经济学人：当下出国留学还香吗？

The West’s allure西方的魅力

China’s globetrotting students are getting back on the road来自中国的留学生又开始上路了

But Western universities worry that their numbers may dwindle但是西方大学担心他们的人数会减少

allure：诱惑力;魅力;吸引力。相当于attraction, fascination, charm等等。看个外刊例句：The allure of “BeiShangGuangShen”, as the rich cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen are known, is fading. “北上广深”(即北京、上海、广州和深圳等富裕城市)的魅力正在逐渐消退。这篇文章的结尾最后一句再次跟标题呼应，用到了allure：For many of them, China’s allure ultimately trumps the West’s.对于他们来说，西方大学最终完败于中国大学的魅力。

 

 globetrot动词，表示环球旅行；周游世界；If someone spends their time globe-trotting, they spend a lot of time travelling to different parts of the world. 比如：The son of a diplomat, he has spent much of his life globe-trotting.作为一名外交官的儿子，他一生有大量的时间在周游世界。原文用这个词其实也是突出中国的强大，留学生遍布全球各个国家，原文中也引用了多个国家的数据。

dwindle表示减少，缩小。看个例句：Exports are dwindling and the trade deficit is swelling.出口在缩减，贸易赤字在增长。外刊例句：When dropouts are included, the expected financial return to starting a degree for the weakest students dwindles to almost nothing. 如果把退学者也计算在内，能力最弱的学生攻读一个学位的预期财务回报几乎趋近于零。关于减少，最常见的是decrease，外刊同义词还有：dip, go down, fall, depress, shrink, contract, drop, slip, slide, sag等等，一会儿后文我们还会见到类似的词。

02

Many thousands of Chinese students who had not yet enrolled at universities abroad when the pandemic began have found their plans upended by covid-related travel restrictions. Universities in the West have lived in fear that young Chinese, whose tuition fees are a lucrative source of revenue, would give up the dream of studying aboard.

参考译文：疫情开始时，数千名还未入学的留学生的计划被与之相关的旅行限制彻底打乱。西方大学一直担心中国年轻人会因此放弃出国留学，因为他们的学费是学校收入的丰厚来源。

upend我们上次在Booktok那篇见过，指将…倒立，颠倒，抽象来说也就是指对某人某事引起颠覆性影响，彻底改变的意思。非常高频，比如教科文组织总干事奥德蕾·阿祖莱在体育促进发展与和平国际日致辞中讲到：The world of sport is going through an unprecedented experience on account of the coronavirus pandemic, which has upended our daily lives. 再看个TE例句：Indeed, some suspect the government is playing down the scope of the pandemic to avoid upending the Olympics, which are supposed to start in July.事实上，一些人怀疑政府在有意淡化疫情的影响范围，以避免影响原定于7月开幕的奥运会的正常举办。我们可以用这个词和disrupt/reshape等词替换。

source表示来源；根源。比如旅游客源国就可以说the source of visitors/tourists。之前TE一篇写留学的文章也用过它：China has been a source of high-paying foreign students for Western universities 中国一直是给西方大学带去高昂学费的留学生来源国。the source of还可以表示(困难的)根源，原因；The source of a difficulty is its cause. 例句：This gave me a clue as to the source of the problem.这件事给我提供了找出问题根源的线索。

[写作推荐] 在写作中，我们可以用它来替换动词cause, lead to, result in 等：A lead to B也就是A is the source of B. 之前高考那篇，我们还讲过一个句型：The sources of A stem from B, A是源自于B，A是结果，B是原因。复习一下当时的例句：It was concluded that sources of dishonesty stemmed from situations in which people could lose their money, reputation or career. 研究得出，科研不端的根源在于人们可能面临着失去金钱、名誉或事业。

There are good reasons for Western universities to be anxious. In 2019 around 700,000 Chinese headed abroad to study, more than three times the number a decade earlier. Most joined universities in English-speaking countries. Chinese students have had several reasons to reconsider their destinations. Foreign travel is difficult during a pandemic, and covid is still rife in Western countries. China has grown more unpopular in recent years, and some Chinese people in the West have suffered racist abuse. Anti-Western sentiment has also been rising in China, sometimes stoked by ruling-party propaganda. Many Chinese chafe at Westerners who blame China for its initial cover-up of covid, or who fail to give it credit for its subsequent success in curbing the virus.

