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The great journey of learning 伟大的学习之旅 1 Malcolm X was an African-American civil rights activist, religious leader, writer, and speaker. Born in 1925, he was mysteriously assassinated in 1965. By the time of his death, his own telling of his life story, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, had been widely known. He was born Malcolm Little into a poor household. Later, he took the name Malcolm X after joining an organization called the Nation of Islam, a religious group that had changed major practices and beliefs of mainstream Islam to apply more specifically to the condition of African-American people in the United States in the early 1960s. 马尔科姆·艾克斯是一位非裔美国民权活动家、宗教领袖、作家和演说家。他生于1925年，1965年被神秘地暗杀。在他去世之前，他对自己生平的自述——《马尔科姆·艾克斯自传》已闻名遐迩。他出生于一个贫民家庭，取名马尔科姆·利特尔。后来，他加入了一个叫“伊斯兰民族”的组织，之后改名为马尔科姆·艾克斯。“伊斯兰民族”是个宗教团体，它改变了美国主流伊斯兰教的一些主要的习俗和信仰，使之更适用于19世纪60年代早期非裔美国人的特定情况。 2 Malcolm X learned about the Nation of Islam while in prison for committing criminal acts such as theft. Because he was poorly educated, he felt inadequate to teach his new beliefs to others. As a young man, he could sketch his thoughts with poor grammar and little vocabulary using the simple, unsophisticated language of people on the street. As an adult, when he tried to inform people about his new beliefs at a rally, he found that he didn't have the adequate communication skills he needed. In his own words, he "wasn't even functional". 马尔科姆·艾克斯因当时犯有诸如偷窃等罪而入狱。他在监狱里得知了“伊斯兰民族”组织。由于没有受过良好的教育，他在向别人传授他的新信仰时感到力不从心。作为一名年轻人，他可以用草根语言来概述自己的想法，语言简单、粗浅、语法差劲，且词汇贫乏。可作为一名成年人，当他在大型公众集会上向人们阐述他的新信仰时，他发觉自己缺少了所需的语言交流技能。用他自己的话说，他“甚至没有这个功能”。 3 In a bid to increase his knowledge and improve his skills, desperate Malcolm X devised a scheme. He turned to books, believing this would be beneficial. However, when he tried to read serious books on his own, he was distressed as he didn't know most of the words. "They might as well have been in Chinese," he wrote. He skipped all the words he didn't know and then would end up with no clue as to what the book was about. "I became frustrated," Malcolm X wrote in his autobiography, speaking of his inadequate language skills. 为了增长知识，提高沟通技能，深陷绝望的马尔科姆·艾克斯为自己制定了一个计划。他决定求助于书籍，相信书会使他受益匪浅。可是当他试图阅读一些严肃的书本时，他不禁倍感苦恼，因为大部分的词他都不认识。他写道：“这些书还不如是用中文写的。”他跳过了所有不认识的词，可是最终他全然不知这本书里写了什么。马尔科姆·艾克斯在他的自传里谈到他贫乏的语言技能时是这样写的：“我变得沮丧起来。” 4 Malcolm X's considerable frustration at his inability to read and write launched him on a quest to overcome his deficiencies. He said, "I saw that the best thing I could do was get hold of a dictionary — to study, to learn some words." And he was lucky enough to reason also that he should try to improve his handwriting. "It was sad. I couldn't even write in a straight line," he told us. These ideas together moved him to appeal to the prison authorities for some paper and pencils. 由于无法阅读和写作所遭受的巨大挫折促使马尔科姆·艾克斯开始探索如何攻克自己的语言缺陷。他说：“我明白我所能做的就是弄到一本词典来学习，学一些单词。”他也幸运地意识到应该尝试去改进他的书写。他告诉我们：“令人伤心的是我甚至不能把英文书写得整齐。”这些想法促使他向狱管请求，要了一些纸和铅笔。 