Обороты с формами сравнения
При переводе английских сравнительных форм на русский язык следует учитывать ряд особенностей
| Сравнительная форма | Способ перевода | Пример |
| Превосходная степень Сравнительная степень наречий (может употребляться со словами «very», «quite», «so»). | Добавление слов «лучше всех», «больше всех» Опущение | John swims best. – Джон плавает лучше всех. How very interesting! – Как интересно! He is quite the best dancer I know. – Он самый лучший танцор, которого я знаю. |
| Сравнительные формы «no more than», «more than», «much less» | Использование других форм, имеющих значение сравнения (контекстуальные замены) | She didn’t expect me to believe her, any more than she believed it herself. – Она не думала, что я поверю ей, она ведь и сама не верила этому. His statement was not mentioned, much less discussed in these circles. – В этих кругах его заявление не обсуждали, более того, о нем даже не упоминали. |
| Сравнительные обороты с союзом «rather than» | Слова «скорее», «охотнее», «лучше чем», «скорее», «а не», «не только», «сколько», «нежели» | He wanted to stay at home rather than to go out. – Он скорее хотел остаться дома, чем пойти в кафе. |
Обратите внимание, что в конструкциях типа «the more … the better» за союзом the следуют прилагательные или наречия в сравнительной степени. .При этом, возможно отсутствие сказуемого в обеих частях оборота ли во второй его части.
ПРАКТИЧЕСКИЕ ЗАДАНИЯ
ЗАДАНИЕ 1. Переведите предложения, обращая внимание на различие в употреблении степеней сравнения в русском и английском языках.
a. That was the room that Nancy liked best in all the house.
b. The holiday proved to be one of the happiest times that Keith and Natalie had ever known.
c. In general they went to dine at one of the better restaurants in Montparnasse.
d. The findings of the mission include: the desirability of the countries concerned to meet and discuss early how best to initiate further actions.
e. Fortunately, just when things were blackest, the war broke out.
ЗАДАНИЕ 2. Переведите предложения, делая необходимые опущения.
a. Christine realized suddenly how very tires she was.
b. Think of something not quite so expensive.
c. Hans and Peter are quite the noisiest boys that I know.
d. You have spoken a little too much tonight.
e. How very original she is!
f. It is a bit too much.
g. She was interested to see how very disagreeable and ill-dressed many of the women visitors seemed.
h. But he had been a little too quick at this point.
i. In the end she found herself obliged to quite a little lecture.
ЗАДАНИЕ 3. Переведите предложения, обращая внимание на усилительное значение сравнительных форм.
a. He was no more an amateur than Rose, and at least as clever.
b. She had not thanked me for my suggestions, much less commented upon them.
c. I had never heard a bribe, in crude sense, so much as hinted at, anywhere near these people, much less offered.
d. His tone was grave and ill-used: yet he couldn’t, any more than Diana, conceal a kind of pleasure, the pleasure, secretive but shining, they got from being in the center.
ЗАДАНИЕ 4. Переведите предложения с союзом «rather than».
a. For the past two days I had sat beside the driver, rather than die from suffocation within.
b. It is true that his quests were chosen for their social importance, rather than because they were good companions.
c. All these plays were poetic drama, rather than plays of vitality.
d. This point of view is that of a mathematician rather than a physicist.
ЗАДАНИЕ 5. Переведите предложения с конструкцией «the … the …».
a. The harder he labored, the less he was fatigued.
b. The less a man knows the more content he is with his intellectual capacity.
c. The closer N to 1 the better does the system meet the formulated task.
d. The broader the knowledge available the sooner are the difficulties explained.
e. The more attentively you listen the more you hear.
ЗАДАНИЕ 6. Переведите текст, обращая внимание на различные способы и формы сравнения.
Arriving from Outer Space
Suppose that we were space travellers, visiting the earth from some distant planet. It would be difficult to detect much trace of the atmosphere until we were in the region of the lower part of the orbit of the first Sputnik, say between 200 and 300 miles up. At that distance from the earth the pressure of the atmosphere, which measures the weight of the air above us, is less than one millionth of that on the ground. This means we would be moving in what is called a “vacuum” on earth, for at this level, pressure is lower than that which can be reached by the finest laboratory pumps.
Having passed through the stratosphere, we would enter the atmosphere, or region of weather. Meteorologists are interested in the whole atmosphere, but especially in the troposphere, because it is only in this relatively thin layer that we find weather, that is clouds, fogs, rain, hail and snow.
In general the higher one goes in the atmosphere, the colder the air becomes. This seems odd at first, because by climbing up we are getting nearer to the sun, from which we get all our heat. The explanation is that the rays of the sun are not very effective in heating air directly. Most of the energy in a sun beam passes through clear air with very little absorption. What happens is that the sun’s rays heat the surface of the earth, both the ground and the sea, and it is from the warm surface that the atmosphere receives most of the energy which appears as wind, and causes weather generally.
(Рубцова М.Г., стр. 91)
ТЕМА 10