雙語+MP3|美國學生世界地理04 沒有盡頭的隊列

DID you ever see a parade—a very long one? I once saw a parade of soldiers that took all day to pass by. Tramp, tramp—tramp, tramp—tramp, tramp, hour after hour, all day long. I never had seen so many men in my whole life. There must have been a hundred thousand of them. It didn’t seem possible that there were so many people in the World. But if all the people there are in the World should pass by in one long parade, it would take not one day but a lifetime for them to pass by, for there are over two billion people in the world.
你看過閱兵隊伍嗎？非常長的那種？我曾經(jīng)看過一次閱兵隊伍，隊伍走了一整天才走完。噔噔，噔噔——噔噔，噔噔——噔噔，噔噔，一個鐘頭又一個鐘頭，走了整整一天。我一生中從沒見過這么多人，肯定有十萬人那么多。世界上居然有那么多的人，這似乎不可能。但是如果讓世界上所有的人都排起來進行一次大閱兵，那么不是走一天，而是要走一輩子的時間才能走完，因為整個世界上一共有20多億人。[1]
A hundred new people—babies—are born every minute of the day and of the night; many are born while you are reading this, and with every tick of the clock some one has died. But more people are born than die each day, so that the World is getting fuller and fuller of people all the time.
每天每夜的每分鐘，都有100個新人——新生嬰兒——來到這個世界；就在你讀這本書的時候，許多孩子又出生了；在時鐘的每一次滴答聲中又有人死去。但是每天出生的人比死去的人更多，所以世界上的人越來越多。
The people on the World are all about the same size and shape. Only in fairy-tales are people as small as your thumb or as tall as a church-steeple. None have wings instead of arms or wheels instead of legs. They all have one head, one nose, one mouth; they all have two ears, two eyes, two arms, and two legs. And yet in all these two billion people there are no two alike, there is not a single person exactly like any other one. Even twins are not exactly alike.
世界上的人基本上個頭和體形都差不多。只有在童話故事中才有像拇指般大的小人兒或是像教堂的尖塔那么高的巨人。沒有哪個人上身不長手臂而長著翅膀，也沒有哪個人下身不長腿而長著輪子。他們都有一個頭、一只鼻子、一張嘴；他們都有兩只耳朵、兩只眼睛、兩個手臂、兩條腿。然而在世界的全部人口中，沒有兩個人長得是一樣的，沒有哪一個人長的和別人一模一樣。即使是雙胞胎也不是完全一樣的。
The chief difference in people is their color. Most of the two billion are white, but a great many are black and a larger number are halfway between white and black—they are sort of yellow-brown. These three colors of people we call “races.” “It’s a good day for the race,” my father used to say. I thought he was talking of a horse-race or a boat-race, but when I asked, “What race?” he would smile and say, “It’s a good day for the white race, the black race, all the races.”
人與人之間的最主要區(qū)別是膚色的不同。全世界人中大多數(shù)是白色的，也有大量的人是黑色的，還有更多的人是介于白色和黑色之間的——近似黃褐色。我們把這三種膚色的人叫做“種族”。“這是全民族的好日子。”我爸爸經(jīng)常這么說。我認為他是在說賽馬比賽或是劃船比賽，但是當我問他“什么比賽”的時候，他會笑著說：“是白色人種、黑色人種、所有種族的好日子。”[2]
Each race used to live by itself in its own part of the World, but many have wandered away to other parts. Most of the people in our part of the World are white, but there are also many black and a few yellow-brown.
每個種族原來都是住在世界上他們自己那塊地方，但是很多種族游蕩到了其他地方。在世界上我們這塊地方人大都是白種人，但是也有很多黑種人和一些黃褐種人。
Suppose you had been born black.
假如你生來就是一個黑種人。
Suppose you’d been born yellow or red.
假如你生來就是一個黃種人或者紅種人。
Suppose you had been born in
假如你生在
Africa or
非洲
Asia or
或者是亞洲
Australia.
或者是澳洲。
Suppose you had been born with another father and mother.
假如你是別的爸爸媽媽所生。
Suppose you had been born in another world instead of this World.
假如你生在另一個世界而不是這個世界上。
Suppose you hadn’t been born at all—where would you be now?
假如你根本沒有出生——你現(xiàn)在會是在哪兒呢？
There are only six continents where people live, but on each of these there are several countries. A country doesn’t mean the country. A country means cities, towns, villages and country under one ruler. There are eighty countries on the World. Some countries are small with only a few thousand people in the whole country, and some countries are large with many millions of people. Our country, the United States, has over one hundred and fifty million people, but there are several countries with more. China, which is on the other side of the World, has the most people. It has three times as many people as the United States; and India, another country on the other side of the World, has the next largest number of people. Both these countries are in Asia—the largest continent with the shortest name and the most people.
