读原版《小岛经济学》学英语 3

今天我们接着学《小岛经济学》第一章 第三部分：

前面我们讲过，小岛上资源贫瘠，只有一种食物：鱼。岛民们每天徒手捕鱼，很辛苦。

原文：Although our island dwellers lived in a primitive society, it
didn’t mean that they were stupid or lacked ambition. Like all humans, Able, Baker, and Charlie wanted to improve their living standards. But in order to do this, they had to be able to catch more than one fish a piece per day, which was the minimum they needed to survive. Unfortunately, given the limitations of their bare hands and the agility of fish, the three were stuck at subsistence level.

这一段中 agility 是不是看着比较眼熟，如果你听过敏捷(agile)模式的话？对的，agility 在这里是指鱼的敏捷了。

The three were stuck at subsistence level.

stuck在词源字典的解释是：unable to go any farther；换句话说就是被困住了，卡住了。有时候我们会遇到一些挫折，你可能会说：I've never been stuck in such a slump before, my life seems pointless.，但是不能这么消沉哦，Cheer up . Life is not as meaningless as you think. 振作起来。人生不是你想的那样没有意义。

Subsistence 词源意为 existence, independence，英文中指 act or process of support for physical life，通常指辛苦工作为了填饱肚子，勉强维持生计的意思。

One night, looking up into the star-studded sky, Able began
pondering the meaning of his life…. “Is this all there is? There
must be more to life than this.”

人总是不知足的，何况脑子还很聪明，Able 从他的名字就可以看出，他是个有能力的人呢，于是一天晚上，他就开始琢磨生命的意义了，他不甘心每天这么辛苦勉强度日。我们也学一下Able，如果有一天 stuck 了，也跟自己说：There must be more to life than this."

看到 star-studded sky 一词了吗？Twinkle twinkle little star....那无数的little star 汇集在一起，就是这个繁星点点了。除了天空上的星星，star 还有啥意思？对阿，明星，大腕。那star-studded我们就可以说是明星荟萃的，大腕云集的。

You see, Able wanted to do something besides fishing by hand.
He’d love to make some better, more fashion-forward palm-leaf
clothing, he wanted a place to shelter himself from monsoons,
and ultimately, of course, he wanted to direct feature films. But
with his daily toil so devoted to fishing, how could these dreams
ever come true?

那Able想到什么了？他厌倦了捕鱼的生活了，他也想穿好点，住好点，还想导电影呢。但是每天辛苦捕鱼，这些梦想咋能实现？

这段比较简单，shelter from 和 devoted to，大家可以自己造句用一下。

His mental wheels started turning… and suddenly an idea for a fish
catcher was born… a device that could vastly expand the reach of
the human hand while severely reducing a fish’s ability to escape
after the initial grab. With such a contraption, perhaps more fish
could be caught in less time! With his newfound time, perhaps he could start to make better clothes, build a shelter, and put the
finishing touches on his screenplay.

His mental wheels started turning...他的大脑快速转动起来，mental wheels 借用一张网上图片（如侵则删）

这段话理解下大概意思即可，没有特别的词汇。Able 在想怎么实现他的梦想，他想到用一个捕鱼设备来取代手，提高抓鱼成功率。

总结

今天主要学了：

star-studded

agility

be stuck

subsistence

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