2018-04-19 C-E

I am going to drill myself to employ English grammatical structures, rather than mere words, to express various ideas. The method is quite simple: (i) select a short passage from some Chinese news media and (ii) translate it into English. In this training, only grammatical structures (tense, time, modal verbs, etc.) matter and therefore other elements will be ignored temporarily. The purpose of this drill is to let myself fully understand not only the accurate semantic function of a certain grammatical pattern but the difference between similar patterns or between the ones with different senses but similar structures.

Chinese passage

2016年冬天，毕啸天跟女朋友去饭馆吃饭，当时在店里等位的人很多，老板就安排他到大门口去等位。门开着，毕啸天就穿了两件衣服，风呼呼往里刮，冷得他瑟瑟发抖。他想，不对呀，我一个学过热学的人怎么能挨冻呢？

毕啸天开始思考：怎样科学地保暖。平时穿衣服，人们一般先穿秋衣秋裤（编注：即棉毛衫棉毛裤），再穿毛衣毛裤，接着在外边套一件风衣、大衣等等，“大家有没有想过这个顺序究竟科学吗？”

他先思考：如果我给你一件秋衣和一件外衣，哪一件的保暖效果更好？我们用一件秋衣和一件风衣分别包裹住一个初始温度为54度的热水袋。5分钟之后，观察这件衣服的外表温度上升到了多少。 最终得出，风衣的保暖效果是远好于秋衣的。 

(selected from an article in The Paper)

Special Translation

One day in the winter of 2016, Bi and his GF decided to dine out. Since the restuarant was fully booked when they arrived, the waitor ushered them to a corner near … With only two pieces of clothes Bi shivered against the freezing wind blowing through … “How come,” wondered Bi, “I felt freezed when I know dynamics well?”

Then he began to … In winter people normally put on long johns first and then sweaters and then their coats or jackets. Have they ever thought about the right order in which …?

The first question came to his mind was … Using a piece of long johns and a coat respectively to wrap a hot water bag with a temperature of 54 degrees. Five minutes later gauge how much each of the clothes’ temperatures increases and compare …