在意譯與音譯方面要多加注意，在英語中中文的名稱可以找到對應的詞。下面是小編為大家整理的out of step課文翻譯，歡迎閱讀。

　　Out of Step

　　Bill Bryson

　　After living in England for 20 years, my wife and I decided to move back to the United States. We wanted to live in a town small enough that we could walk to the business district, and settled on Hanover, N.H., a typical New England town — pleasant, sedate and compact. It has a broad central green surrounded by the venerable buildings of Dartmouth College, an old-fashioned Main Street and leafy residential neighborhoods. 2 It is, in short, an agreeable, easy place to go about one’s business on foot, and yet as far as I can tell, virtually no one does.

　　Nearly every day, I walk to the post office or library or bookstore, and sometimes, if I am feeling particularly debonair, I stop at Rosey Jekes Café for a cappuccino. Occasionally, in the evenings, my wife and I stroll up to the Nugget Theatre for a movie or to Murphy’s on the Green for a beer, I wouldn’t dream of going to any of these places by car. People have gotten used to my eccentric behavior, but in the early days acquaintances would often pull up to the curb and ask if I wanted a ride.

　　“I’m going your way,” they would insist when I politely declined. “Really, it’s no bother.”

　　“Honestly, I enjoy walking.”

　　“Well, if you’re sure,” they would say and depart reluctantly, even g uiltily, as if leaving the scene of an accident without giving their name.

　　In the United States we have become so habituated to using the car for everything that it doesn’t occur to us to unfurl our legs and see what those lower limbs can do. We have reached an age where college students expect to drive between classes, where parents will drive three blocks to pick up their children from a friend’s house, where the letter carrier takes his van up and down every driveway on a street.

　　We will go through the most extraordinary contortions to save ourselves from walking. Sometimes it’s almost ludicrous. The other day I was waiting to bring home one of my children from a piano lesson when a car stopped outside a post office, and a man about my age popped out and dashed inside. He was in the post office for about three or four minutes, and then came out, got in the car and drove exactly 16 feet (I had nothing better to do, so I paced it off) to the general store6 next door.

　　And the thing is, this man looked really fit. I’m sure he jogs extravagant distances and plays squash and does all kinds of healthful things, but I am just as sure that he drives to  each of these undertakings.

　　An acquaintance of ours was complaining the other day about the difficulty of finding a place to park outside the local gymnasium. She goes there several times a week to walk on a treadmill. The gymnasium is, at most, a six-minute walk from her front door.

　　11 I asked her why she didn’t walk to the gym and do six minutes less on the treadmill. 12 She looked at me as if I were tragically simple-minded and said, “But I have a program for the treadmill. It records my distance and speed and calorie burn rate, and I can adjust it for degree of difficulty.”

　　I confess it had not occurred to me how thoughtlessly deficient nature is in this regard.

　　According to a concerned and faintly horrified 1997 editorial in the Boston Globe, the United States spent less than one percent of its transportation budget on facilities for pedestrians. Actually, I’m surprised it was that much. Go to almost any suburb developed in the last 30 years, and you will not find a sidewalk anywhere. Often you won’t find a single pedestrian crossing.

　　I had this brought home to me one summer when we were driving across Maine and stopped for coffee in one of those endless zones of shopping malls, motels, gas stations and fast-food places. I noticed there was a bookstore across the street, so I decided to skip coffee and head over.

　　Although the bookshop was no more than 70 or 80 feet away, I discovered that there was no way to cross on foot without dodging over six lanes of swiftly moving traffic. In the end, I had to get in our car and drive across.

　　At the time, it seemed ridiculous and exasperating, but afterward I realized that I was possibly the only person ever to have entertained the notion of negotiating that intersection on foot.

　　The fact is, we not only don’t walk anywhere anymore in this country, we won’t walk anywhere, and woe to anyone who tries to make us, as the city of Laconia, N.H., discovered. In the early 1970s, Laconia spent millions on a comprehensive urban renewal project, which included building a pedestrian mall to make shopping more pleasant. Esthetically it was a triumph — urban planners came from all over to coo and take photos--but commercially it was a disaster. Forced to walk one whole block from a parking garage, shoppers abandoned downtown Laconia for suburban malls.

　　In 1994 Laconia dug up its pretty paving blocks, took away the tubs of geraniums and decorative trees, and brought back the cars. Now people can park right in front of the stores again, and downtown Laconia thrives anew.

　　And if that isn’t sad. I don’t know what is.

