Taylor Swift在纽约大学的毕业典礼上的演讲,鼓励了所有毕业在即、工作在即、步入社会在即的年轻人:人生有很多试错的机会。下面结合MP3的内容,进行口语练习吧。
原文及翻译
You will inevitably misspeak, trust the wrong person, underreact, overreact, hurt the people who didn't deserve it, overthink, not think at all, self sabotage, create a reality where only your experience exists, ruin perfectly good moments for yourself and others, deny any wrongdoing, not take the steps to make it right, feel very guilty, let the guilt eat at you, hit rock bottom, finally address the pain you caused, try to do better next time, rinse, repeat. And I'm not gonna lie, these mistakes will cause you to lose things. I'm trying to tell you, that losing things doesn't just mean losing. A lot of the time, when we lose things, we gain things too.
你不可避免地会说错话、相信错误的人、反应不足、反应过度、伤害不值得的人、想得太多、根本不去想、自我破坏、创造一个只有你的经历存在的现实、毁掉自己和他人的美好时光、否认任何错误行为、不采取措施纠正错误、感到非常内疚、让内疚吞噬你、跌入谷底、最终解决你造成的痛苦、下次尝试做得更好、反复重复。我不会撒谎,这些错误会让你失去一些东西。我想告诉你,失去东西并不只是意味着失去。很多时候,当我们失去东西时,我们也会得到一些东西。
Now you leave the structure and framework of school and chart your own path. Every choice you make leads to the next choice, which leads to the next. And I know it's hard to know which path to take. There will be times in life where you need to stand up for yourself, times when the right thing is actually to back down and apologize, times when the right thing is to fight, times when the right thing is to turn and run, times to hold on with all you have, and times to let go with grace. Sometimes the right thing to do is to throw out the old schools of thought in the name of progress and reform.
现在你离开学校的结构和框架,规划自己的道路。你的每一个选择都会导致下一个选择,而下一个选择又会导致下一个选择。我知道很难知道该走哪条路。生活中总有需要你为自己挺身而出的时候,有时正确的做法是退缩和道歉,有时正确的做法是战斗,有时正确的做法是转身逃跑,有时要竭尽全力坚持下去,有时要优雅地放手。有时正确的做法是以进步和改革的名义抛弃旧思想流派。
Sometimes the right thing to do is to sit and listen to the wisdom of those who have come before us. How will you know what the right choice is in these crucial moments? You won't. How do I give advice to this many people about their life choices? I won't. The scary news is, you're on your own now. But the cool news is, you're on your own now. I leave you with this: We are led by our gut instincts, our intuition, our desires and fears, our scars and our dreams. And you will screw it up sometimes, so will I. And when I do, you will most likely read about it on the internet.
有时正确的做法是坐下来聆听前人的智慧。在这些关键时刻,你怎么知道什么是正确的选择?你不知道。我该如何给这么多人关于他们人生选择的建议?我不会。可怕的消息是,你现在只能靠自己了。但好消息是,你现在只能靠自己了。我留给你的是:我们被我们的直觉、我们的直觉、我们的欲望和恐惧、我们的伤痕和我们的梦想所引导。有时你会搞砸,我也会。当我这样做的时候,你很可能会在互联网上读到它。
Anyway, hard things will happen to us, we will recover, we will learn from it, we will grow more resilient because of it. And as long as we are fortunate enough to be breathing, we will breathe in, breath through, breathe deep, breathe out. And I am a doctor now, so I know how breathing works. I hope you know how proud I am to share this day with you. We're doing this together, so let's just keep dancing like we're the class of '22.
无论如何,困难的事情都会发生在我们身上,我们会恢复,我们会从中吸取教训,我们会因此变得更加坚韧。只要我们还有幸呼吸,我们就会吸气、呼气、深呼吸、呼气。我现在是一名医生,所以我知道呼吸是如何运作的。我希望你们知道,能和你们一起度过这一天,我感到多么自豪。我们在一起完成这些,所以继续跳舞吧,就像我们22岁那样(*泰勒斯的歌曲《22》)。