2008 考研英語長難句

1. He points out that he always expected much difficulty in expressing himself clearly and concisely, but he believes that this very difficulty may have had the compensating advantage of forcing him to think long and intently about every sentence, and thus enabling him to detect errors in reasoning and in his own observations.

【分析】并列復合句。but連接兩個并列的分句。第一個分句是一個色含that引導的賓語從句的復合句。第二個分句的結構較復雜,其主句主干為he believes that…,that引導賓語從句，該從句的主干為very difficulty may have had the compensating advantage。其中 this very difficulty 指代上文中的 much difficulty in …concisely翻譯時可將具體含義譯出；此外compensating advantage后還有一個較長的后置定語of forcing… sen?tence,翻譯時可采用分譯法，單獨翻譯成句；thus enabling…可視作結果狀語，譯作“從而使他…”

【點撥】l、very作形容詞，意為“正是…，恰好…”，強調正在談論的某個特別的人或物，在此不能譯作“非常”。 2、compensating advantage是一個難點，需要聯系語境去理解，意為“彌補性的優勢”，或簡單譯作“彌補了這一點”。 3、reasoning意為“推理”，不可譯作“原因”。

【譯文】他指出自己總不能簡單明了地表達思想。但是，他認為，或許正是這種困難補償了他的缺點，有利于迫使他長時間專注地思考每句話從而讓他發現自己在推理和觀察中的錯誤。 .

2、He asserted, also, that his power to follow a long and purely abstract train of thought was very limited, for which reason he felt certain that he never could have succeeded with mathematics.

【分析】多重復合句。句子主干為He asserted…that… ;其中that引導的賓語從句的主干是his power was limited。不定式結構to…thought作power的后置定語,翻譯時可采用前置法,放在被修飾的名詞之前。for which reason引導非限定性定語從句，for which reason 在這個從句中作狀語，可譯作“因此，所以”。定語從句中又包含一個that引導的賓語從句，可順譯。

【點撥】1、assert意為“斷言，宣稱”。 2、power這里意 為“（做某亊的）能力”。3、follow意為“理解”不能譯作“跟隨、聽從”。4、purely應譯作“完全地、純粹地”，而不是“純潔地”。5、a train of sth意為“ 一系列相關的事情”，a train of thought可理解為“一系列的觀點、思想”。

【譯文】他還宣稱，自己在深入理解冗長且完全抽象的 觀點方面的能力很有限,所以他認定自己在數學方面不會有成就。