評論
打印
The word 'toad' would be a snap in an English-language spelling bee, but not in a nationally televised contest in China.
在英語拼寫比賽中，“toad”（癩蛤蟆）這個詞對參賽選手來說可算是易如反掌，但在中國舉辦的一場全國直播的漢字聽寫大會上，“癩蛤蟆”這個詞卻讓選手栽了跟頭。
In Chinese, toad has three characters that are made up of 46 individual strokes.
在中文里，“癩蛤蟆”這三個字筆畫共有46筆。
Yu Shuang, a 14-year-old contestant, came close in an early round. As her teammates squealed and drew out the word in the air, Miss Yu quickly wrote the characters on a screen that projected her effort on a big display above her head.
14歲的參賽選手余爽在早輪比賽中差點就寫對了。在書寫“癩蛤蟆”這三個字的時候，余爽很快就在平板電腦上寫了出來，她寫的這三個字在她頭頂上方的一塊大屏幕上顯示出來。她的隊友則叫著用手在空中比劃著這幾個字。
When she finished, one of three judges hit the buzzer signaling a correct answer, bringing cheers. But the other two didn't agree, pointing out that the young girl had missed a single dot in the third character. 'You were obviously very nervous just now,' said the judge, as Miss Yu's teammates groaned in disappointment backstage.
她寫完后，三名評委中的一位按下了書寫正確的按鈕，全場一片歡呼。但另外兩名評委認為她沒有寫對，他們指出這個女孩在寫“蟆”的時候少了一個點。這名評委說，你剛才顯然很緊張。余爽的隊友則在后臺失望地嘆息。
Miss Yu wasn't alone. The show tested a group of adults in the audience, and just 30% of them could write toad correctly, state media lamented after the broadcast. 'It's a word that everyone knows,' said the Xinhua News Agency.
并非只有余爽如此。國有媒體在賽后不無遺憾地說，《漢字聽寫大會》對部分現場觀眾進行了測試，其中只有30%的人能夠把“癩蛤蟆”正確地寫出來。新華社說，這是個大家都認識的詞。
Since its debut in August on a minor TV channel dedicated to educational programming, the 'Chinese Characters Dictation Competition' has exploded in popularity.
自今年8月，《漢字聽寫大會》在一個較小的教育頻道開播以來，其人氣逐漸爆棚。
The show shifted to a Friday evening time slot on CCTV1, even challenging the popularity of the country's most-watched shows, including China's version of 'The Voice.'
上周五晚間，比賽改到中央電視臺綜合頻道播出，甚至挑戰中國諸多收視冠軍節目的人氣，其中包括《中國好聲音》。
Friday night's final was a must-watch contest all over China that came down to two secondary-school girls from the same school in the affluent city of Hangzhou.
上周五晚間的決賽成為全國觀眾必看的比賽，決賽在來自同一所杭州學校的兩名女中學生之間展開。
The show has touched a nerve in China, where purists complain that smartphones are eroding language skills, thanks to the frequent use of emoticons and software that lets people write faster using the pinyin system, where Chinese words are written phonetically in Latin script.
《漢字聽寫大會》觸動了中國人的一根神經。在中國，純粹主義者抱怨說，由于表情符號和能夠使人們寫字更快的拼音輸入法的大量使用，智能手機正在腐蝕人們的語言技能。在使用拼音輸入法時，漢字用漢語拼音拼寫出來。
Its creator, Guan Zhengwen, said his inspiration came from the Scripps National Spelling Bee in the U.S. In particular, he said he was touched by watching a grandfather who had taken part in the spelling bee 50 years ago and then prepared his grandson to compete.
《漢字聽寫大會》節目組總導演關正文說，他的靈感來自美國的全國拼寫大賽(Scripps National Spelling Bee)。尤其值得一提的是，他說，他尤為感動的是看到一個50年前曾參加拼寫大賽的祖父，現在幫助孫子備賽。
'In a diverse country like America, the spelling bee allows people from different backgrounds to find common ground in an American dream that they share in,' said Mr. Guan.
關正文說，在像美國這樣一個多元化的國家，拼寫大會使背景不同的人們能夠在共同的美國夢中找到共同點。
Mandarin has been an important part of the government's strategy to unify a vast country that spans the Uighur-speaking Muslims of the far West, and the dialects of Cantonese and Fujianese in the south. Contestants from various ethnic minority groups in China also took part in the competition in their ethnic dress, underscoring the idea that Chinese language brings the country together.
普通話一直是中國政府團結各族人民的戰略的一個重要組成部分，在中國這個幅員遼闊的國家，西部有講維語的穆斯林，南方則有人講廣東和福建方言。來自中國各少數民族的參賽選手還參加了民族服裝的展示，凸顯中國語言將國家團結起來的理念。
Some have been extremely outspoken on the issue. Wang Xuming, a former spokesman of the Ministry of Education, launched a campaign on his Weibo microblogging page, calling for the abolishment of English classes in primary schools and for putting more emphasis on studying Chinese.
