Harvard University Commencement Address

J.K. Rowling

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates,

浮士德主席，哈佛公司和监察委员会的各位成员，大学的员工，自豪的父母，以及所有的毕业生们：

The first thing I would like to say is 'thank you.' Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I've experienced at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and fool myself into believing I am at the world's best-educated Harry Potter convention.

首先我想说的是“谢谢你们”。这不仅因为哈佛给了我非比寻常的荣誉，而且为了这几个礼拜以来，由于想到这次毕业典礼演说而产生的恐惧与恶心让我减肥成功。这真是一个双赢的局面！现在我需要做的就是一次深呼吸，眯着眼看着红色的横幅，然后欺骗自己，让自己相信正在参加世界上受到最好教育群体的哈立波特大会。

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can't remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.

做毕业典礼演说是一个重大的责任，我的思绪回到了自己的那次毕业典礼。那天的演讲者是一位英国的杰出哲学家 Baroness Marry Warnock. 对她演讲的回忆对我写这篇演讲稿帮助巨大，因为我发现她说的话我居然一个字都没有记住。这个发现让我释然，使我得以继续写完演讲稿，我不用再担心，那种想成为"gay wizard"（harry porter中的魔法大师）的眩晕的愉悦，可能会误导你们放弃在商业、法律、政治领域的大好前途。

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the 'gay wizard' joke, I've still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step towards personal improvement.

你们看，如果你们在若干年后能记住“gay wizard”这个笑话，我就比Barkoness Mary Warnock有进步了。 所以，设定一个可以实现的目标是个人进步的第一步。

Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that has expired between that day and this.

实际上，我已经绞尽脑汁、费劲心思去想今天我应该讲什么好。我问自己：我希望在自己毕业那天已经知道的是什么，而又有哪些重要的教训是我从那天开始到现在的21年间学会的。

I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called 'real life', I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.

我想到了两个答案。在今天这个愉快的日子，我们聚在一起庆祝你们学习上的成功时，我决定和你们谈谈失败的收益。另外，当你们如今处于“现实生活”的入口处时，我想向你们颂扬想象力的重要性。

These might seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.

我选择的这两个答案似乎如同堂吉诃德式幻想一样不切实际，或者显得荒谬，但是请容忍我讲下去。

Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.

对于我这样一个已经42岁的人来说，回头看自己21岁毕业时的情景，并不是一件舒服的事情。我的前半生之前，我一直在自己内心的追求与最亲近的人对我的要求之间进行不自在的抗争。

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that could never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.

我曾确信我自己唯一想做的事情是写小说。但是我的父母都来自贫穷的家庭，都没有上过大学，他们认为我的异常活跃的想象力只是滑稽的个人怪癖，并不能用来付抵押房产，或者确保得到退休金。

They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents' car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.

他们曾希望我去拿一个职业文凭，而我想读英国文学。最后,我们达成了一个回想起来双方都不甚满意的妥协：我改学现代语言。可是等到父母一走开，我立刻报名学习古典文学了。

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.

我忘了自己是怎么把学古典文学的事情告诉父母的了，他们也可能是在我毕业那天才第一次发现。在这个星球上的所有科目中，我想他们很难再发现一门比希腊神学更没用的课程了。

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.

我想顺带着说明，我并没有因为他们的观点而抱怨他们。现在已经不是抱怨父母引导自己走错方向的时候了，如今的你们已经足够大来决定自己前进的路程，责任要靠自己承担。而且，我也不能批评我的父母，他们是希望我能摆脱贫穷。他们以前遭受了贫穷，我也曾经贫穷过，对于他们认为贫穷并不高尚的观点我也坚决同意。贫穷会引起恐惧、压力，有时候甚至是沮丧。这意味着小心眼、卑微和很多艰难困苦。通过自己的努力摆脱贫穷确实是件很值得自豪的事情，但只有傻瓜才对贫穷本身夸夸其谈。

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

我在你们这个年龄的时候，最害怕的不是贫穷，而是失败。

At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.

在你们这个年龄，尽管我明显缺少在大学学习的动力，我花了很多时间在咖啡吧写故事，很少去听课，但是我知道通过考试的技巧，当然，这也是好多年来评价我，以及我同龄人是否成功的标准。

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

我想说，并不是我太迟钝，我觉得你们还不曾知道什么是艰难困苦，或者什么是心碎的感觉，因为你们还年轻，而且天资聪明，受到良好教育。但是天赋和智商还未能使任何人免于命运无常的折磨，我从来不认为这里的每个人已经享有平静的恩典和满足。

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person's idea of success, so high have you already flown academically.

然而，你们能从哈佛毕业这个现实表明，你们对失败还不是很熟悉，对于失败的恐惧与对于成功的渴望可能对你们有相同的驱动力。确实，你们对于失败的概念可能与普通人的成功差不了太多。你们在学习这方面已经站得相当高了！

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

当然，最终我们所有人不得不为自己决定什么是失败的组成元素，但是如果你愿意的话，世界很愿意给你一堆的标准。基于任何一种传统标准，我可以说，仅仅在我毕业7年后，我经历了一次巨大的失败。我突然间结束了一段短暂的婚姻，失去了工作。作为一个单身妈妈，而且在这个现代化的英国，除了不是无家可归，你可以说我有多穷就有多穷。我父母对于我的担心，以及我对自己的担心都成了现实，从任何一个通常的标准来看，这是我知道的最大失败。

