In 744, as he was suffering fits of dizziness, he memorialized the throne for permission to become a Taoist and to return to his native district where he would donate his own mansion as a Taoist temple. The emperor responded not only with permission but also with poems to bid him farewell. As he departed from the capital all dignitaries from the crown prince down saw him off. He died not long after his return home, in his eighty-sixth year. His life was a reflection of the age in that such an unconventional figure had commanded the profound respect of society at large, indicating that he had lived in a society of extreme liberalism made possible by the termination of authoritarian Buddhism and yet unhampered by anything like the new Confucianist Puritanism that was to rise in the eleventh century. It is, therefore; no coincidence that the remnants of Ho’s poetry, which was not carefully preserved, were indications of the liberal movement in poetry and its tendency to approximate the natural speech of everyday language.
回鄉偶書
少小離家老大回，鄉音無改鬢毛衰。
兒童相見不相識，笑問客從何處來？

19(235)
It was this kind of uninhibited creative activity that made this reign the golden period of poetry. Poets enthusiastically wrote lyrics for songs. Although they might use old titles they did not feel compelled to adhere to the letters of those titles or to follow the musical pattern of the original composition. Freedom of creation was further extended by the use of themes and cadences of old ballads as well as of current popular songs. It was this forthright experimentation in meter and theme, which had permeated the whole field of poetry writing, that gave the literature of the age of K’ai Yüan and T’ien Pao (713-755) an unusual brilliance.

20(235)
Not only was high society universally interested in the writing of poetry, but even the common people in sparsely populated villages in frontier regions--“wherever water was drawn from wells”—were eager to convert the handiwork of poets into popular songs. The process of enrichment of T’ang poetry by folk literature might be divided roughly into three stages: the leading poets, aware of the value of folklore, wrote in imitation of popular songs; the poets wrote new compositions, often deviation from the original scores as well as from the original themes; freeing themselves from established themes and patterns, the poets created new songs of their own in conformity with the traditional spirit of folk poetry. In this subtle manner there was a greater extent of interpenetration between the creative writing of the T’ang poets and the literary heritage of the common people.

21(236)
This age of liberation of the arts was greatly strengthened by the cumulative effect philosophical naturalism from the age of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, on one hand, and by the merging of this naturalism with the spontaneity in Ch’an Buddhism, on the other, Ch’an Buddhism had been introduced from India by Budhidharma (died circa 530) and stressed the importance of contemplation in contrast to dependence on books and ritual. By the middle of the eighth century, Ch’an Buddhism had not only matured but also surprisingly Sinicized. The beginnings of the revolution in Ch’an Buddhism had been set in motion by an illiterate monk from southern china, Hui Nêng (died 713), who had hoisted the banner of rebellion to found the so-called southern sect. One of their shibboleths was “down with the obstructions of letters and rituals.” All that came between the seeker of enlightenment and enlightenment itself was obstructionist in nature and was, therefore, to be completely eliminated. To them, all discipline and procedure purporting to train the prospective convert gradually was regarded as hindrance rather than aid. Even incantations and meditations were regarded as so many shackles because all human beings, according to their belief, were capable of sudden enlightenment and immediate attainment of Buddhahood. This revolutionary movement, which had been started at the turn of the centuries, had amassed such a solid following by the middle of the eighth century that it had come into sharp conflict with the northern orthodoxy and replaced the latter in legal apostolic succession by scoring a universal victory toward the end of the century. This revolutionary movement in Chinese Buddhism was also a great revolutionary in the history of Chinese thought, with its repercussions felt in practically all fields of human activities, art and literature included.

16(234)
The emperor himself was a lover of beauty and of the arts. He not only personally supervised the building up of vast orchestras in which traditional music was successfully blended with frontier and Central Asian music in which many types of instruments were involved, but also undertook the training of singers and musicians. For centuries, he continued to be known as the founder of dramatic music and entertainment, having himself not only written the words for some forty dramatic songs but also having arranged the musical scores for them. In many of these new musical compositions there was a great intermixture of what was know as barbarian and “narrow-alley” music.

17(234)
This does not mean, however, that he was blind to the genius of superior poets or that his testes were confined to what was merely popular. Toward the end of his reign, according to one dependable record, he ascended the storied building labeled Ch’in-chêng Lou, or Attention to Political Duties, to admire the moonlight. As though obviously to forget the exhortation intended by the name of the building, he ordered his court musicians to present a few songs. One was the quatrain written by the outstanding poet, Li Ch’iao (644-713):
汾陰行（末四句）
山川滿目淚沾衣，富貴榮華能幾時？
不見只今汾上水，唯有年年秋雁飛。

