问：

我平时最爱看得就是《柯南》，有很强的逻辑推理的感觉，没想到英语也可以这样学习，很感谢老师又唤醒我对英语的兴趣。但希望知道如何能在艰苦的学习中保持这份兴趣？

答：

1．

理解比较难的书面材料，我们只要机器猫口袋里面的3个宝贝就够了：心形的小镜子（照出最关键的词）；小天平，也就是我的星座（利用平行对应解决问题）和一把小剪刀（断结构、换主语、动词化）。

2．

把这三件宝贝给柯南，然后我们来寻找蛛丝马迹破案。例如我们上课讲的这段因为某些原因我特别喜欢的话，哈哈，即2006年首师大英语专业研究生英译汉真题（25分）。当然，英语有一条公理，就是谜底就在谜面里面，你要换套思维方式就厉害啦。

3．

复习这个例子。

Prose of its very nature is longer than verse, and the virtues peculiar to it manifest themselves gradually. If the cardinal virtue of poetry is love, the cardinal virtue of prose is justice; and, whereas love makes you act and speak on the spur of the moment; justice needs inquiry, patience, and a control even of the noblest passions. By justice here I do not mean justice only to particular people or idea, but a habit of justice in all the process of thought, a style tranquilized and a form moulded by that habit. The master of prose is not cold, but he will not let any word or image inflame him with a heat irrelevant to his purpose. Unhasting, unresting, he pursues it, subduing all the riches of his mind to it, rejecting all beauties that are not germane to it; making his own beauty out of the very accomplishment of it, out of the whole work and its proportions, so that you must read to the end before you know that it is beautiful. But he has his reward, for he is trusted and convinces, as those who are at the mercy of their own eloquence do not; and he gives a pleasure all the greater for being hardly noticed. In the best prose, whether narrative or argument, we are so led on as we read, that we do not stop to applaud the writer, nor do we stop to question him.

4．

一些同学会对第一句话的后半句很不敏感，没有意识到后半句只是重复前半句而已。关键在于and这个词，and左边是上联，右边是下联，就像相声《八扇屏》里面说的，风吹水面层层浪，下联就不能对“雨打沙滩万点坑”，必须要“点点坑”。鬼佬在暗自用longer在对应gradually，意思是散文比诗长，所以散文的好处是慢慢才能体会到的。

5．

第二句话，如果翻译成“如果诗歌的主要优点是爱情，那么散文的主要优点是公正”，就驴唇不对马嘴啦。英语这个语言的特点是-打你一巴掌，然后再揉揉你。你一定要向后面找这两个词的谜底，也就是它俩的平行对应句子，就会明白一个是“感性”一个是“理性”。

6．

以上只是两个简单的例子，但是，同学们，你们知道吗，有多少人在羡慕我们能够用两种思维思考问题啊！读的高难度文章越多，我们思维的转轨就越快，你看待问题的方式就会越独特，这是件美好的事情。

7．

另外，中国近现代文字有趣的不多，真话尤其少的可怜。读懂文字的英文，将给你一个完全不同的世界，或者说给你一个double的世界，那个世界至少更加真实和深刻，而跨越这两层时空，将是多么大的奢侈。所以，为什么要失去兴趣呢？

8．

我做了这样一个链接，是Zha Jianying发表在New Yorker（应该是美国的《读书》杂志吧）上的《国家公敌》，看看另一个中国人是如何写出了一篇“汹涌”的文字。如果你懂英语，你才真的拥有整个世界。

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/23/070423fa_fact_zha