5 For the first two days, Malcolm X just skimmed through the pages of the dictionary trying to negotiate his way through its unfamiliar format. He told us of his amazement at how closely related the words seemed. How moist could be the root of moisture, and advisable and advisory had the same root word! "I didn't know which words I needed to learn," he said, "finally, just to start some kind of action, I began copying." In his slow, careful, crude handwriting, Malcolm X copied everything on the first full page of the dictionary into a notebook. He even copied the quotation marks! This took him one full day. After that, he read everything he had written aloud. "Over and over aloud, to myself, I read my own handwriting." Malcolm recalled. He also logged important things that happened every day. Repetition helped move him from basic literacy toward true proficiency. 头两天，马尔科姆·艾克斯只是很快地浏览了一下词典，试图在这不熟悉的格式里寻找出他自己的应付方法。他告诉我们，他对这些单词之间的密切关系感到诧异。moist怎么会是moisture的词根；advisable跟advisory竟是同根词！“我都不知道哪些单词我需要学，”他说，“最后，为了有所行动，我开始抄写词典。”马尔科姆·艾克斯用他缓慢、仔细、蹩脚的书写，把词典的第一页全都抄写在一个笔记本上，他甚至把引号也抄了。这花了他整整一天的时间。在此之后，他高声朗读所有抄写下来的东西。“我一遍又一遍地给自己大声朗读自己抄写的东西。”马尔科姆回忆道。他还把每天发生的重要事情记录下来。重复朗读帮助他从一个仅有一些基础文化知识的人变成真正精通语言的人。 6 Malcolm X depicted how the next morning when he woke up, he kept thinking about the words he had copied and read aloud and about the acquisition of the knowledge he was pursuing. It was a marvelous feeling. He felt immensely proud. 马尔科姆·艾克斯描述了他第二天醒来时，是如何努力回忆他抄写和朗读过的单词及他苦苦追求所获的知识。这是一种神奇的感觉，他感到无比自豪。 7 He was so fascinated that he went on copying the dictionary's next page. Once again, he awoke, proud and energized. With every succeeding page he copied and read aloud, Malcolm X found he was learning and remembering more and more words. With each successive day, his confusion diminished. 他对此如此着迷以至于他又继续抄写词典的下一页。又一次，他醒来时感到骄傲且精力充沛。随着不断抄写和朗读，马尔科姆·艾克斯发现自己在学到东西，也记住了越来越多的单词，他的困惑也逐日减少。 8 As Malcolm X's word base broadened, he began to better understand the books he read. It was the first time in his life this had ever happened, "Anyone who has read a great deal can imagine the new world that opened." From then until he left that prison, his concentration was focused on reading. He was so absorbed in it. Months passed without his even thinking about being in prison. "In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life." 随着马尔科姆·艾克斯的词汇量不断扩大，他开始能更好地理解所阅读的书了。这种现象在他的一生中从未发生过。“任何一个阅读广泛的人都能想象那个开启了的新世界。”从那时起到他离开那个监狱，他一直专注于阅读，被它深深吸引。数月过去了，他竟然没感到自己在坐牢。“事实上，在这之前，我从没如此真正地感受过生活的自由。” 9 "I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life," Malcolm X wrote. He described how one day a writer telephoned him from London for an interview. The interviewer asked Malcolm X what college he had graduated from as he could write so fluently. He told the Englishman that his own personal university was "books". “就是在监狱里我意识到阅读永远地改变了我的人生轨迹，”马尔科姆·艾克斯写道。他描述了有一天一位作家从伦敦打电话来采访他。那位作家问马尔科姆·艾克斯，他文笔那么流畅，是从什么大学毕业的。马尔科姆告诉那位英国人他的大学是“书本”。 10 Malcolm X's life is a wonderful example of the profound effect of learning a language. He was born into a world full of poverty and ignorance. However, as he acquired knowledge, his horizons expanded. He had left behind the narrow, ignorant world of his youth to join the world community of thoughts and actions ever since he started with his great journey of learning English in prison. 马尔科姆·艾克斯的一生成功地创造了一个通过语言学习而深刻改变人生的光辉典范。他出生于贫穷、无知的世界。可是，知识开阔了他的眼界。从他在监狱里踏上伟大的英语学习之旅起，他就离开了青年时代狭窄、无知的世界，加入到有思想、有作为的世界之中。 |
