Section 1: English-Chinese Translation (50 points)
For more than 30 years, I have been wondering about L.R. Generson.
On one of our first Christmases together, my husband gave me a complete set of Dickens. There were 20 volumes, bound in gray cloth with black corners, old but in good condition. Stamped on the flyleaf of each volume, in faded block letters, was the name of the previous owner: "L.R. Generson, M.D., Bronx, NY."
That Dickens set is one of the best presents anyone has ever given me. A couple of the books are still pristine, but others - “Bleak House,’’ “David Copperfield,’’ and especially “Great Expectations’’ - have been read and re-read almost to pieces. Over the years, the character kept me company . And so, , has L.R. Generson.,in his silent enigmatic way.
Did he love the books as much as I do? Who was he? On a whim, I Googled him. There wasn’t much - a single mention on a veterans’ website of a World War II captain named Leonard Generson. But I did find a Dr. Richard Generson, an oral surgeon living in New Jersey. Since Generson is not a common name, I decided to write to him.
Dr. Generson was kind enough to write back. He told me that his father, Leonard Richard Generson, was born in 1909. He lived in New York City but went to medical school in Basel, Switzerland. He spoke 10 languages fluently. As an obstetrician and gynecologist, he opened a practice in the Bronx shortly before World War II. His son described him as “an extremely patriotic individual’’; right after Pearl Harbor he closed his practice and enlisted. He served throughout the war as a general surgeon with an airborne special forces unit in Europe, where he became one of the war’s most highly decorated physicians.
Leonard Generson’s son didn’t remember the Dickens set, though he told me that there were always a lot of novels in the house. His mother probably “cleaned house’’ after his father’s death in 1977 - the same year my husband bought the set in a used book store.
I found this letter very moving, with its brief portrait of an intelligent, brave man and his life of service. At the same time, it made me question my presumption that somehow L.R. Generson and I were connected because we’d owned the same set of books. The letter both told me a little about him, and told me that I would never really know anything about him - and why should I? His son must have been startled to hear from a stranger on such a fragile pretext. What had I been thinking?
One possible, and only somewhat facetious, answer is that I’ve read too much Dickens. In the world of a Dickens novel, everything is connected to everything else. Orphans find families. Lovers are joined (or parted and morally strengthened). Ancient mysteries are solved and old scores are settled. Questions are answered. Stories end.
Leonard Generson’s life touched mine only lightly, through the coincidence of a set of books. But there are other lives he touched more deeply. The next time I read a Dickens novel, I will think of him and his military service and his 10 languages. And I will think of the hundreds of babies he must have delivered, who are now in the middle of their own lives and their own stories.
Section 2: Chinese-English Translation (50 points)
總部位于美國印第安納州的得而達(Delta)水龍頭公司是美國一家上市公司Masco集團的核心企業(yè)。MASCO集團是世界五百強,家居及裝飾行業(yè)的領(lǐng)導者,在美國乃至世界有70多家子公司,在全球有超過61,000名雇員,年銷售額超過121億美元。
自從得而達的創(chuàng)始人Alex Manoogian先生在1954年發(fā)明了具有劃時代意義的單柄水龍頭之后,得而達就一直是水龍頭制造行業(yè)的領(lǐng)導者。德爾達公司是全美水龍頭行業(yè)中首家成功獲得ISO9001質(zhì)量標準認證的企業(yè)。五十多年來一直行業(yè)領(lǐng)先,已經(jīng)成為品質(zhì)可靠、精巧耐用、物有所值產(chǎn)品的象征。
現(xiàn)在,得而達在美國、加拿大及中國擁有5家大型工廠,年產(chǎn)量超過XXX。在美國乃至全球,美國得而達公司的產(chǎn)品正被越來越多的家庭使用。目前,在全球已經(jīng)安裝了超過2億個得而達水龍頭,是全球水暖專家首選品牌。
得而達作為水龍頭和相關(guān)產(chǎn)品的全球?qū)<?,能夠全方位滿足全球顧客對設(shè)計、功能、質(zhì)量、外觀方面的每一個要求。