VOA常速英语:Blind Linguist Sees Beauty in Teaching, Music, Languages

Silent night, holy night...
寂静之夜，神圣之夜...

It’s an iconic Christmas song ---"silent night" sang by a woman whose world is in darkness every day.
这是一首标志性的圣诞颂歌---“寂静之夜”。所唱之人是一位每天生活在黑暗之中的女性。

But being blind has served as a motivation for Carrie Hooper.
但失明却成为了Carrie Hooper前进的动力。

Well I started taking piano lessons when I was four years old and then when I was fifteen I started taking voice lessons.
我四岁时便开始上钢琴课，十五岁开始学声乐。

So I love music, it’s an important part of my life.
所以我热爱音乐，它是我生命中不可获缺的一部分。

Carrie is a language professor here at Elmira College in New York State.
Carrie是纽约州埃尔迈拉学院的一名语言学教授。

From very early on her life she faced tremendous challenges.
她从小便面临着重重挑战。

So when I was eight days old I had to have an operation to remove part of a lung and then I had to lie an incubator for three months and I got too much oxygen and this caused my blindness because it scarred my retinas.
我才八天大的时候，就得做手术，切除部分肺器官。然后，我便在育婴箱待了三个月。但是箱内氧气过多，导致我双眼失明。因为氧气过多损伤了我的视网膜。

There are accommodations for Carrie where she teaches, a special Braille typewriter she uses for work and for her poetry.
在Carrie教书的地方有很多居住设施供她使用。她用一个特殊的布莱叶盲文打字机工作和创作诗歌。

And I started writing poems in Albania after I had learned enough of the language.
我在欧洲的阿尔巴尼亚学了很多阿尔巴尼亚语后才开始写诗的。

Because I wanted to take on the challenge of expressing myself in a completely different language and in a way it gave me more confidence to write more poetry in English.
因为我想挑战用完全不一样的语言和方式来表达自己，这使我更有信心写英语诗歌。

"The first snow" The first snow is falling.
“初雪”。初雪纷纷。

The trees and streets are wrapped in a soft blanket of pure white.
山川树木，街边小巷，柔软延绵，银装素裹。

Carrie knows she’s been fortunate and afforded a lot of opportunities that many other blind people don’t have.
Carrie知道她一直都很幸运，享有许多盲人不曾拥有的机会。

But she doesn’t see her blindness is something that makes her any more special than people who are sighted.
但是她并不觉得自己的失明使其相较于有视力的人更加特殊。

You know we’re not more courageous or more brave or more inspirational.
您看，我们并非是更勇敢、更无畏或者更加鼓舞人心的人。

We’re just people trying to do our best to adapt to our situations.
我们只是一些尽力适应环境的人。

This is all a question of adaptation, it’s a question of survival.
这是一个关乎于适应的问题，关乎与生存的问题。

Round your virgin mother...
伴圣母左右.....

A better settle for survival made that much easier for carry.
良好的生活住所使生活更加容易。

One song and one poem at a time.
一次一首歌、一首诗。

Sleeping in heavenly peace,Sleeping in heavenly peace
沉睡在天堂般的宁静中，沉睡在天堂般的宁静中。

From VOA news Laura Condat, Elmira, New York.
纽约州埃尔迈拉，美国之音。 Laura Condat报道。