答讀者來信詢問學英文的問題，一雞兩味，也轉貼在這裡給有興趣的讀者參考一下。
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XX學弟：
讀文學書，一定可以幫助你寫好英文，但是收效不是一朝一夕的，要持之以恆。
想快一點的是精讀短文，我會建議你看BBC網站的新聞，每則只是一千字左右。不要貪多，每日只琢磨一兩則你感興趣的，多讀幾次；有不明的字，先根據上文下來估量，再不明的就查字典，一個字都不要放過。還要觀摩作者的用詞遣字，和他怎樣鋪排交代資料的技巧。
文學書，要介紹的話，我以前讀的古典 Pride and Prejudice之類，是有點過時了，不妨就讀現在的Harry
Potter，不是追情節的快讀，而是慢慢讀。作者J.K.Rowling是讀Classics出身，識幾國語言，英文一定不差。一集就有幾百頁，有排你睇。
也可以看優秀的英漢對照書來合參，如林語堂譯的「浮生六記」；又如現代英譯的新約聖經，我喜歡Revised Standard Version。
你做學生，要寫論文交功課，我會建議你看看哲學家Bertrand Russell（他得過諾貝爾文學獎），看他怎樣說道理。先看他的 The Conquest of Happiness。
寫得好的英文，除了好看，還一定注重音節，鏗鏘可誦。你不要害羞，理解之後，大聲的讀出來，會幫你更能欣賞其中的妙處。
最好是選自己最熟識和最有興趣的內容，這樣會省却很多查字典的時間。
回覆刪除對，一開始不須攻堅，由淺入深。
刪除現代文學有甚麼名著可以細讀？
回覆刪除很失禮，脫節了。
刪除20世紀英國文學我讀的不多，只讀到毛姆和一點點的James Joyce和D.H. Lawrence。
Maybe, you can try to read 石黑一雄Kazuo Ishiguro.
刪除I was impressed by his novel Never let me go. It was made into a movie.
The apple daily has a prose about him.
翻譯最重要
2012年11月11日
莫言得諾貝爾文學獎，四方議論紛紛，倘不談政治，回到文學，或是，回到語言吧，只有一件事情是重要的，就是翻譯很重要。從中國文學、華文文學到世界文學之間，需要的是翻譯，好的翻譯。
讀者的職責無非是閱讀，我看書盡量看原文，只能看譯文的時候，十分挑剔版本，如找不到合適中譯，就看英譯、法譯。翻譯，不是google translate，單把字詞從原文轉移至目標語文就成。除了音義合一的轉換，或翻譯理論裏常說的信雅達這些原則，我覺得還有一個很難做到卻常給忽略的要點，正是原著文字在該語言系統裏的位置。
舉例，我非常喜歡英籍日裔作家石黑一雄，他在英語文學世界聲譽日隆，與魯西迪、奈保爾並列英國文壇移民三寶。然而他的文體風格與其餘兩位名家大大不同，若有所謂正統，他可說是最正統的英國文學傳人，有一種不屬於這個時代的典雅與華麗。有時向朋友推薦他的作品，讀中譯本的朋友覺得他說的故事還不錯，卻不太理解他過人之處，我乾脆直話直說，他的英文好。譯文無疑忠實傳達了故事與說故事的方法，可是，它如何教讀者把石黑一雄的語言置放在譬如珍．奧斯汀這類古典作家的語言座標上？沒錯，即是必須也要把珍．奧斯汀翻好。這才是我認為語言與翻譯最迷人的地方。
倒過來看，華文文學博大精深，語言自成一套思路，非拉丁語系讀者能輕易掌握。中文傑出作品翻成外語，通常只剩下了內容，沒有了原語言的妙思韻味。像精通英語的張愛玲親自把故事寫成英語，有板有眼，細看還是不及她的中文勾魂奪魄，而這點好只能是中文讀者可以也必得辨識。
（編者按：梁文道休假，專欄暫停。）
塵翎
電郵 :mcwriter@appledaily.com
If you like American writers, Paul Auster is also a good choice. His English is very precise.
