2008 考研英语长难句

1. He points out that he always expected much difficulty in expressing himself clearly and concisely, but he believes that this very difficulty may have had the compensating advantage of forcing him to think long and intently about every sentence, and thus enabling him to detect errors in reasoning and in his own observations.

【分析】并列复合句。but连接两个并列的分句。第一个分句是一个色含that引导的宾语从句的复合句。第二个分句的结构较复杂,其主句主干为he believes that…,that引导宾语从句，该从句的主干为very difficulty may have had the compensating advantage。其中 this very difficulty 指代上文中的 much difficulty in …concisely翻译时可将具体含义译出；此外compensating advantage后还有一个较长的后置定语of forcing… sen?tence,翻译时可采用分译法，单独翻译成句；thus enabling…可视作结果状语，译作“从而使他…”

【点拨】l、very作形容词，意为“正是…，恰好…”，强调正在谈论的某个特别的人或物，在此不能译作“非常”。 2、compensating advantage是一个难点，需要联系语境去理解，意为“弥补性的优势”，或简单译作“弥补了这一点”。 3、reasoning意为“推理”，不可译作“原因”。

【译文】他指出自己总不能简单明了地表达思想。但是，他认为，或许正是这种困难补偿了他的缺点，有利于迫使他长时间专注地思考每句话从而让他发现自己在推理和观察中的错误。 .

2、He asserted, also, that his power to follow a long and purely abstract train of thought was very limited, for which reason he felt certain that he never could have succeeded with mathematics.

【分析】多重复合句。句子主干为He asserted…that… ;其中that引导的宾语从句的主干是his power was limited。不定式结构to…thought作power的后置定语,翻译时可采用前置法,放在被修饰的名词之前。for which reason引导非限定性定语从句，for which reason 在这个从句中作状语，可译作“因此，所以”。定语从句中又包含一个that引导的宾语从句，可顺译。

【点拨】1、assert意为“断言，宣称”。 2、power这里意 为“（做某亊的）能力”。3、follow意为“理解”不能译作“跟随、听从”。4、purely应译作“完全地、纯粹地”，而不是“纯洁地”。5、a train of sth意为“ 一系列相关的事情”，a train of thought可理解为“一系列的观点、思想”。

【译文】他还宣称，自己在深入理解冗长且完全抽象的 观点方面的能力很有限,所以他认定自己在数学方面不会有成就。