新概念英语美音版第四册:Lesson 5 Youth

Lesson 5 Youth
第5课 青年
First listen and then answer the following question:
听录音，然后回答以下问题。
How does the writer like to treat young people?
笔者喜欢怎样对待年轻人？
People are always talking about 'the problem of youth'.
人们总是在谈论“青年问题”。
If there is one -- which I take leave to doubt
如果这个问题存在的话 -- 请允许我对此持怀疑态度
-- then it is older people who create it, not the young themselves.
那么，这个问题是由老年人而不是青年人造成的。
Let us get down to fundamentals and agree that the young are after all human beings
让我们来认真研究一些基本事实：
-- people just like their elders.
承认青年人和他们的长辈一样也是人。
There is only one difference between an old man and a young one:
老年人和青年人只有一个区别：
the young man has a glorious future before him
青年人有光辉灿烂的前景，
and the old one has a splendid future behind him: and maybe that is where the rub is.
而老年人的辉煌已成为过去。 问题的症结恐怕就在这里。
When I was a teenager, I felt that I was just young and uncertain --
我十几岁时，总感到自己年轻，有些事拿不准 --
that I was a new boy in a huge school,
我是一所大学里的一名新生，
and I would have been very pleased to be regarded as something so interesting as a problem.
如果我当时真的被看成像一个问题那样有趣，我会感到很得意的。
For one thing, being a problem gives you a certain identity,
因为这至少使我得到了某种承认，
and that is one of the things the young are busily engaged in seeking.
这正是年轻人所热衷追求的。
I find young people exciting. They have an air of freedom,
我觉得年轻人令人振奋，无拘无束。
and they have not a dreary commitment to mean ambitions or love of comfort.
他们既不追逐卑鄙的名利，也不贪图生活的舒适。
They are not anxious social climbers, and they have no devotion to material things.
他们不热衷于向上爬，也不一味追求物质享受。
All this seems to me to link them with life and the origins of things.
在我看来，所有这些使他们与生命和万物之源联系在了一起。
It's as if they were in some sense cosmic beings in violent and lovely contrast with us suburban creatures.
从某种意义上讲，他们似乎是宇宙人，同我们这些凡夫俗子形成了强烈而鲜明的对照。
All that is in my mind when I meet a young person.
每逢我遇到年轻人，脑子里就想到这些年轻人
He may be conceited, ill-mannered, presumptuous or fatuous, but I do not turn for protection to dreary cliches about respect for elders --
也许狂妄自负，举止无理，傲慢放肆，愚昧无知，但我不会用应当尊重长者这一套陈词滥调来为我自己辨护，
as if mere age were a reason for respect.
似乎年长就是受人尊敬的理由。
I accept that we are equals, and I will argue with him, as an equal, if I think he is wrong.
我认为我和他们是平等的。如果我认为他们错了，我就以平等的身份和他们争个明白。