18(235)
As the emperor was already advanced in years and felt touched by the message of the poem, he asked who the author might be. When he heard that it was Li Ch’iao, he could not refrain from weeping and rising before the music was ended and exclaiming, “Li Ch’iao is a real genius!” Even when the emperor was younger he had made the acquaintance of Li Po, a much younger poet than Li Ch’iao; but as Li Po was much addicted to drinking, his presence at court was irregular. Each time the emperor had completed a set of new musical scores he wanted to have the lyrics done by Li Po. Frequently when the poet was alerted by the imperial messenger, he was snoring in a wine shop.
由於玄宗年事已高且被詩境所感動，便問此詩是誰做的。當他一聽到是李峤，音樂還沒停止就忍不住哭了，並起身大叫：「李峤真是個天才！」即使玄宗未到這個年紀，也早就認識李白，李白比李峤年輕許多，因為他嗜酒，所以出現在朝廷的時間並不固定。每當玄宗新製一曲，便想找李白來填詞。但往往當李白被皇上召見的時候，他都在酒家裡打鼾。
Far from being displeased by this romantic conduct, the emperor would take special pleasure in seeing water splashed on the poet’s face and in seeing him, dash off lines of poetry rapidly after he had become clearheaded.

13(233)
To illustrate this pattern concretely, we shall examine a seven-syllable lü shih written by Shên Ch’üan-ch’I in 705 in response to Tu Shên-yen, Tu Fu’s grandfather, when they were both living in exile in the northern part of present-day Vietnam. The Romanized reading is in Cantonese, which among current Chinese dialects preserves most fully the feature of T’ang pronunciation. The even tones are indicated by small capitals, the deflected tones by small letters, and the deviation by italics.

14(234)
Since even Shên, a master of the new technique, had to resort to deviations (YUE) , it is understandable that to some poets like Li Po, the lü shih verse form presented no special attration.

15(234)
With the ascension of Emperor Hsüan Tsung in 712, T’ang prosperity was to reach its zenith. Much luxury and leisure were available to members of the upper classes in Chinese society. A natural product of the age was the birth of superior art and literature.

10(232)
The even tones are noteworthy because, according to T’ang pronunciation, if all eight tones were represented in musical notations, the upper even would represent the highest pitch, and the lower even the lowest pitch of the scale. Roughly speaking, the upper even and the lower even would approximate in intonation the two syllables in the English word “even” in normal pronunciation. Thus, the two even tones were valued as the cornerstone of euphony, and used to balanced off the intermediate pitches of the deflected tones.

11(233)
With parallelism and intonation thus capitalized upon, lü shih, or regulation poetry, was “regulated” by the following requirements: (1) Each poem of stanza was to consist of eight lines of uniform length, either five or seven syllables each; (2) The middle four lines sere to comprise two couplets of parallel construction, with the fourth line answering to the third, and the sixth answering to the fifth; (3) Lines 2, 4, 6, and 8 were to have the same end-rhyme, usually in words of the even tones. Extension of the end-rhyme to the first line was optional; (4) Each poem or stanza was to follow a set pattern of tonal sequence. Deviations were permissible as a rule to only the first and third words of a line; and (5) There were two basic patterns each for lü shih of the five-syllable lines and the seven-syllable lines. In each pattern, there was a slight variation to accommodate a fifth end-rhyme, so that all told, there were only eight patterns.

12(233)
The characteristic features of the new verse form may be summarized in a diagram, as follows (—= even tone; ∣= deflected tone; R= end-rhyme; P= parallel structure):

7(232)
This new type of verse forms was lü shih, or regulation poetry.
Regulation poetry was built upon two rhetorical devices: (1) parallel structure facilitated by the monosyllabic pronunciation of each graph, ensuring easy recognition of the parallelism when the passage is read aloud, and enhancing the appeal to the eye when the passage is recorded in characters, each occupying exactly the same amount of space; and (2) intonation which assigns a specific tone or pitch to each word, and which, therefore, may increase the euphony of the sentence or line of poetry by a tested arrangement of words differently intonated in proper sequence.

8(232)
Originally resorted to mainly for the purpose of remedying the paucity of vocables in the Chinese language and of avoiding confusion between homonyms, intonation had grown in complexity before T’ang times also as a result of the introduction of Buddhist incantations and Indic phonology. By the seventh century, there were already in the language spoken in metropolitan Ch’ang-an, the T’ang imperial capital, eight different tones. These were, arranged in four pairs, as follows:

9(232)
Without going into the complexities and niceties of T’ang and post-T’ang prosody, all that we need to bear in mind is that they were grouped by T’ang poets into only two categories, namely, the even tones (1,2) and the deflected tones.

4(231)
On Shên’s sheet there was written a verdict, apparently in keeping with current usage, detailing why Shên’s poem had been considered inferior to the one submitted by Sung.

