評論
打印
Pardon me, professor. Maybe you can help me out here, is this word pronounced cache or cache? Cache.
教授，打擾了。你能不能幫我看看這個詞是讀cache還是cache?第一個。
Appreciate it, Doc.
謝謝教授。
You see, when Jacques Bailly pronounces a word, he pronounces it right,
要知道，雅克·百利念一個單詞的時候，他總能念正確。
He can pronounce this thing. Smaragdine.
他會念這個單詞。 Smaragdine（翡翠綠）。
He can pronounce this thing. Scherenschnitte.
這個單詞。 Scherenschnitte（剪紙）。
He even pronounces words, that don't make a lick of sense. Albumen.
就連那些毫無意義的單詞他都會念。Albumen（蛋白）。
And when you're that damn good with words, sooner or later, someone's gonna pay you to say 'em.
而當你能夠像他那樣正確地念出所有單詞時，遲早都會有人花錢請你念。
Hi, Dr. Bailly.
百利博士您好。
This is Jacques Bailly, the official pronouncer of the National Spelling Bee.
這是擔任全國拼字大賽官方念詞員的雅克·百利。
Luxembourg. L-U-X-E.
Luxembourg（盧森堡）。 L-U-X-E。
Gala. Sherbet. Gyro. G-I-F.
Gala(節日)。Sherbet(冰凍果子露)。Gyro（陀螺）。 GIF（動圖）。
Before Jacques' days as the world's foremost pronouncer of persnickety words,
在成為世界上最著名的難拼詞朗讀專家之前，
he began a spelling career on the other side of the microphone.
雅克的拼寫生涯是從作為一名拼字大賽選手拉開帷幕的。
Jacques was a competitive speller, and in 1980, he found himself in the finals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
雅克是拼字大賽上一名強勁的對手，1980年，他就站上了斯克里普斯國家拼字大賽決賽的舞臺。
His word, elucubrate, so he said. E-L-U-C-U-B-R-A-T-E and it means to burn the midnight oil, to study all night.
他拿到的詞，elucubrate，他是這么拼的。 E-L-U-C-U-B-R-A-T-E，這個單詞的意思是挑燈夜讀。
And with those 10 letters, Jacques became a champion.
就是這十個字母讓雅克拿到了拼字大賽的冠軍。
Twenty-three years later, Jacques had elucubrated all the way to the big show.
二十三年后，雅克火力全開，又殺回了這檔大型節目。
Propiophenone. Roquefort. Pyroclastic.
Propiophenone（丙酮），Roquefort（羊乳干酪）， Pyroclastic（火山碎屑）。
Can I please have the definition?
可以給一下單詞釋義嗎？
But sometimes even Jacque's meticulous pronunciations don't tell the whole story.
但有時，就連雅克一絲不茍的發音也不能完全說明問題。
English words are not always spelled as they sound.
英語單詞的拼寫和發音并非總是一致的。
One thing that makes English words really hard to spell is the schwa, the schwa is that uh, like in butter or unutterable.
真正讓英語單詞變得困難的因素之一是英語里的“非中央元音”，就是butter（黃油）或者unutterable（難以形容的）里面的那個“uh”的音。
The Y in syringe, the A in balloon, the O in freedom, they all sound the same spoken out loud, a speller's nightmare.
syringe（注射器）中的y，balloon（氣球）里的a，freedom（自由）里的o，這三個原因大聲讀出來時聽上去是一樣的，簡直是拼字員的噩夢。
The longer and weirder a word is, the easier it is to spell,
一個單詞越長越怪，拼寫就越容易，
take the state fish of Hawaii, the humuhumunuku, ah, the humuhumunukunukuapua'a,
就拿夏威夷的州魚“humuhumunuku”，不對，是“humuhumunukunukuapua'a”來說，
that's an easy word to spell, it's just long,
這個單詞讀起來就很簡單，只是長而已，
it's a weird word and weird things stand out and are easier to remember.
這個單詞是很奇怪，但奇怪的東西就會很顯眼，也更容易被記住。
O-N-O-M-A-S-I-A, paronomasia. Correct. Let's go!
O-N-O-M-A-S-I-A，paronomasia（雙關）。正確。走你！
For a man with perhaps the most legitimate claim as the authority on pronunciation,
作為一個可能有著最高的朗讀權威的人，
Jacques takes a rather agnostic approach to the right and wrong ways to say things.
對于發音正確與否，雅克的看法帶著點兒不可知論的味道。
A lot of people are kind of amazed, that I know how to pronounce all these words,
很多人都很驚訝我怎么知道那么多單詞的發音，
But I don't. I read them from the dictionary.
但其實我并沒有。我都是從字典上學到的。
Well, how does the dictionary know how to pronounce a word?
那字典又是怎么知道單詞的發音的呢？
Because they go out there and listen to native speakers,
因為編纂字典的人會去當地聽母語人士的發音，
if there are a whole bunch of people who pronounce a word a certain way, that makes it a correct pronunciation.
如果有一大群人對某個單詞都有同樣的發音，那他們的發音就是正確的。
People have very strong opinions that there's an incorrect way to pronounce a word,
人們強烈地認為一個單詞就會有錯誤的發音，
but it's like saying that dog barked wrong, that's not a bark,
但這就好像說有一只狗的叫聲不對，它的叫聲不是狗叫聲一樣，
well, the dog gets to decide.
是不是狗叫，還得讓那只狗來決定。
Thanks, Jacques, I reckon you got more wisdom, than all the books in the library.
謝謝雅克，我覺得你比圖書館里的所有書都更有智慧。
