新概念英语第四册课文Lesson5.docx

新概念英语第四册课文Lesson5Youth青年 First listen and then answer the following question: 听录音，然后答复以下问题 How does the writer like to treat young people? People are always talking about ”the problem of youth”. If there is one -- which I take leave to doubt -- then it is older people who create it, not the young themselves. Let us get down to fundamentals and agree that the young are after all human beings -- people just like their elders. There is only one difference between an old man and a young one: the young man has a glorious future before him and the old one has a splendid future behind him: and maybe that is where the rub is. When I was a teenager, I felt that I was just young and uncertain -- that I was a new boy in a huge school, and I would have been very pleased to be regarded as something so interesting as a problem. For one thing, being a problem gives you a certain identity, and that is one of the things the young are busily engaged in seeking. I find young people exciting. They have an air of freedom, and they have not a dreary commitment to mean ambitions or love of comfort. They are not anxious social climbers, and they have no devotion to material things. All this seems to me to link them with life, and the origins of things. It”s as if they were, in some sense, cosmic beings in violent and lovely contrast with us suburban creatures. All that is in my mind when I meet a young person. He may be conceited, ill-mannered, presumptuous or fatuous, but I do not turn for protection to dreary cliches about respect for elders -- as if mere age were a reason for respect. I accept that we are equals, and I will argue with him, as an equal, if I think he is wrong.FIELDEN HUGHES from Out of the Air, The Listener New words and expression 生词与短语 leave n. 允许fundamentalsn. 根本原则gloriousadj. 光芒绚烂的splendidadj. 绚烂的rubn. 难题identityn. 身份drearyadj. 沉郁的commitmentn. 信奉meanadj. 吝啬，小气social climber追求更高社会地位的，向上爬的人devotionn. 喜爱cosmicadj. 宇宙的suburbanadj. 见识不广的，偏狭的conceitedadj. 自高自大的presumptuousadj. 自以为是的，放纵的fatuousadj. 愚蠢的clichen. 陈词滥调 本文参考译文 人们总是在谈论“青年问题”。

假如这个问题存在的话 -- 请允许我对此持疑心态度 -- 那么，这个问题是由老年人而不是青年人造成的让我们来仔细讨论一些根本事实：成认青年人和他们的长辈一样也是人老年人和青年人只有一个区分：青年人有光芒绚烂的前景，而老年人的辉煌已成为过去 问题的症结唯恐就在这里 我十几岁时，总感到自己年轻，有些事拿不准 -- 我是一所大学里的一名新生，假如我当时真的被看成像一个问题那样好玩，我会感到很得意的由于这至少使我得到了某种成认，这正是年轻人所热衷追求的 我觉得年轻人令人兴奋，无拘无束他们既不追赶卑劣的名利，也不贪图生活的舒适他们不热衷于向上爬，也不一味追求物质享受在我看来，全部这些使他们与生命和万物之源联系在了一起从某种意义上讲，他们好像是宇宙人，同我们这些凡夫俗子形成了剧烈而鲜亮的对比每逢我遇到年轻人，脑子里就想到这些年轻人或许傲慢自负，举止无理，高傲放纵，愚昧无知，但我不会用应当敬重长者这一套陈词滥调来为我自己辨护，好像年长就是受人敬重的理由我认为我和他们是公平的假如我认为他们错了，我就以公平的身份和他们争个明白。