　96上學期「漢學英文」教材
　Hannahegg KEY IN
　Hannahegg 翻譯
　想要拿去參考的請留言告知Hannahegg
　每則貼3段　總八十幾段
　括號內為頁碼
　無翻譯的部分有空補上
　基本上後面的部分翻譯得比較多
--

“The Songs of the T’ang Dynasty”
唐詩
By Chen Shou-yi, “Chinese Literature: A Historical Introduction”
陳受頤：《中國文學史概要》（暫譯）（台灣新月，1978）

今天去考了英檢中高級初試，有機會走進雄女，還滿令人開心，但是除此之外，就乏善可陳了，校園再新鮮，風景再可愛，也不比考試本身來的重要。

我之前覺得中高級聽力、閱讀並不難，所以做了兩份全真試題之後就沒放在心上了，理所當然認為按照目前的狀況，沒有拿高分至少也不至於不通過，所以考試前一週就一直渾渾噩噩的，把英文丟到一邊，繼續聽德文廣播、看日劇，沒想到今天惡夢降臨，語言混淆出現了＠＠聽力我九成都聽得懂，但是邏輯推理不太美國式，所以常常出現二選一不知道那個邏輯才正確的瓶頸。

除此之外，有些篇章像是賣藥廣告、倒楣遭遇的內容，內容挺有趣，我一邊聽一邊暗自偷笑，等到題目唸完，回頭看題本的時候，糟了！我忘記歸納剛才的重點了，好笑有個屁用！笑點不等於重點啊！

閱讀就更別說了，讀到快恍神，平時沒有訓練常時間讀外語的耐力，這時候果然自食其果。

結論是，題目很簡單，但是我通通沒把握，就這樣，真想往自己頭上敲一記！亂亂考！真是錢太多！

1.      a white shirt with blue strips (白底藍條紋的襯衫)

2.      garbage truck (USA)=dust cart (Eng.) (垃圾車)

3.      be scheduled to (do something) (依照計畫預定做某事)

4.      I’m already 30 minutes late for my meeting with professor Lin.

5.      Get the film developed. (沖洗軟片)

6.      plumber (修水管工人)

7.      puddle (水坑)

8.      signal my turn = signal that I’m going to turn (打燈號示意要轉彎)

9.      a blind lane (死路 死胡同)

10.  dent (凹痕)

11.  He is off getting his motorcycle fixed. (他出去了, 送摩托車去修理)

12.  I must be off soon. (我很快就得走了)

13.  male companion (男同事)

14.  backup copy (備份檔案)

15.  I’m about halfway through. (我大約完成一半了)

16.  Are you through with the work? (你工作完成了嗎?)

17.  floppy disk (磁碟片)

18.  recover the files (救回檔案)

19.  I’m already behind. (我進度真的落後了)

20.  I bite off more than I can chew. (貪多嚼不爛  給自己找了太多事情)

21.  hotpot places (火鍋店)

22.  ingredient (作料)

23.  get beyond the textbook (超出課本範圍)

24.  costume (戲服)

25.  shabby (衣著寒酸的)

26.  It’s a real shame! = What a shame! (真是太可惜了/ 跟丟臉一點關係都沒有)

Poems like these were necessarily mediocre even though they might have been written by first-class poets. The atmosphere in which this type of literature was born could not but savor heavily of the stuffiness of the court. Among poets of this school Shen Chuan-ch’i (650-713?) and Sung Chih-wen (660?-712) were hailed as the twin masters for flawlessness in observing all the regulations that had been set down. The main targets were rhetorical cadence, accurate symmetry, and appropriateness of antithesis with or without substantial content. The only redeeming grace of sonorous courtly poetry of this type was the occasional presence of a touch of the humorous.

有次在學校上廁所的時候，看到了一個陳年的笑話：

Are you kidding? （你是凱蒂嗎？）
No, I am serious. （不，我是喜瑞兒。）

立刻聯想到日文：

あなたは大丈夫ですか？ （你是大丈夫嗎？）
はい、大丈夫です。 （是啊，我是大丈夫。）

然後我絞盡腦汁想不到中文的例子，所以說，我的中文能力應當是很差吧，連個類似的簡單句子都不會造。有人想到嗎，教教我吧！

    When the second T’ang emperor, T’ai Tsung, ascended the throne in 627, he had laid the groundwork of T’ang literature for, even when he was still Prince of Ch’in, he had established a Hall of Letters to which he had invited eighteen learned scholars as his guests. This good work was followed not only during his own reign but also by his extremely unconventional daughter-in-law Empress Wu herself, and also her son Chung Tsung (684-709). Thus, early in the eighth century the cultivation of literature had become routine in the imperial court. An early entry such as we find in the Ta T’ang Hsin Yü or New Anecdotes of the Great T’ang was typical:

The devil is not so black as he is painted.
言過其實

Paint the town red.
有「我們去狂歡吧！」的意思