参考译文：西方大学有充分的理由感到焦虑。2019年，约有70万中国人出国留学，是十年前的三倍多。大多数人都去了英语国家的大学。中国学生有几个理由重新考虑他们的目的地。在疫情期间，出国旅行很困难，而新冠肺炎在西方国家仍很普遍。近年来，中国人变得越来越不受欢迎，一些在外的中国人遭受了种族歧视。中国的反西方情绪也在不断上升。西方人指责中国最初掩盖新冠肺炎疫情，后来又不承认中国防疫工作做得好，中国人震怒。

第一句中的good reason表示有说服力的理由，合理的理由，我们还可以用cogent/sound，是一样的。这里的句型就可以直接记下来，用在段首，接下来就可以开始讲不同的原因：There are good/sound/cogent reasons for X.

rife通常指坏事普遍的，盛行的，常见的，充斥的；If you say that something, usually something bad, is rife in a place or that the place is rife with it, you mean that it is very common. 比如Violent crime is rife in our inner cities.暴力犯罪在我们的旧城区非常猖獗。或者用be rife with：The crowded factories are rife with disease.拥挤的工厂疾病流行。因为是形容不好的东西，“谣言四起”也可以用它，之前阿富汗那篇有这么个句子：With rumors rife and reliable information hard to come by, the streets were filled with scenes of panic and desperation. 谣言四起，可靠消息难以获得，街道上充斥着恐慌和绝望的场景。

stoke表示往炉子里面添煤/柴火。所以它还有煽起;鼓动;激起的意思: If you stoke something such as a feeling, you cause it to be felt more strongly. 比如：These demands are helping to stoke fears of civil war.这些要求助长了人们对内战的恐惧。外刊例句：Calibra, whose integration into Messenger and WhatsApp will initially make it the dominant wallet, is bound to stoke competition concerns. Calibra与Messenger和WhatsApp的整合，最初将使其成为占据主导地位的支付工具，这必然会引发竞争担忧。我们平时说某件事情引起公愤，就是：sth stokes public anger。

chafe at (因…)生气，恼怒；If you chafe at something such as a restriction, you feel annoyed about it. 例句：He was chafing under the company’s new ownership.他在新老板的手下工作得很不开心。反正就是浓浓的不满情绪，再看个外刊例句：Its oil companies, led by Rosneft, have chafed at market share lost to American frackers. 以俄罗斯石油公司（Rosneft，以下简称俄石油）为首的俄石油企业对市场份额流失给了美国页岩油公司感到恼火。

[写作观点] 我们可以从本段中提取几个写作观点：中国留学生数量可能下降的原因/当下留学的种种考虑。

(1) 疫情之下出国是很麻烦的。Foreign travel is difficult during the pandemic.

(2) 目前其他国家仍然备受新冠肆虐，出国危险。Covid is still rife in Western countries. (3) 国外歧视在疫情之后更加严重。Some Chinese people in the West have suffered racist abuse.

(4) 国内对国外的不满，不愿意去了。Anti-Western sentiment has also been rising in China. Many Chinese chafe at Westerners who blame China for its initial cover-up of covid, or who fail to give it credit for its subsequent success in curbing the virus.

In some countries, Chinese demand for tertiary education may yet falter. America is likely to remain the single most-popular destination for several more years. It is still widely regarded in China as having the largest number of great universities. But some Chinese have been put off studying in America by the xenophobic rhetoric of American officials during Donald Trump’s presidency, which fuelled perceptions of Chinese as potential spies. Such concerns may have abated a bit since Joe Biden took over. But surveys of Chinese considering study in America have shown that they view America’s handling of covid as the worst in the English-speaking world. Chinese students show growing interest in studying in Asia, says Simon Emmett of IDP, a multinational agency that helps universities recruit them. Asian countries are deemed to have a better record with covid.

参考译文：在一些国家，中国对高等教育的需求可能还会下降。在未来几年里，美国可能仍然是最受欢迎的留学胜地，主要是因为它坐拥最多数量的世界一流大学。但在川普担任总统期间，美国官员的排外言论让一些中国人推迟了赴美留学，而这更让他们觉得中国人是潜在间谍。拜登上台以来，这种担忧可能有所减轻。但调查显示，考虑赴美的留学生认为美国对新冠肺炎的处理是所有英语国家中最糟糕的。相反，越来越多的人开始考虑在亚洲国家留学，IDP(一家跨国中介)的Simon Emmett表示。亚洲国家的防疫措施明显做得更好。

tertiary education：第三级教育，也就是高等教育; 相当于higher education。与此相对的是primary education初等教育；secondary education中等教育。

falter动词，表示衰退;停步不前；If something falters, it loses power or strength in an uneven way, or no longer makes much progress. 看个例句：When growth is expected to be slow, private consumption and investment falter. 当增长预计会放缓时，私人消费和投资就会停滞不前。和标题中的dwindle一样，也可以从一定程度上表示减少，减退的意思，再看个TE例句：Tying in Chinese custom gives Russia a large market unmoved by calls for sanctions at a time when European demand is faltering. 在去年12月投入使用。在欧洲需求减退之际，绑定中国给俄罗斯提供了一个庞大的、不会因制裁呼吁而动摇的市场。

