几年前知乎上有个问题很火：钱锺书的英语到底什么水平？
大多数回答是举例说明钱锺书先生英文好，但也有一些人说他英文不行。
钱先生 1933 年毕业于清华大学外文系，1935 年留学牛津大学。在那个年代能出国读书，用英文发表学术文章，英文水平绝对是大师级。最近读了本外研社出版的《钱锺书英文文集》(A Collection of Qian Zhongshu’s English Essays)，近距离观摩了先生的英文。
全书 400 多页，集结钱锺书先生发表过的英文文章，多是文学批评、论文，读起来比较吃力。这本书我读的不细，因为对内容兴趣不大，更感兴趣的是赏析先生的英文。写这篇笔记，一起跟他学点英语。
Qian Zhongshu had fondly wished to write in English a book on European literature, because he was equally adept at writing in English or in Chinese through early training, and foreign literature was his proper field of study.
看来钱先生对自己的英文和专业能力很自信。实力在那放着，很难不自信。他的文风偏学术派，句子偏长但结构很清楚。比如：
The purpose of this paper, however, is not to pass any serious criticism upon Pragmatism, which indeed is superfluous, but to point out the resemblance which has struck upon me between this popular philosophy and a sort of mentality satirised in a popular novel.
他善旁征博引，几乎每篇都几处外文引言。即使是给友人写信（A Letter to Donald Stuart），里面也有德语和法语：
– Still, one’s lot is with one’s own people; I don’t mind roughing it a bit. The revolution of the Fortune’s wheel might bring us up, and, as Goethe was fond of saying, abwarten Sie.
– You seem to have a goût trop facilement dégoûté. Your mind seems to slough its idea as frequently as the snakes their skins.
– But, being of a mercurial temper, he regards woman but as a part of his joie de vivre; in fact, woman figures in his poetry mostly as his boon companion.
To all appearances, discovery is a task far more onerous and arduous than invention.
– The style of Mr. Frank Baker’s book on the status and significance of mythology is at once so allusive and elusive that one can hardly pack up the matter or pin down the meaning any more than bind Leviathan with a chord or pin Proteus to his proper self.
– As a liberator of Chinese thoguht, Yen fu (严复) is now where the snows of yesteryear are. Not only he, but his maters too, Spencer and Huxley in their capacity as philosophers, have been consigned to the limbo of oblivion.
the snows of yesteryear 出自一句法语译过来的英文谚语 Where are the snows of yesteryear? 这里和后面的 the limbo of oblivion 要表达的意思相近。
– Su’s playfulness becomes almost elephantine in the translation, and his philosophisings read so pontifical in English. I mention these not to question Mr. Le Gros Clark’s ability as a translator, but simply to put a spoke upon the wheel of Mr. Werner’s enthusiasm.
put a spoke upon the wheel 是个英式习语，表示「破坏某人的计划」。
上面这些加粗的词，有的不认识很正常。不过既然遇到了，自己可以花几分钟动手查一遍。
我还注意到了几处细节用词，先自己读句子看能不能完全读懂。
– I detect only three typographical errors. For the first word “the” of the first sentence of the Preface, read “this”.
这里的 read 表示「将…改为」，简单又好用。注意它的用法：一般是 For XX, read YY。
– She is very naughty and mutinous and self-willed, altogether an ugly customer to deal with.
这里的 an ugly customer 不是「一个丑陋的客户」。这句话是在写刚会走路的女儿，customer 在此表示「家伙」，an ugly customer 可以理解为「难缠的小家伙」，和前面的 naughty/mutinous/self-willed 呼应。
– But you have relied a bit too heavily on Rihanna’s theory which has been exploded by John Dewey in Logic: the Theory of Inquiry.
explode 在这里不是「爆炸」，而是「推翻」「驳倒」。
以上是我读《钱锺书英文文集》时摘抄的几段，从中总结了一些语言点。如有兴趣，自己找来读读。如果你对文学感兴趣，其中几篇你可能也会喜欢，比如这篇对《老残游记》中「老残」的讨论就很有趣：
读钱锺书先生的英文，不禁想他是如何把外语学得这么好？羡叹之余，我总结了几点感悟：
不只是查这个词什么意思，还要知道它的使用场景、语法特点和语域（比如上面提到的 read/explode/customer）。只有通过大量阅读和分析体会，我们才能提升文字审美，在不同场景中选择恰当地表达方式；
在平时的英文输出中，切忌「瞎写/说」。养成多读、多查的习惯，先模仿再创造。我自己平时遇到不确定的地方，会查词典、利用搜索引擎参考母语人士的表达方式，有时也会用 Ludwig 这样的工具自检：
除了考试成绩，我们可以从「我能用英语做什么」的角度衡量。比如拿我来说，我的英文好吗？跟很多人比，也就那么回事。但是我觉得自己英文好——我能用英文获取信息、拓展兴趣、交朋识友，完全满足了我的需求。对自己的肯定非常重要。
换个方式问，你愿意付出同样的努力吗？并不一定。当我们羡慕别人的成绩时，要看到背后的「痛苦」和努力。
大师之所以成了大师，是因为他们专注地做成了一件件事，为某件事付出了不亚于任何人的努力。天赋和环境很重要，但没有努力一切先天优势也发挥不了什么作用。我们要相信勤能补拙。
另外，他人的优秀并不是彰显我们的「弱鸡」。大多数人，一辈子到头来可能也没什么特别的成就。但在生命的不同阶段，我们努力地活着，努力攀上一座座小峰，也很厉害
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