十萬個開心

這篇文章來自《麻省理工科技評論》MIT Technology

Review，有中文版，報導客觀用詞地道，推薦給學英語和愛好生物基因/電腦科學的小夥伴~

100,000 Happy Moments

What makes people happy? A huge database is making it

possible to discern the answer at last.

by Emerging Technology from

the arXiv,February 5, 2018

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610159/100000-happy-moments/

【discern-詞彙用法】及物動詞，但不用於進行時，因為是瞬間動詞，其他瞬間動詞還有turn、become等。意思是to know, recognize or understand something, especially something

that is not obvious察覺、認知（特別是不易察覺的東西），同義詞是detect；to see or hear something, usually with difficulty（艱難地）看到聽到。可以用於know、learn、understand等的同義替換。

Thescience of happiness is of increasing interest to psychologists and to societyin general. The questions at the heart of this discipline are: what makes ushappy, and what sustains this happiness over time?

【開頭】特別精彩，特別適合雅思等寫作開頭，特別符合書面語正式、簡潔的要求~

【be of +n】等於be +adj，用名詞表明是主語的性質，用形容詞只是修飾了主語的一個特點，加上名詞有客觀的意味，因此用be of +n是相對正式高階的表達。

【increasing】是more and more的同義替換，一個詞更精簡，動名詞形式有一種ing正在進行的動感，正式高階的用詞符合新聞報導的書面語體；還記得常用句型“越來越多的人……”嗎？ an increasing number of individuals……

【sth be of interest to sb】等於sb be interested in sth 等於sth interest（s）sb ，注意介詞用的to；此外語法上用and連線兩個並列賓語成分，賓語前的介詞也要再重複一次，表明並列的是動詞後的賓語部分；因此be of increasing interest to psychologists and （沒有to）society

in general是有語法錯誤的。

【第二句】sustain sth over time 長久保持sth。開門見山，第一句引入，第二句直奔主題。

A varietyof factors seem to play important roles. Psychologists think about 50 percentof our happiness is the result of our genes—we seem to be pre-programmed for acertain level of happiness. By contrast, they think our environment—our lifecircumstances—contributes only 10 percent to our happiness levels.

The rest isunder our control. Some 40 percent of our happiness levels are the result ofthe choices we make. These are things like investing in long-termrelationships, doing meaningful work, and bonding with loved ones.

【邏輯】這兩段講研究結果：十分開心來源於基因4環境1選擇4。在闡述的過程中，主要應該學習總分的邏輯結構和銜接詞：By

contrast，短語，表與前面的對比；The rest，不算嚴格意義的銜接詞，此處承上100%happiness-40%gene-10%environment同時啟下；Those，前指詞，指代choices

we make（注意最後一句中的like是舉例的意思，相當於such as）。

邏輯框架是總分結構：

（總）A variety of factors seem to play important roles.

（分1）Psychologists think……gene……

（銜接+分2）By contrast,they think our environment……

（銜接）The restis under our control.

（分3）Some 40 percent……

（銜接+分3-1）Thoseare……

Indeed,the relatively new discipline of positive psychology steers people toward thesebehaviors. And an increasing number of apps help people make choices to boosttheir happiness levels.

【steer-發音】/s/與爆破音/t/相繼出現，組成子音連綴，所以爆破音應當減少送氣，即原本的/t/發音與/d/相似，一個相似而且大家熟悉的例子就是student。

【steer-詞彙用法】本意是Guide or control the

movement of (a vehicle, vessel, or aircraft), for example by turning a wheel or

operating a rudder掌控方向。

作動詞時是及物動詞He steered the boat into the harbour.，也是不及物動詞The ship steered into

port.。

抽象意義就是to take control of a situation and influence the way in which it

develops 掌控形勢或者引導、影響發展趨勢，例句She steered the team to victory.她帶領隊伍獲勝。

【an increasing number of】越來越多的……第一段的分析中也提到了。

【boost】是increase的同義替換，詞義是boost something to make

something increase, or become better or more successful，使……增加，使……進步，使……成功。

例句：to boost exports/profits增加出口/盈利

The movie helped boost her

screen career. 這部電影使她演員事業騰飛。

to boost somebody’s confidence/morale 增加自信/創造奇蹟

Getting that job did a lotto boost his ego (= make him feel more confident).

如果經常看《經濟學人》或者政府工作報告的小夥伴肯定對這個詞很不陌生，因為boost常與經濟economy搭配，比如十九大里的“發展平臺經濟、共享經濟”，就被翻譯為We will boost the platform economy and the sharing economy.

But thestudy of these choices and behaviors is in its infancy. Happiness is not auniform state that can be switched on and off on demand. Instead, it is a stateor set of states that can be triggered by a rich tapestry of conditions andpermutations of them. And yet there has been relatively little work that teasesapart the nature of these conditions and how they arise.

【infancy】名詞，本意是The state or period of babyhood

or early childhood 嬰幼兒時期，抽象為The early stage in the development or growth of something 發展早期、剛剛開始，上面的句子可以翻譯為關於上述選擇和行為的研究仍處於初期。

【tapestry】名詞，本意是有花紋的織毯，抽象意義是Used in reference to an intricate or complex sequence of events.複雜交織地發生的事件。

【permutations】名詞，Each of several possible ways in which a set or number of things

can be ordered or arranged.將一系列事物進行排序或安排的幾種可能性；排列組合。

【trigger】名詞，一個義項是槍的扳機，另一個義項something that is the cause of a particular reaction or

development, especially a bad one造成某種反應或發展的原因，特別是負面的。常見搭配是trigger (for something) 、trigger (to something/to do something)，例句Intense sunlight may be a trigger to skin cancer.強烈日曬可能導致皮膚癌。本文中使用被動語態，事件be

triggered by 原因，可以做reason、cause、lead to 的同義替換。

【第二、三句-語法和深度】這兩句都是名詞性從句中由that引導的定語從句，that在從句中做主語，不可以省略，指代主句中的state。第三句中的tapestry在這裡是一個隱喻metaphor，將複雜的情形比作色彩、樣式複雜的織毯，化抽象為具體。

這兩句的意思是：幸福並不是根據需求或開或關的統一狀態。與此相反，它是經過如織毯一般多樣的情形排列組合而成的一種或一系列狀態。

如果把這句話的主語從happiness換成其他抽象名詞，也是適用的，比如life生活，affection情感、understanding理解、growth成長等。只要滿足並非一蹴而就，原因或程式複雜多樣，就可以完全代入借用到任何寫作、口語的主題中，堪稱百搭。

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