外刊精读笔记第四期.docx

淡化水比天然水用处更多元化 （经济学人（2019.02.28）） Paragraph 1 The Sorek desalination plant, about 15km south of Tel Aviv, is eerily unpopulated. This is the largest such plant in the world, producing as much as 230m cubic metres of desalinated water a year—about one-fifth of Israel’s domestic water supply. Yet only 20 staff are needed at any time to operate it. Seawater is piped in from over a kilometre out at sea. It is given a preliminary clean in a series of large tanks where it is filtered slowly through sandbeds before being pumped through “reverse osmosis” membranes. 生词 Desalination n. 脱盐作用；减少盐分----海水淡化 Eerily adv. 怪诞地；奇异地；可怕地 Unpopulated adj. 无人居住的 Preliminary adj. 初步的；开始的；预备的;n. 准备；预赛；初步措施 Filter n.过滤器；v.过滤；渗透 Sandbed 砂床；砂层 Osmosis n. [物] 渗透；[物] 渗透性；渗透作用 Membranes n. 细胞膜（membrane的复数）；薄膜；膜皮 词组 desalination plant海水淡化厂 cubic metres 立方米 难句 It is given a preliminary clean in a series of large tanks where it is filtered slowly through sandbeds before being pumped through “reverse osmosis” membranes. 这一句的难点在于一些专业名词的翻译，但是生词可以通过查字典学习，我们主要学习一个地方的翻译：before的翻译。初学翻译的同学会把这里处理为“在通过‘反渗透’膜之前，先用一系列大罐进行初步清洁”，这么翻语义上没问题，但是结合前文，这一表达显得比较“欧化”，中文习惯上按照先后的流程来叙述，也就是“先...然后”。所以before这里我们在很多情况下处理为“随后...”。 参考译文 索雷科（SOREK）海水淡化工厂在以色列特拉维夫市以南约15公里处，然而整个厂里却看不到一个人，令人感到奇怪。该厂是目前全球最大的海水淡化厂，每年淡化水产量高达2.3亿立方米——约占以色列国内供水量的五分之一。然而，这样一个超级工厂却只有20名员工运营。海水首先从一公里外的海上用管道输送到工厂，然后用多个大型蓄水罐进行初步清洁——流经沙床仔细过滤，最后通过“反渗透”膜技术实现淡化。 Paragraph 2 These are based on a design first patented in the early 1960s by Sidney Loeb, an American scientist who moved to Israel and saw his invention eventually oust competing methods and become the dominant desalination technology not just in his new homeland, but around the world, accounting for 69% of the output of desalinated water. They certainly seem effective. The water is absolutely tasteless. Indeed, what it lacks—calcium and magnesium, for example—causes more worries than pollutants. 生词 Patent vt. 授予专利；取得…的专利权；adj. 专利的；新奇的；显然的；n. 专利权；执照；专利品 Oust vt. 驱逐；剥夺；取代 Dominant adj.占优势的；支配的，统治的 Ca