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

现在，我不会站在这里和你们说失败很好玩。我生命的那段时间非常的灰暗，那时我还不知道我的书会被新闻界认为是神话故事的革命，我也不知道这段灰暗的日子要持续多久。那时候的很长一段时间里，任何出现的光芒只是希望而不是现实。

作家冰心正在路上走着，听见路边的喇叭正播放她的一篇作品。听着听着，就不由自主地停了下来。冰心怎么也没想到，自己的文章经过播音员读出来，竟变得如此感人！文章经过播音员的朗诵加工，得到了升华，达到了一个更高的境界。这里是播音员的动人的语音语调的魔力起了作用。冰心激动不已，决心要找到这位播音员，好好地跟她谈一谈，好好地向她学习。经过多番努力，冰心的愿望终于实现了。两人一见如故，很快就成了莫逆之交。

说起语音语调，我就不禁想起我的一位大学老师。他说的是一口标准的灵格风贵族式英语，对语调研究得很深。他说的英语很有味道，而且他的话也很有内涵。听他的课简直就是一种享受。有一天，他给我们讲语调，在黑板上写了大大的：‘Come in. ‘让我们上去划出尽可能多的语调曲线，并说出各种语调的背景。同学们热情很高，纷纷抢上去发言，并划出各种语调曲线。可是划出了六条曲线之后就没人上去了。因为大家再也想不出还有什么别的语调了。这时老师就来帮大家分析：那六种语调实际上才是五种，里边有两种是重复的。老师又在黑板上划出了八种曲线，并一一加以解释。这时我们才如大梦初醒。语调里竟有这么大的学问，一个小学生都会的‘Come in.‘读起来竟然有这么多的变化！从此以后，我们再也不敢小瞧英语的语音语调了。

我教学生时，我对学生的语音语调十分重视，让他们背课文时是先检查语音语调，如果背得一字不错，但是语音语调错了，我也算他错。有一次，有个学生背诵时字字正确，但语调错了。我说他错了。他不服气。我就说：’这句话是主人公在生气时说的，而你平平淡淡的读出来。如果让你来当电影导演，你的演员这样背台词，你能让他通过吗？’他才没话说了。

图片和文字的不同大家都很清楚，但讲出来的话和文字的不同就有很多人没注意到。语音语调里含有很多感情成分，情绪成分，有时还有很多非常微妙的东西，都是用文字很难以表达的。所以对语音语调是万万不可掉以轻心的。要认真揣摩里边细微的变化，掌握语音语调的真谛。

学英语的很多朋友只注意单词，不注意语音语调，用中国的语音语调来听英语，结果很多单词老是听不出来。他们就埋怨录音不好。其实这是因为英语的语调和汉语的语调的不同所致。英语的语调像一条丝带，或是一段歌曲，词词相连，轻的（介词，冠词，代词，连词，叹词）可以轻到几乎听不清楚，没经过训练的人有时一句只听到几个重读的词（名词，动词，副词，形容词，数词）。汉语的语调则像锯齿，字字另起音，字字清楚。因为英语读起来是像一条带子，所以就有所谓的连读，有时一连起来滴里嘟噜的，很难分辨那个音是那个词的，这在汉语是没有的。用听汉语的方法来听英语，当然听不清楚了。

最后我还要谈一谈[新概念英语]。有一位学者在[英语世界]上发表文章说：‘[新概念英语]的录音完全可以和最经典的[灵格风英语]相媲美。‘这就是说，[新概念英语]的录音是英语录音的又一巅峰之作，是英语录音的瑰宝。全国的外语院校每年都要举行一年一度的学术交流会。参加的有老师和一些优秀的学生。有一次交流会上，一位北外的学生上台讲了他的学习体会。他的语音语调令所有的在场学生佩服得五体投地。他的讲话一结束，就被同学们围了起来。大家纷纷问他是如何学到如此精彩的语调的。他说他是背[新概念英语]学来的。大家都不相信。要知道，能参加这个交流会的都是各校的尖子，谁没学过[新概念英语]？他是个聪明人，马上就看出来大家的想法了。他问大家是怎么背的。大家都说是先读，然后听录音并跟读，最后背下来。他笑了笑，说：‘我不是这样学的。我是先读，然后听并跟读，再把课文连同语音语调一起背下来，反复练习，直到自己认为读得和原录音差不多了，就录下音。再用两台录音机同时放原录音和我的录音。要两台录音机放出来的音听起来好像是合唱时我才罢手。‘高手是如此珍爱新概念英语的录音，而我们很多朋友对新概念英语的录音只是听几遍就放到一边去了，岂不是把这举世瑰宝给白白浪费了！希望大家也能像那位高手一样好好珍爱[新概念英语]的录音，让这块举世瑰宝放出更耀眼的光芒！

我说了这么多，就是希望朋友们学英语一定要认真的学好语音语调，才能学得快，学得好，真正把英语学到手。

[灵格风英语]是风行世界近百年的经典英语教材，其录音语音语调都堪称世界第一。但是其语调是贵族式的，如准备到上层社会去使用，就比较合适。[新概念英语]的语调是平民式的，比较适合一般人在一般场合使用，所以近年来更受欢迎。

你的读音和语调都不错。开始的时候或许会觉得[新概念]读得有点装腔作势，因为那是英式读法，就该如此。新概念的语音语调是现在最好的了，不要对它有任何怀疑。书法中有一句话：先要[无我]，然后才能[有我]。就是说在学习之初，就要绝对无条件地照着学，不能有丝毫的自己的意见。等到学会了，才可以有自己独到的见解。因为初时脑子里根本没有树立正确的参照物，没鉴别对和错的能力。