春雨貴如油

句子：春雨貴如油。

誤譯：Spring rain is as expensive as oil.

正譯：Spring rain is as precious as (edible) oil.

解釋：expensive 的意思是costing a lot of money，即“昂貴”，需要花許多錢才能買到。而 precious 的意思是valuable or important and not to be wasted，即“寶貴”或“珍貴”，指有價(jià)值或重要而不可浪費(fèi)?！按河曩F如油”意思是指春雨因稀少而寶貴，而且是無價(jià)的，應(yīng)當(dāng)譯為precious，而不宜譯為expensive。我國采用人工增雨的方法，緩解旱情?！叭斯び辍?，可譯為artificial rain, man-made rain。如：

1. 市政府將求助于人工降雨，以使城市涼爽。The municipal government will resort to man-made rain to cool down the city.

“人工增雨”或“人工降雨”，英語可以譯為artificial rainmaking, artificial precipitation, artificial rain production, rain enhancement。例如：

2. 由于人工增雨，這個(gè)干旱地區(qū)昨天得到了一些雨水。Thanks to an artificial precipitation, this drought-stricken area received some rain yesterday.

3. 中國政府已實(shí)施人工方式在干旱省份造雨。The Chinese government has employed artificial means to create rains in drought-stricken provinces.

4. 地方政府正在進(jìn)行人工增雨，以緩解缺水狀況，并保證人與牲畜的飲用水。The local government is carrying out artificial precipitation to alleviate water shortage and ensure drinking water for both people and livestock.

5. 在這些干旱地區(qū)采取了人工增雨的行動(dòng)。Rain-enhancing practices were adopted in these drought-stricken regions.

漢語有“耕云播雨”的說法，比喻“人工降雨”。英語也有to seed clouds的說法，譯為“播云”。例如：

6. 自從20世紀(jì)40年代中期，科學(xué)家們就一直努力實(shí)施播云和人工降雨。Scientists have been trying to seed clouds and produce rain since the mid-1940s.▲

（本欄目供稿：王逢鑫教授）