英语翻译20.My generation—the generation that came of age in the 1 950s and 1 960s—may be the last one to know the feeling of being surrounded by millions of words that were the products of years of work by authors famous and obscure.For now,i

英语翻译20.My generation—the generation that came of age in the 1 950s and 1 960s—may be the last one to know the feeling of being surrounded by millions of words that were the products of years of work by authors famous and obscure.For now,i
英语翻译
20.My generation—the generation that came of age in the 1 950s and 1 960s—may be the last one to know the feeling of being surrounded by millions of words that were the products of years of work by authors famous and obscure.For now,in the midst of the 1970s,we are seeing a subtle but unmistakable turning away from such things.The houses of America,I fear,may soon include no room for libraries.The hardcover book—that symbol of the permanence of thought,the handing down of wisdom from one age to the next—may be a new addition to our list of endangered species.
I have a friend who runs a bookstore in a Midwestern college town.He has found that he cannot sell hardback books; paperback books are his stock in trade,and even those are a disappointment to him."You know how we used to see people carrying around book bags?" he tells me."Well,now I look out of the window of my shop,and all I see are students carrying packages from the record stores.The students aren't reading any more.They're listening to albums."
And indeed he may be right.Stories of problems young people have with reading are not new,but the trend seems to be worsening.Recently the chancellor of the University of Illinois's branch campus in Chicago said that 10 percent of the freshmen at his university could read no better than the average eighth grader.As dismal a commentary as this is,there is an even more chilling aspect to it:of those college freshmen whose reading skills were equivalent to the sixth-to-eighth-grade level,the chancellor reported that many had ranked in the top half of their high-school classes.

英语翻译20.My generation—the generation that came of age in the 1 950s and 1 960s—may be the last one to know the feeling of being surrounded by millions of words that were the products of years of work by authors famous and obscure.For now,i
我这一代（于五六十年代成年的一代）可能是能感受到被亿万文字包围的最后一代人,那些文字可是作者们多年的智慧结晶.现在（七十年代中期）,我们能发现微小但明显的转变,我担心,不久以后书房会从美国人的家里消失.精装书--思想永恒的标志,将智慧从一代传到另一代--可能会被列入濒危物种名单中.
我有一个朋友,在中西部的大学城经营一家书店,他发现精装书卖不出去了,所以他就卖平装书,尽管如此,他仍然很沮丧.他对我说：“你知道我们以前经常看到学生随身携带书包,现在每当我往窗外看时,他们都是从音像店出来的,这些学生不再看书了,他们在听歌.”
他的确是对的,年轻人不看书的问题已经不新鲜,但这个趋势似乎在恶化,最近芝加哥伊利诺伊大学分校的校长表示,他学校10%的大一新生的阅读水平好不过八年级学生的平均水平.这不是一个好消息,然而有更加令人寒心的数据,在这些与六到八年级学生阅读水平相当的大一新生中,很多学生还排在他们班前一半.
应该可以更加通顺,