16. Yet the research revealed that the U.S. factories of Honda, Nissan, and Toyota achieved about 95 percent of the productivity of their Japanese counterparts—a result of the training that U.S. workers received on the job.
【分析】复合句。句子主干是 the research revealed that...。that 引导宾语从句,其中名词短语 a result of the training 补充说明 the U.S. factories...Japanese counterparts,training 由 that 引导的定语从句修饰。
【译文】然而,研究表明,由田,尼桑和丰田在美国工厂的生产率达到了日本同行的95%——这归功于美国工人进行的在岗培训。
【点拨】counterpart 指“与双方地位作用相当的人(或物),对应物”。
17. More, recently, while examining housing construction, the researchers discovered that illiterate, non-English-speaking Mexican workers in Houston, Texas, consistently met best-practice labor productivity standards despite the complexity of the building industry's work.
【分析】复合句。句子主干为 the researchers discovered that...,其中 that 引导的从句作宾语。宾语从句中 despite 引出的介词短语作让步状语。句首的“while + 分词短语”结构是省略主语和系动词的状语从句 while the researchers were examining...。
【译文】最近,研究者在调查房屋建筑业时发现,尽管建筑行业的工作非常复杂,但是德克萨斯州休斯顿市的那些不识字、不会说英语的墨西哥工人却总能达到劳动生产率的最高标准。
【点拨】1) illiterate 意为“文盲的”,是 literate“有读写能力的,识字的”的反义词。2)despite 用作介词,意思是“不管,尽管”,其后跟名词(短语)。
【临摹】尽管她事业有成,但和丈夫相比总觉逊色。