killing room
27March英译中
If you've ever used a digital assistant like Siri or Alexa, you know the back and forth doesn't quite have the same rhythm as real human-to-human conversation. The pauses are just a little too long."We feel this sort of __1__ building up." Sebastian Loth, a research psychologist at the University of Bielefeld in Germany. "If I ask you something and you just don't respond, it feels like, oh my god this silence is almost killing the room and you can feel it literally building up. So we try to avoid that. And that's the kind of effect that you're seeing with Siri taking a second to respond, you're kind of feeling odd about it." To study how humans are able to have such fluent, sometimes even __2__, conversations, Loth and his team set up what's called a "Ghost in the Machine" experiment, in a barroom situation. Real human customers bellied up to a bar, where a robot bartender was waiting. The robot was actually controlled by human operators behind the scenes, who could see and hear the customers through the robot's eyes and ears. Then Loth and his team observed how the __3__ behaved during a couple hundred orders. They found that when the customers started a phrase with "What," the human operators quickly triggered the robot to repeat the offerings of the bar, like "We have coke, orange juice and water," rather than waiting for customers to complete the sentence. But if the customers began a sentence with "I'd like" or "I want," the human operators tended to hesitate, to listen for what came next, rather than acting quickly—and perhaps incorrectly. "What we found was that they distinguish between the __4__. And more specifically by the error or cost of that. If I misunderstand you and give you the wrong drink that is actually quite an awkward situation. Because I kind of have to apologize, take the drink away from you, and replace it with the appropriate one. So it's a lot of action and maneuvering involved and it's quite embarrassing if the bartender gets it wrong." The details are in the journal PLOS ONE. Loth says __4__ like these might help future robots better navigate the continuum between certainty and time: to be able to act quickly on limited evidence, to provide speedy service, but without getting things wrong so often that it annoys the user. And no, he doesn't really envision replacing human bartenders with robots. "What you'll probably see is that stuff like that will be incorporated in __5__, or in booking systems, or in request systems like Siri where you're asking for a route to be displayed on the phone." After all, he says, a real human bartender does a lot more than serve drinks."Hey, buddy, why the long face?"
请将答案发到留言区，一起来交流！
【上一期参考译文】
26March中译英
近日，中国工程院公布了新当选的67名院士名单。其中外籍院士增选结果同步产生，本次共有18位外籍专家当选为中国工程院外籍院士。微软创始人比尔·盖茨以泰拉能源（TerraPower）董事长身份名列其中。——中国工程院新增18位外籍院士，人民日报海外版，2017年11月28日
参考译文：The Chinese Academy of Engineering has released its list 67 new member, among which 18 were foreign academians. Bill Gates,co-founder of Microsoft, was inducted by referring to Chairman of TerraPower, a US-based nuclear reactor design comapny.
解析：这两句英文包括了非常丰富的信息。虽然句型不复杂，只用一个定语从句，就足以在翻译时要折成多个句子。1) in the wake of……是一个介词短语，意为“作为……的结果”或“随着……而来”，指因果关系。不过，由于这个短语中有一个定语从句，比较长，就拆成单独一句。同时将英文句里“果”与“因”的顺序对调，将果放在后面。2）city official，有的同学翻译成"城市管理者"或“地方官员”。在这里，应该是指北京市政府，也可以用“官方”来指代。3）run一词的意思中有“经营、管理”的意思。不过，migrant worker一词很明显表明他们不可能都是拥有后面提到的“餐馆”、“工地”或“快递”等行业的企业，于是以动宾结构来表达他们的行业属性。4）本译文参考了 Michelle 同学的译本。
【更多·每日一练】
03.01｜每日一练（挑错）
03.04｜每日一练（英译中）
03.05｜每日一练（中译英）
03.06｜每日一练（听力填空）
03.07｜每日一练（词汇）
03.08｜每日一练（改错）
03.11｜每日一练（英译中）
03.12｜每日一练（中译英）
03.13｜每日一练（听力填空）
03.14｜每日一练（词汇）
03.15｜每日一练（改错）
03.18｜每日一练（英译中）
03.19｜每日一练（中译英）
03.20｜每日一练（听力填空）
03.21｜每日一练（词汇）
03.22｜每日一练（改错）
03.25｜每日一练（英译中）
03.26｜每日一练（中译英）
翻吧·与你一起学翻译
微信号：translationtips
长按识别二维码关注翻吧