2003年高考英语北京卷 - 阅读理解E

At first Kate thought the Romanian girl could not speak and understand English. Nadia would not reply to anything Kate said. Kate was in charge of showing Nadia around on her first day at Buckminster Grade School. Kate could not figure out why the school had put Nadia in a class where she could not understand what the people were saying.
起初凯特认为娜迪亚这个罗马尼亚女孩不会说，也听不懂英语，不会回应凯特说的任何话。凯特负责在娜迪亚进入巴克明斯特小学的第一天带她四处参观。凯特不明白为什么学校把娜迪亚安排在一个她听不懂人们在说什么的班上。

“Why did they do this?” Kate wondered aloud. “I mean, you can't learn if you can't understand the teacher.”
“他们为什么这样做？”凯特非常纳闷，“我的意思是，如果你听不懂老师的话，你就无法学习。”

Nadia's voice was a whisper, “I understand English. I will learn.” Nadia's English was perfect.
娜迪亚低声说道：“我懂英语，我会学的。”娜迪亚的英语很好。

Kate was perplexed. She couldn't understand why Nadia did not like to speak. Then she realized that moving to a new country probably wasn't the easiest thing to do. There were hundreds of unfamiliar and unusual think to learn-all at the same time.
凯特很困惑，她不明白纳迪亚为什么不喜欢说话。然后她意识到搬到一个新的国家可能不是一件容易的事，有太多不熟悉的和不一样的想法需要学习，同时进行。

"There're a lot of new things to learn, huh?" said Kate.
“有很多新东西要学，是吗？”凯特说。

Nadia nodded quickly. In a quiet voice she replied, “Many things people say, I do not understand. I have been speaking English and Romanian all my life, but I do not know what some children are saying. For example, yesterday a boy asked if I could help him find the USB port on a thin black box he was carrying. Isn't a port a place for ships? It made no sense to me.”
娜迪亚迅速点点头，用平静的声音回答：“很多人说的话，我听不懂。我一直都在说英语和罗马尼亚语，但我不知道这些孩子在说什么。例如，昨天一个男孩问我能不能帮他找一下他正拿着的一个薄黑盒子上的USB端口（port）。port不是船只停靠的地方吗？对我来说不太理解。”

“Don't worry. ”said Kate. “You'll figure everything out in time. You see, that thin black box was a computer. A USB is a place where you can connect other machines to a computer. ”
“别担心。”凯特说，“你会及时弄清楚的。你看，那个薄薄的黑匣子是一台计算机，USB可以将其他机器连接到计算机上。”

Nadia and Kate were quiet after that. They took notes while the teacher gave a maths lesson . To Kate's surprise , Nadia put up her hand and offered to answer questions at the blackboard.
在那之后，娜迪亚和凯特安静了下来。老师上数学课时，他们做笔记。令凯特惊讶的是，娜迪亚举起手，主动回答黑板上的问题。

Nadia handled every question the teacher gave her. Some of the questions were really difficult, and no one understood what was going on except Nadia and the teacher. When the teacher-said that Nadia answered everything correctly, the whole class clapped their hands.
娜迪亚回答了老师给她的每一个问题，有些问题很难回答，没人知道如何回答，除了娜迪亚和老师。当老师说娜迪亚答对了所有问题时，全班同学都鼓起掌来。

Nadia was smiling when she sat back down next to Kate. “Some things,”she said in a normal voice, “are the same all over the world.”
娜迪亚在凯特旁边坐下时开心得笑了。“有些事情，”她用正常的声音说，“全世界都是一样的。”