英文科技论文指导的常见问题
1 用词分析
1.1 近义词的用法区别
例1 “方程”的英文是“equation”，不是“formula”，“formula”的意思是“公式”。
例2 “question”和“problem”翻译成中文都是“问题”，但是英文的意思完全不同，
如“ask a question”，“answer a question”，“formulate a problem”，“solve a problem”等;
[1] I have a question about the last page of your presentation.
[2] I have a problem about the last page of your presentation.
前者的意思是你有不清楚或者不明白的东西要问，后者是指你认为“the last page of your
presentation”有错误。
例3 “too”和“also”的用法区别：
[1] I have done this quickly too.
[2] I have also done this quickly.
例4 “few”和“several”用法区分。“several”的意思是“几个”，“few”的意思是“几乎没有”或者“少”，
但是“a few”的意思是“几个”。如：
[1] (a) I bought several books today. [1] (b) I bought a few books today.
这两句话的意思略微不同：前者情况是指买的比较多，而后者指的是买的比较少。
[2] There is very few water left in the bottle. (那个瓶子里面几乎没有水了。)
[3] Very few students came to today's seminar. (今天参加讲座的学生很少。)
[4] Few students came last night. (昨晚只来了几个学生。)
178 中国科学院上海天文台年刊 2010 年
[5] A few students came last night. (昨晚来了几个学生。)
例5 很多学生都不能区分科技英语中的property, character 和characteristic。翻译成中文都是“特
征”、“特性”和“性质”，但是在英文中意思不同。
[1] quality 最普通用词，既可指有形或无形的特性，又可指个性或共性的特征。
[2] character多指一类人或事物所具有的独特的典型的特征。
[3] characteristic 指某人或某物天生有别于他人或他物的内部特质或外表特征。
例6 Obscure (动词和形容词) 的主要意思是“遮挡”。很多同学以为“obscure”的意思就是“模糊”，
应该用fuzzy, blur, dark, faint 等的时候误用obscure。
[1] The black hole is obscured by the dust along the line of sight.
[2] The image of the star is fuzzy, because the telescope is out of focus.
[3] The image of the star is blurred, because the telescope ...
[4] The source appears to be dark (或者faint), because of the obscuration by the gas in front of it.
例7 “At last”和“Finally”不完全一样。如“Finally, we reconstruct the expansion history of the
Universe up to with the distance moduli of SNe Ia and GRBs.”Finally 换成 At last，意思是不同的：
前者的意思是，“最后，我们重建(了) ......”，后者的意思是“我们终于重建(了) ......”。
例8 “suspect or suspicious”(正面) 和“doubt or doubtful”(负面)。例子：
[1] We suspect that the observed deviation of data from the model prediction is caused by the
over-simplification of the model. (我们怀疑观测数据和模型的偏离是由于模型过分简化造成的。)
[2] We doubt that the observed deviation of data from the model prediction is caused by the over-simplification of the model. (我们怀疑观测数据和模型的偏离不是由于模型过分简化造成的。)
例9 distinction (定性的区别) 和difference (定量的不同)：
[1] A distinction should be made between a star and a planet.
[2] The difference between the two measurements is only 10%.
例10 “due to”, “because of”, “since”, “because”和“as”都有“因为”和“由于”的意思，但是使用起来
很不一样。
[1] However, due to the fact that (注意此处需要the fact that) the inner disk temperature or BB
temperature is lower than several keV, the disk or NS flux below 2 keV contributes a considerable
portion in the whole energy band.
或者可以改为：
[2] However, because of the fact that the inner disk ...
[3] However, since the inner disk ...
179 中国科学院上海天文台年刊 2010 年
[4] However, the disk or NS flux below 2 keV contributes a considerable portion in the whole energy
band, because the inner disk or BB temperature is lower than several keV.