[3] This book is very good, even (甚至) better than the most popular book written by...
例25 primary 的意思，几乎所有的学生都在使用primary 的时候误用作“初始”(initial) 或者“初
级”(elementary) 或者“非正式”(preliminary)。实际上primary 的主要意思是“主要”。例子：
[1] The energy spectrum of this source is consisted of two components; the primary (主要) component
is a blackbody with a temperature of 1 keV and the secondary (次要) component is a power-law with
a photon index of -2.
[2] After analyzing these data, our preliminary (初步) conclusion is that this accretion disk has an
inner disk radius of 20 km.
[3] After analyzing these data, our primary (主要) conclusion is that this accretion disk has an inner
disk radius of 20 km.
1.6 冠词
181 中国科学院上海天文台年刊 2010 年
例26 可数名词以单数出现的时候前面必须加冠词“a”或者“the”。“a”是不定冠词，没有特指的含
意;“the”是定冠词，必须有特指。比如：
[1] (a) I bought a book about Einstein yesterday. (有很多关于爱因斯坦的书，我买了其中的一本，
但是从这句话了你无法了解到底是哪一本。)
[1] (b) I bought the book about Einstein we discussed in the class yesterday.
[1] (c) I bought the book about Einstein's love stories.
[1] (d) I bought the book about Einstein. (尽管没有明确指出，但是谈话的双方都知道是哪一本书，
或者世界上只有一本关于爱因斯坦的书。)
[2] I bought three books about Einstein's general relativity. (随便三本。)
[3] I bought the three books about Einstein's general relativity. (只有三本。)
[4] I bought the three most popular books about Einstein's general relativity. (三本最受欢迎的。)
[5] I bought three most popular books about Einstein's general relativity. (最受欢迎的其中三本。)
[2]—[5] 的意思完全不同。
例27 “the equation 3”,“the table 4”,“the figure 5”都是错误的，因为“the”都不需要。
例28 “In above calculations, we have ... ”改为
“In the above calculations, we have ... ”(显然是特指。)
例29 same 前面一般加the，因为是特指。
比如“The same method is also used here. ”几乎所有同学都错误地成“Same method
is also used here.”
再比如“We have chosen the cross-correlation method, the same as that used by Ling & Zhang
(2006).”是正确的。
例30 single 后面如果是可数名词单数的话，仍然需要在single 前面加“a”或者“the”，比如“a single
book”，“the single tree”。
例31 物理量符号前面一般不需要加“the”，因为已经是特指了。例如“Empirically, γ
is roughly correlated to observed peak (需改为the observed peak) spectral energy Ep by lg Ep =(2.76 ±
0.07) - (3.61 ± 0.26) lg γ. We employ this empirical relation to estimate the (删除the) Ep of Swift
GRBs and correct the observed peak luminosity to a bolometric band.”但是“We employ this
empirical relation to estimate the peak energy Ep of Swift GRBs and correct the observed peak
luminosity to a bolometric band.”就是正确的。
例32 “If there is sufficient amount of matter around a black hole ... ”修改为“If there is a sufficient
amount of matter around a black hole ... ”。
例33 对于英文单词前不定冠词a 和an 的用法。元音字面开始的单词前面加an，辅音字母开始
182 中国科学院上海天文台年刊 2010 年
的单词前面加a，但是有几个地方需要注意：a uniform (因为这里u 的发音是辅音)，an hour (因
为这里h 不发音)。有两类用法原则上都是正确的。
(1) 按照缩的第一个字母代表的单词前面加a 或者an。如“a NLS1 galaxy”(“a Narrow Line
Seyfert 1 galaxy”), or“an UV peak”(an ultraviolet peak) 都是正确的。
(2) 按照因为缩的第一个字母的发音，元音发音的前面加an，辅音发音的前面加a。因此“A、
E、F、H、I、L、M、N、O、R、S、X”前面加an，“B、C、D、G、J、K、P、Q、T、U、V、
W、Y、Z”前面加a。例如“a NLS1 galaxy”和“a UV bump”也都是正确的。但是第二种用法更加普
遍被接受，因此建议全部使用第二种用法。如果你坚持一定要使用第一种用法，则最好整篇文