英语四级阅读提高(5)

Picasso and the poet Max Jacob, down but not out in Paris, shared a bed in turn. Jacob slept at night while Picasso worked, and Picasso slept by day when Jacob worked as a novelty-shop clerk. On arising in the morning, Jacob often would have to walk on a floor carpeted with drawings. Later, Jacob's footprints had to be removed by art experts.

Albert Einstein, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1921, was honored not for his famous theory of relativity published sixteen years earlier, but for his lesser-known work on the photoelectric effect.

参考译文：

毕加索和诗人雅科布在巴黎近郊轮流睡一张床。晚上雅科布睡觉，毕加索工作；白天毕加索睡觉，雅科布在一家玩具饰物商店当职员。雅科布早上起床时常常不得不走过铺满图画的房间。后来不得不请美术专家除掉雅科布留在一幅幅画上的脚印。

艾伯特•爱因斯坦于1921年被授予诺贝尔物理奖，但不是为了奖励他16年前发表的著名的相对论，而是为了不太为人所知的光电效应。

总结：

遇到问题最多的短语：down but not out in Paris 首先，这个可不是词组，关键在于down的解释，down有一个意思为：away from an important place, esp a large city离开重要的地方（尤指大城市），Paris 可是世界之都哦，此句意为：他们离开巴黎市中心但是未搬出巴黎。再看一个词novelty-shop，很多朋友把它解释为：新奇的商店，因为novelty有新奇、新颖之意，但它还有一个意思：（廉价的）小玩具、小饰品等，所以这个词是“玩具饰物店”的意思。第三个问题是：Later, Jacob's footprints had to be removed by art experts.可能翻出来自己也会觉得怪怪的吧，这句话要和前面那句先联系起来，Jacob often would have to walk on a floor carpeted with drawings.这里的carpet作动词解，用carpeted with drawings来形容floor,地板是铺满画纸的地板，这句话理解了，后面那句话就容易了，因为画纸上满是脚印，所以不得不请艺术专家来去除这些脚印，later意为“后来”，不是“不久”的意思哦。这篇故事虽然短小，但有不少玄机在里面吧（苹果窃笑一下。）后面那则故事没啥问题，大家都容易理解，但里面有两个专业术语可以注意一下：theory of relativity 和photoelectric effect。