身边没有老师，作文和译文没人帮着修改，写作和翻译能力怎能提高呢？其实，只要得法，你完成可以靠自己来完成修改提高的工作。北外陈琳教授马上告诉我们自学提高英语写作和翻译能力的方法，大家竖起耳朵吧。

（本视频知识版权归属北外网院和世纪盈华公司所有，谢绝一切形式转载。）

视频文字：

No. 5, 自学英语的写与译。 Well, here we have four subtitles. 有四个小标题。

1.One is imitation.

Imitation. Now, we all know about this very great novel: Treasure Island, 《金银岛》by Stevenson. 史蒂文森写的《金银岛》。Well, I'm very happy to tell you that this great English writer learned to write by himself. 他是，史蒂文森是一位完全通过自学的，贫寒家庭出生的一个伟大的作家。贫寒家庭出生，没有上过正规的大学，完全靠自学来成为一个伟大的作家的。And one of his best methods was imitation. 而他一个最有用的做法，学习的方法，就是模仿。

He read a lot of the books of his ancestors, of those writers before him. And then he tried to imitate from them. He tried to write, for instance, about a character, 一个人物，if he has read a lot of descriptions about one character, a woman, then he would try to write the description of a man. 看了很多描写妇女的，然后他去试着用同样的手法来描写一个男的，等等，这种方法，用一种imitation的方法，来学习写作。

NO. 2, 复述。

In English, we say, retelling. That is, after you have read something, after you have read it several times, many many times, you try to retell the story in your own words. This is not recitation, but retelling. Then NO. 3,

NO. 3, self-improvement. Self-improvement. 自我修订。

Well, again, Mr. Stevenson did a lot of that. 自我修订。 Now, how do we do it? How do we teach ourselves to write well without a good teacher, without a teacher at all.

Now, I recommend that you do this if you really want to learn to write well by yourselves. You should first of all, write every often. Now for instance, each week you write a short piece. If your time is pressed, you do it once every two weeks. 两个星期写一篇。

And after you have written it, you put it away, you put it away. Put it in your drawer, without touching it any more.

And then the next two weeks, you write another piece, and then put it away.

And then, after half a year, after half a year, you take out that piece which you have written six months before, OK? And try to correct that piece by yourself.

Because by the time .. that is after six months, your English level has been raised to a higher level, right? And your English is better, so when you take out something which you wrote six months ago, you will find that you yourself are not satisfied with what you have written before. And you can teach yourself, you can correct and improve your own writing, so we do this in a kind of rotation.

Every six months, you take something which you wrote six months ago. So in this way, you can try to teach yourself, and raise your own writing ability. So this is what I mean by self-improvement in writing.

Last of all, 比较译文。Compare the official translation.

Now sometimes, you know, in the case of novels, in the case of novels, we have English editions of many of the good novels. Classical novels like The Dream of the Three… of the Big Mansion, of the Red Mansion,《红楼梦》，of A Journey to the West, 《西游记》，等等。Well, many of the modern novels, with, for instance, 现代一些的，当代的一些小说，including赵树理的小说等等，many.

They have been translated into English. Well, what do we do? What do we do? We try to translate a short piece chosen from a novel into English, without looking at the English translation first. We try by ourselves.

We try to translate a short piece into English, and then, compare it with the original, I mean, the official translation of that book. 然后跟那个原来已经发表的，著名的人翻译的英语，英语的译文来比较。

So in this case, when you compare your own translation with the official one, you will find that, well, you might have made some mistakes, or you might find that your own translation is not as good as the official translation. So this is what I mean by comparing your own translation with the ..er..published ones.

附：陈琳简介
北京外国语大学教授，曾任北外海南分校校长，成人教育学院院长。现任教育部《国家英语课程标准》专家组组长、北京市人民政府顾问、北京市民讲外语工程组委会专家顾问团团员、中国老教授协会外国语文专业委员会理事长。

陈琳教授除长期在高等院校担任教学工作外，并努力于基础外语教育及成人外语教育的实践与研究。60年代初曾参与并负责由周恩来总理与陈毅副总理倡导的“一条龙”式外语教学改革工作。“文化大革命”结束、改革开放开始后，于70年代末受命主持全国播放的英语广播电视节目，成为一位家喻户晓的人师。

陈琳教授于1956年受教育部委托编写出版了新中国第一部全国大学英语专业通用的英语课本。在其后的时日至今，编著了大量不同层次的英语教材，包括成人及儿童用书。陈琳教授并曾参予《毛泽东选集》英文本的翻译工作。

陈琳教授虽已离休，但仍在外语教育领域辛勤耕耘，每天工作10小时以上。曾获全国科技兴国贡献奖、全国老有所为贡献奖。他的座右铭是：活着，就要工作。