在這一問題上，一些人的發表了相當激烈的言論。前教育部新聞發言人王旭明就在自己的微博發起了一次運動，呼吁取消小學英語課，增加國學教育。
'Save the children, save the Chinese language, save our culture!' he tweets frequently on his account, which has about 1.8 million followers.
他經常在自己的微博上呼吁，解放孩子，救救國學和漢語。他在新浪微博有約180萬粉絲。
The hope is that the show could reinvigorate enthusiasm for the language, which is 'one of the most spectacular treasures of Chinese civilization' and 'the fifth big invention the Chinese people have given to humanity,' according to the show's mission statement. The so-called 'four great inventions' from China typically are listed as paper, gunpowder, the compass and printing.
這個節目的初衷是，重新喚起人們對漢語的熱情。該節目的“宗旨和意義”稱，漢字是是中華文明最燦爛的瑰寶之一，是中國貢獻于人類文明的第五大發明。來自中國的“四大發明”通常是指造紙術、火藥、指南針和印刷術。
One paradox not lost on some viewers is that the characters being tested are themselves simplified Chinese, which was made the official script in China by the Communist Party in the 1950s to improve literacy. Hong Kong and Taiwan retained traditional Chinese, which usually has more strokes per character.
一些觀眾也注意到了這樣一個悖論：這些在聽寫中出現的漢字都是簡體字。上世紀50年代中共為了提高識字率把簡體字定為官方書面文字。香港和臺灣一直保留著繁體字的傳統。通常來說，同樣一個字，繁體字的筆畫要多于簡體字。
After eight qualifying rounds and two semifinals, 160 entrants were winnowed down to 15 for Friday night's final. Words such as Yili He, referring to a river that runs through Kazakhstan and China, and the word for chaff, brought the final down to two 14-year-old female classmates, who spend much of their days studying English at the Hangzhou Foreign Languages School.
經過八輪資格賽和兩輪半決賽之后，160名選手中有15名進入了上周五的最終決賽。“伊犁河”（流經哈薩克斯坦和中國的一條河）和“秕糠”等詞過后，最終的角逐在兩名14歲的女同學之間展開。她們都是杭州外國語學校的學生，平時花大量的時間學習英語。
The girls' coach said that while English is important, the school does teach Chinese, especially reading. 'Most people think that our school is only good at foreign-language teaching,' said Su Yunsheng, a teacher of Chinese at the school, in Hangzhou, about 110 miles from Shanghai. But she adds that students focus on English, and many go abroad for college. 'Our students are very good at English, especially English speaking,' Ms. Su said.
這兩名女孩的帶隊老師說，盡管英語很重要，該學校也教中文，特別是閱讀。杭州外國語學校的語文老師蘇云生說，大多數人都以為我們學校只擅長教外語。不過她也補充說，學生集中精力學英語，很多人回到國外去上大學。蘇云生說，我們的學生英語都很好，特別是在說這方面。杭州距上海約110英里（約合180公里）。
After about an hour and 15 minutes, there were four contestants remaining, including three girls from the Hangzhou school, wearing matching outfits of loose white T-shirts and three-quarter-length gray pants.
經過大約75分鐘之后，選手只剩下四位，包括三名來自杭州外國語學校女孩。她們都穿著一樣的服裝：寬松的白色T恤和灰色的七分褲。
And then there were two. Lu Jialei and her teammate Yu Jiamin battled it out, but the two mouthed words of encouragement to each other in the background, their eyes lighting up when a word came up that they knew. In the fifth round, Miss Yu finally faltered on an obscure term, yang chen, which means to pretend to be angry.
然后接下來，選手剩下了兩名。陸佳蕾和隊友于加敏之間展開了搏斗，不過兩人都在私下里互相鼓勵，如果出現了她們知道的詞，她們的眼睛就會發亮。在第五輪中，于加敏最終因為一個生僻詞“佯嗔”（假裝生氣）而敗下陣來。
The victor attributes her success to time spent in her family's bookstore in Hangzhou. 'I like reading in the store even though it is very noisy, because it forces me to calm down and read really carefully,' she said.
勝者陸佳蕾認為，她獲勝的原因是她父母在杭州是開書店的，她在書店里度過了很多時光。她說，我喜歡在書店里讀書，雖然很吵，但能強迫我安靜下來，非常非常仔細地閱讀。
Her literary tastes are eclectic, ranging from controversial Chinese writer Yu Hua to American author O. Henry. Mr. Yu is best known for violent depictions of the Cultural Revolution and because the movie of his book 'To Live' was banned in China.
從中國富有爭議的作家余華到美國作家歐•亨利(O. Henry)，她的文學品味是兼容并包的。余華的出名源自他在書中對文革暴行的描寫，以及根據他的書《活著》拍的電影在中國被禁。
'I think English and Chinese are not conflicting,' Miss Lu said. 'They are each beautiful in their own way.'
陸佳蕾說，我認為英語和語文并不互相沖突，各有各的美。