　　不合拍

　　比爾·布里森

　　在英格蘭住了20年之后，我和妻子決定搬回美國。因為想住在．二-個可以步行到商業區的小城鎮，所以我們決定定居在新罕布什爾州的漢諾威，一個典型的新英格蘭城鎮，令人愉快、寧靜而緊湊。城鎮中心有一大塊寬闊的綠地，周圍是達特茅斯學院那莊嚴的建筑、一條老式的主干道和綠樹成蔭的住宅區。

　　總之，這是一個怡人、舒適的地方，適合步行去上班。不過據我所知，實際上沒有什么人這樣做。

　　我幾乎每天都步行去郵局、圖書館或書店，有時，如果心情極好，我會在羅斯杰克斯咖啡店喝上一杯卡布奇諾咖啡。有時，我會和妻子在晚上漫步到納吉特劇院看上一場電影，或是到格林街的莫菲店喝杯啤酒。我做夢都沒想過開車去這些地方。人們對我的古怪行為已經習以為常，但是開始的時候，熟人們會將車停在路邊，問我是否要搭車。

　　“我和你同路，”他們堅持道，“真的，一點也不麻煩。”而我婉言謝絕。

　　“說實話，我喜歡步行。”

　　“哦，那隨你吧，”他們這么說著然后不情愿地離開了，甚至帶著點負罪感，就好像離開了事故現場卻沒有留下姓名。

　　在美國，我們已經習慣于事事用車，時時開車，我們都沒想過伸展雙腿，看看自己的下肢到底能做些什么。我們已經進入了這樣一個時代，大學生希望課間開車去上課，父母會開車去三個街區外的朋友家接孩子，郵遞員在街上開車在每一條私人車道上進進出出。

　　為了不走路，我們愿意忍受最可怕的身體扭曲。有時甚至到了愚蠢可笑的地步。一天，我正在等著接上鋼琴課的孩子回家，這時一輛汽車停在了郵局I"1口，車門砰地一聲打開了，一位男士和我年齡相仿，他走下車沖進郵局。只在郵局里呆了三四分鐘，他就出了郵局，鉆進汽車，開了16英尺(我也沒什么事可干，正好用步子量了量) 到隔壁的百貨商店。

　　情況是這樣的，這個人看上去身體健康。我相信他會長跑、會打壁球，參與其他各種有益于健康的運動，但是我也相信他會開車前往這些運動場所。

　　某日我們的一位熟人抱怨本地健身會所外很難找到停車的地方，她一周有幾次會去那里在走步機上鍛煉身體。從這個健身會所走路到她家前門最多6分鐘。

　　我問她為什么不步行到健身房，這樣在走步機上少走6分鐘就行了。

　　她看著我，好像我是個可憐的傻瓜似的，然后說，“但是步行機上有我的鍛煉程序。它記錄我鍛煉的距離、時間和卡路里的消耗量，我還可以利用它調整鍛煉的難易程度。”

　　我承認，過去我從來沒有意識到我對這個問題是多么地思慮不周。

　　1997年《波士頓環球報》刊載的一篇有點駭人聽聞的相關社論說，美國在專為行人

　　做出的交通設施預算不到全部交通預算的百分之一。事實上，讓我驚訝的是預算數目還挺高的。到幾乎所有近30年來發展形成的市郊走走看看，你會發現那里沒有一條人行道，很多時候連人行橫道都找不到。

　　發現這個問題是在某個夏天，我開車經過緬因州，在一個購物中心、汽車旅館、快餐店林立的地方我想停車喝杯咖啡。看到街對面有家書店，我決定不喝咖啡直接去書店。

　　盡管書店僅在七八十英尺之遙，我卻發現沒有任何辦法可以步行過街，除非你能在汽車急馳的六個車道上左閃右避。最后，我不得不回到車里開車過馬路。

　　那時，我覺得荒唐至極并且氣急敗壞。但是，事后我想到，自己可能是惟一一個想到要步行穿過那個十字路口的人。

　　事實在于，在這個國家我們不但現在不會步行前往任何地方，將來也不會步行前往任何地方。而且正如在新罕布什爾州的拉哥尼亞市所發生的事情那樣，誰要讓我們走路誰就會倒霉。在20世紀70年代早期，拉哥尼亞市耗資數百萬進行全面的市區重建計劃，其中包括一個讓購物更加愉快的步行購物廣場。在美學上這是一次成功之舉——眾多城市規劃者從各地趕來，相互交換意見并拍照留念——但是從商業上講，這是一個巨大的失敗。由于從停車場不得不步行整整一個街區，購物者們放棄了拉哥尼亞的中心城區而轉向市郊購物。

　　1994年拉哥尼亞刨掉了漂亮的路面，移走了一盆盆的天竺葵和用來美化環境的樹木，帶回了一輛輛汽車。現在人們又可以直接在商場門口停車了，拉哥尼亞的市中心地區又恢復了往昔的繁榮。

　　如果那不是悲哀的話，我都不知道什么是悲哀了。

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