实战口语情景对话 第832期:Winning 赢得比赛

Todd: Okay Monica, we're going to debate winning and sports, especially for young people. So do you think that winning should be stressed with sports, with, let's say high school athletes?
托德：莫妮卡，我们要来讨论一下与年轻人赢得比赛有关的事情。你认为高中运动员应该承受赢得比赛的压力吗？

Monica: Well, it depends on the situation and what they're training for, but generally I think that winning is overemphasized in sport. I think that participation is more important. Yeah.
莫妮卡：这要取决于实际情况和他们训练的目的，不过一般来说，我认为胜利在体育比赛中被过分强调了。我认为参与更重要。

Todd: Why would you say that?
托德：你为什么这么认为？

Monica: Well, I think if you concentrate too much on winning, then the problem is, if you don't win, you don't enjoy the sport, so the emphasis is shifted from enjoyment to basically results, so I think it can be quite damaging.
莫妮卡：我认为，如果你太注重获胜，那就会出现问题，如果你没有获胜，你就不会享受这项运动，那重点就从享受转移到了结果，我认为这种情况极具破坏性。

Todd: Right. I kind of agree with what you're saying. And actually, I played high school sports, and I was never very good. And I always wish I participated more than I did, but I actually think that the focus on winning in some ways is quite important, and that it does serve a good purpose to have a focus on winning rather than on participation. I think the main reason is because when you focus on winning, that drives everybody to be better. So if you want to win, if you want to be on the team, etc., you have to force yourself to be better, and it's the carrot on the end of the stick. And it makes people train harder, work harder, it sets a goal for them, and it kind of prepares them for life that sometimes you fail, and sometimes you don't get what you want. And so that's why sports and the whole focus on winning is good because it's exactly how life is in the real world.
托德：好。我基本上同意你的观点。实际上，我高中时参加了体育运动，不过我的成绩一直不太好。我一直希望我能多参与一些，可是我认为从某种程度上来说，注重获胜非常重要，相比于参与度，更注重成绩会实现更好的目标。我认为主要原因是，注重获胜会使所有人做得更好。如果你想赢，你想成为队伍的一员，那你就要使自己变得更优秀，就像棍子末端的胡萝卜。这会让人更努力训练、更努力练习，设定目标，用一生去准备，虽然有时会失败，有时得不到自己想要的。这就是体育运动注重获胜的好处，因为这就是真实世界的生活。

Monica: I would tend to argue the other way and say that actually sport doesn't reflect life in terms of winning and losing. I mean, let's take a work situation. It's not about winning or losing, it's about cooperating with people that you work with, and so, if you have had an upbringing where you've been in a sports team that has been overly competitive, you could transfer that competitiveness into a workplace and it can be counterproductive because it may mean that you... you're just not very good at being a team player in a work environment.
莫妮卡：我的看法与你相反，体育运动上的胜和负不能反映生活。以工作情况来举例。工作情况就与输赢无关，而是要和同事合作，如果你在运动队中培养出了竞争力过强的习惯，那你可能会把这种竞争性带入工作环境，这样一来就有可能事与愿违，因为这可能说明你不太擅长在工作环境中融入团队。

Todd: That's actually a really good point. But you can also argue that actually, you know, even a work environment is like sport in that you have teamwork, and you have to work together, and if you don't work together in a very productive way, maybe you'll be out of a job, or your company won't be productive, so you need to have that instinct to continually drive to be better; to be better than other people. And it sounds really brutal, but I think that's just how business works.
托德：这是一个非常好的观点。不过也可以说，工作环境和体育运动是类似的，你要进行团队合作，要和他人合作，如果你不用富有成效的方式工作，那你可能会失业，或者你所在的公司工作效率不高，你需要那种不断上进的本能，成为更优秀的人；成为比其他人更优秀的人。这听起来很残忍，但是我认为这就是商业的运作模式。

Monica: Well you're talking about work being business, but I mean, I'm a teacher, and... it brings me to quite an interesting discussion that's taking place now in teaching, which is two different, kind of political views really, in terms of teachers because people want high standards in terms of their teachers. And one idea is to rate teachers in comparison to other teachers, and basically give the top teachers incentives so that they get paid more than teachers who aren't as good as them. But the counter-argument to that is that it creates a really hostile environment in the workplace, and in a school where you really need teachers to work together, I'm not sure that that's the best way to go.
莫妮卡：你说的是业务工作，而我是一名老师，这使我想到了教学中一个非常有意思的讨论，现在有两种针对老师的不同政治观点，人们希望老师具备高标准。其中一个观点是，对老师进行比较和评价，奖励优秀教师，这样这些老师的工资就会比能力不如他们的老师高。而反方观点认为，这种做法在工作环境中营造了一种敌对环境，在需要老师团结合作的学校里，我不确定这是否是最好的方法。

Todd: Yeah, well that's another debate for another day.
托德：对，我们可以再找一天讨论这个问题。

Monica: Is that a cop out or what?
莫妮卡：这是逃避还是什么？