大学英语读写译 第四册 Unit2 课文翻译
Unit 2
Text A
Technology and Happiness
技术与幸福
Para. 1
1. In the 20th century, Americans, Europeans, and East Asians enjoyed material and technological advances that were unimaginable in previous eras.
=20世纪的美国人、欧洲人和东亚人都享受到了过去历代人都无法想象的物质和技术进步所带来的乐趣。
2. In the United States, for instance, gross domestic product per capita tripled from 1950 to 2000. =譬如，在美国，从1950年到2000年，人均国民生产总值翻了3倍。
3. Life expectancy soared.
=人的寿命大幅度提高。
4. The boom in productivity after World War II made goods better and cheaper at the same time. =二战后生产力的迅速发展使商品物美价廉。
5. Things that were once luxuries, such as jet travel and long-distance phone calls, became necessities.
=诸如乘飞机旅行和打长途电话等曾经是奢侈的事情成了生活中不可或缺的一部分。
6. And even though Americans seemed to work extraordinarily hard, their pursuit of entertainment turned media and leisure into multibillion-dollar industries.
=即使美国人工作时似乎是格外勤奋努力的，可他们对娱乐的追求却使得他们将媒体和闲暇转变成了盈利数十亿美元的产业。
Para. 2
1. By most standards, then, you would have to say that Americans are better off now than they were in the middle of the last century.
=那么，根据大多数标准衡量，你会说，现在的美国人比上个世纪中叶富裕得多。
2. Oddly, though, if you ask Americans how happy they are, you find that they are no happier than they were in 1946 (which is when formal surveys of happiness started).
=然而，奇怪的是，如果你问美国人有多幸福，你会发现，他们并不比1946年时幸福（1946年正式开始对幸福状况进行调查）。
3. In fact, the percentage of people who say they are “very happy” has fallen slightly since the early 1970s ----- even though the income of people born in 1940 has, on average, increased by 116 percent over the course of their working lives.
=事实上，那些说自己“非常幸福”的人所占的比例自20世纪70年代早期以来一直稳中有降——尽管20世纪40年代出生的人的收入在他们的工作生涯中平均增长了116%。
4.You can find similar data for most developed countries.
=你可以在大多数发达国家找到相似的数据。
Para. 3
1. The relationship between happiness and technology has been an eternal subject for social critics and philosophers since the advent of the Industrial Revolution.
=自工业革命出现以来，幸福与技术之间的关系一直是社会批评家和哲学家们长期研究的课题。