后面出现的abate也可以放在一起看，他们都是外刊高频词。abate表示减弱；减轻；减退；If something bad or undesirable abates, it becomes much less strong or severe. 比如：The fighting shows no sign of abating. 这场争夺丝毫没有减弱的迹象。再看个经济学人例句：Today, the time horizon is inverted: it is unclear what will happen in the next few weeks, but fairly certain that within six months the threat will have abated. 这一次，时间表却倒转了：未来几周情况会如何还不得而知，却可以相当肯定六个月内威胁将减轻。

put off相当于delay，表示推迟，拖延。例句：The Association has put the event off until October.协会已把这次活动推迟至10月。如果说是put sb off，那就表示使..反感，不感兴趣了。这个意思口语中很常见，看个例句：His personal habits put them off.他们很讨厌他的一些个人习惯。形容词off-putting也就是让人讨厌，反感的意思了。

词缀-phobic表示恐惧…的；仇恨…的。xenophobic 也就是仇外的。再比如claustrophobic有幽闭恐惧的；technophobic惧怕科技的。看个例句：The French are proud and highly xenophobic when it comes to cooking.谈到烹饪，法国人会颇为得意并且极端排斥外国菜。

fuel大家应该很熟悉了，此刻你有没有想到前面的stoke呢？本意燃料，所以动词也表示刺激，火上浇油，推波助澜的意思。Nicer apartment blocks, hotels and shops have sprung up, fuelled by growing disposable incomes. 由于可支配收入的增加，更漂亮的公寓楼、酒店和商店如雨后春笋般涌现。这个词还可以直接用名词形式表示相同的意思，直接看一个TE例句：As online shopping has soared, even before covid-19 added extra fuel, Chinese internet firms have dreamed up new ways to engage consumers. 在没有疫情推波助澜之前，线上购物就已经迅速发展，期间中国的互联网公司构想出了吸引消费者的新方法。

There are other, long-term, challenges. Amid economic headwinds, fewer families will have the resources to splash out on foreign tuition. Meanwhile, China’s own universities are improving. About 47m people are enrolled in tertiary education there, up from around 6m in 1998. Before the pandemic an expert at the British Council, a state-funded cultural organisation, estimated that the number of Chinese seeking a foreign degree could start falling in 2023.

参考译文：长期来看，还有其他的挑战。在经济逆风中，能够担负起留学费用的家庭只会越来越少。与此同时，中国自己的大学也在进步。大约有4700万人在中国接受高等教育，而1998年时只有600万人。疫情爆发前，英国政府资助的文化组织英国文化协会(British Council)的一位专家估计，到2023年，出国留学生的数量可能会开始下降。

headwind 对着头吹的也就是逆风了，有逆风一般寓意着逆境，所以在外刊中一般就可以理解为困难。看个TE例句：Faced with domestic headwinds, David Dai of Bernstein, an equity-research firm, says Tencent will quintuple gaming revenue from overseas from a pittance last year to about $3.5bn in 2021. 股票研究公司伯恩斯坦(Bernstein)的戴大卫(David Dai)表示，面对国内的不利因素，到2021年，腾讯的海外游戏营收将是去年的五倍，从微薄的水平升至35亿美元左右。

与之相反的是tailwind，表示顺风，经常用来形容顺境，助力的事物，相当于我们中文的借“东风”。上次写苹果那篇有用到它，回顾一下原句：Many of the global tailwinds that have lifted Apple to such dizzying heights are now reversing. 许多把苹果送上了如此令人眩晕的高度的全球东风如今正在转向。

[写作观点] 关于留学，这里实际上还能提一个经济方面的考虑出来 – 学费贵：Amid economic headwinds, fewer families will have the resources to splash out on foreign tuition.

splash out on sth: 花大笔钱（买奢侈品） If you splash out on something, especially on a luxury In a recession people are reluctant to splash out on consumer goods like tvs, dishwashers, etc. 上次婚姻那篇讲钻戒的意义时，就用到了这个词，我们也回顾一下原句：And it is more than a gift: it is a status symbol, demonstrating that even as a man approaches the expenses of married life, he can still splash out on a bauble. 而且它不仅仅是一份礼物，还是一种身份的象征，表明即便一个男人要开始养家糊口了，他仍然会为一件小玩意一掷千金。