刪除http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Auster
多謝Timmy資料，這方面你比我知道得多。
刪除石黑一雄的作品，我只看過改編為電影的The Remains of the Day，十分高超。
If anyone doesn't agree with me, just tell me. Watching televsion drama and listening to songs can help you build up your sense of rhythm. This sense is very important to sencond language leraners as most of us always have trouble pronuncing the words while reading a book. As Chris says, "寫得好的英文，除了好看，還一定注重音節，鏗鏘可誦。"
回覆刪除反覆聽女王聖誕文告也好，Youtube上有很多。
刪除Damn, there is no hope for me to better my English then. I don't read books much, let alone fictions or anything to do with literature. Bible? Forget about it. Too long. (But I read a Book, a short one, in it recently.) News? Even worse. I read news in Chinese mostly. When I have the mood for (listening to, not reading) local news, usually I am multitasking. The news is like background music. --zpdrmn
回覆刪除You can buy a kindle and let it read the English books to you.
刪除沒有Kindle，Youtube也有，如
刪除http://www.youtube.com/user/audiobooksfree (美國音)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcksTYT0LkM (英國音)
To XX學弟(I don't know how to address you...)：
回覆刪除Suddenly thought of it while bathing.
If you want to concentrate on improving your writing first, actually there are some good reference books in the market. I don't know whether you are familiar with stephen cheung 張五常. He always likes to recommend "The element of style" for his students. He talked about it a lot in his prose. In my opinion, this book is very useful to science students as it explains clearly what you should do, what you should not do. But not very useful to Arts students, especially to literature stream students, as it does not deal with improving your tone of speech. If you want to refine your writing skills, "The New Oxford Guide to Writing" is a very good reference. It addresses a lot of questions about writing. I bought it at first not for improving writing but for learning how to use punctuation marks. It has a chapter explaning this aspect. Most of the Chinese speakers do not pay attention to this critical aspect. Chinese is a language with rhythm, but without punctuation marks. If we, Chinese speakers, really wants to understand the sentence logic of English, this is the part we have to work hard on.
Hope I can help you.
幾年前去美國讀書時經常被 professors 批評我的英語。幾年下來，「傳情」老老實實依然做不到，「達意」倒有些看法可以分享:
回覆刪除一，儘量簡潔，意思重覆的字句可免則免。
Say, many words in the first sentence can be removed without hurting the ideas. How about this: “If you want to improve your writing, there are some good reference books in the market.”
二, 句子的主詞要連貫些.
Say, the first sentence may be rewritten as “If you want to improve your writing, you may find some good reference books in the market.”
三，注意 preposition:
He always recommends "The element of style" TO his students.
四，小心 pronoun. A pronoun should be close to the noun it refers to.
In “this book is very useful to science students as it explains … ”, the “it” reads as “science students”, not “this book”.
這樣如何：
If you want to improve your writing, you may find some good reference books in the market. I don't know whether you are familiar with stephen cheung 張五常. He always recommends "The element of style" to his students. In my opinion, this book explains clearly what you should and should not do, and is very useful to science students. But I think the book is not very useful to Arts students, especially to literature stream students, as the book does not deal with tone of speech. Another good reference is "The New Oxford Guide to Writing". I bought it not for improving writing but for learning to use punctuation marks. The Chinese language is a language of rhythm without the use of punctuation marks. If we, Chinese speakers, want to understand the sentence logic of English, we have to work on punctuation marks.
五，Key terms 用字或者要特別小心。”Sentence logic of English” seems weird. Although the Chinese word “邏輯” can be used to describe a language, the English word “logic” often restricted to describe the science of reasons. Does “sentence logic of English” mean “usage”, “semantics” or “grammar structure” of the English language?
Steven
Thank you for the amendment. Didn't have time to proofread it.
刪除之不過，寫信同人傾緊計，有冇必要如寫學術論文般尋章摘句?