世界上有人居住的大陸只有六個，但是每一個大陸上都有好多個國家。“國家”并不意味著“鄉(xiāng)村”。一個國家意味著處于一個統(tǒng)治者之下的城市、鄉(xiāng)鎮(zhèn)、村莊和鄉(xiāng)村。世界上一共有80個國家。[3]有的國家很小，全國總共只有幾千人。有的國家很大，全國會有幾百萬的人。我們的國家，美國，有一億五千萬人，但是還有幾個國家的人數(shù)更多。在世界另一面的中國擁有最多的人口，是美國的三倍。世界另一面的另一個國家——印度——擁有第二多的人口。這兩個國家都位于亞洲——最大的大陸，它的名字最短，人口最多。
Each country has a ruler, just as every family has a father or every football team has a captain. Some countries have a king for a ruler and some have a president, and most countries have other people to rule with the king and the president.
每個國家都有一個統(tǒng)治者，就像每個家庭都有一個爸爸，或者像每個足球隊都有一個隊長。有的國家的統(tǒng)治者是國王，有的是總統(tǒng)，大多數(shù)國家都由其他的人和國王或總統(tǒng)共同來統(tǒng)治國家。
A king is a king because his father was a king, and his son will be king for the same reason. A president is president because he was chosen by the people in the country, just as the captain of a football team is chosen by his team. Choosing we call “voting.” A king is king for his whole life, but a president is president for only a few years.
一個國王能當國王是因為他的爸爸是國王，因為同樣的原因他的兒子也會成為國王。一個總統(tǒng)能當總統(tǒng)因為他是由他的國家的人民選出來的，就像足球隊的隊長是由隊員推選出來的一樣。這種推選叫做“選舉”。一個國王一輩子都是國王，而一個總統(tǒng)只能當幾年的總統(tǒng)。
The country of a king is called a kingdom. If one man rules over several countries, he is called an emperor and the countries an empire. A country with a president is called a republic. Our country is a republic. The king or the president and the others who rule with him are called the government. The government makes the rules, but it also does two things that no one else is allowed to do. The government makes the money of the country and the postage-stamps. The money of one country is not good in another country and neither are the postage-stamps. And neither is the language of one country good in another—usually.
一個國王的國家叫做王國。如果一個人統(tǒng)治好幾個國家，他就叫做帝王，這些國家就叫做帝國。一個總統(tǒng)領導的國家叫做共和國。美國就是一個共和國。國王或者總統(tǒng)以及和他一起統(tǒng)治國家的人叫做政府。政府制定規(guī)章制度，政府還做兩件別人不能做的事情。政府制造國家的貨幣和郵票。一個國家的貨幣在另一國家并不能通用，郵票也是一樣。同樣的，一個國家的語言在另一國家里通常也不能通用。
The people on the World speak many different languages. Even in the same country many different languages are spoken. There are over 3,000 different languages in all—3,000, just think of that! You probably speak only one of these, and couldn’t talk to any one nor understand any one who spoke any other language than your own. In the United States almost every one speaks English, which, strange to say, is the language of another country—England. But on a continent like Europe you could hardly go a day’s journey without hearing a different language on the street, in the shops, at the hotel.
世界上的人說很多種不同的語言。即使在同一個國家里也有許多不同的語言。世界上總共有三千多種不同的語言，想想吧，三千多種！你也許只會說其中一種語言，不會說，也聽不懂其他語言。在美國，幾乎每個人都說英語；說起來有點奇怪，這也是另外一個國家——英國的語言。但在歐洲大陸上，上街走一天，在商店里、旅館里，你總是能聽到不同的語言。
I happened to be born in the United States, and as I heard everybody around me speaking English I learned to speak English too. But I might have been born in Asia, a yellow boy, and learned to speak Chinese, or I might have been born in Africa, a black boy, and learned to speak a language I don’t even know the name of. I know a man who speaks a dozen different languages, and I know of a man who speaks 100! You can understand how wonderful this is when it usually takes years to learn to speak one other language besides your own. Letters of most of these languages are like ours, like the letters on this page—they are called Roman, because a people called Romans first used them long ago. But letters of Chinese and Japanese and some other far-away languages are different—they look like this:
我碰巧出生在美國，由于聽到周圍的人都說英語，我也就學會了說英語。但是我也有可能出生在亞洲，是個黃色人種的小男孩，學會說漢語；我還有可能出生在非洲，是個黑色人種的小男孩，于是學會說一種我也叫不上名字的語言。我認識一個人，他會說12種不同的語言，我還聽說過一個人，他會說100種語言！通常要學會另一種和你的母語不同的語言要花上幾年的時間，所以你可以想象到他們有多了不起。大多數(shù)語言的字母和我們的差不多，就像這本書上的字母一樣，這種字母叫做羅馬字，因為是由叫羅馬人的一個民族在很久以前最先使用的。但是漢語和日語以及其他更遠地方的語言有著不一樣的字母。

[1] 這是20世紀50年代的記載，現(xiàn)在大概達到60億人——譯者注。
[2] 英文中種族race一詞正好有比賽的意思——譯者注。
[3] 這是20世紀50年代的記載，現(xiàn)在大概有200多個國家和地區(qū)——譯者注。