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介词、连词在英文中的重要性不言而喻。英文的逻辑关系往往通过连词和介词加以体现。同时，英文中介词使用比中文中频繁得多，很多时候在中译英时介词使用得当往往会让译文简洁生动，避免行文结构拖沓冗长，拖泥带水。以下为两个介词、连词应用练习篇章，独立完成后参见答案和讲解，体会介词和连词使用的大致规律，为英汉、汉英翻译打下扎实基础。在讲解部分之后还有两个应用练习篇章供大家进行巩固训练。
ITALIAN cities such as Florence and Venice have long made a mint 1 the architectural wonders built when they were financial centres. China has been slower to capitalise 2 the physical remains 3 past commercial glory in Pingyao, an urban backwater 4 inland Shanxi Province, which was China's banking hub in the 19th century. Today tourists flock 5 the walled city, 6 its unusually well-preserved houses built between the 17th and 19th centuries. But restoring its former wealth remains elusive.
The most-visited attraction in modern Pingyao is the Rishengchang Draft Bank, which in 1823 became the first in China to issue cheques. The city lay 7 the path of a lucrative trade route. The bank’s manager spied a business opportunity when he saw silver shipments passing each other 8 opposite direction. He replaced pricey security, wagons and pack animals 9 a clearing house.
The bank spawned around 50 competitors across Shanxi （nearly half in Pingyao） 10 hundreds of branches 11 the empire. At the time Chinese bankers were held 12 lower esteem than peasants and tradesmen. They tried to keep staff honest 13 making them pledge their homes and even to surrender their families 14 slaves 15 they committed fraud; investors had no control 16 the banks’daily operations.
But it was not the staff that did for the banks. They collapsed soon after the Qing dynasty’s demise in 1911. The government withdrew its remittance business, currency unification removed the need 17 the silver trade 18 cities and competition grew 19 modern banks.
Pingyao’s ensuing poverty proved to be its saviour. Its picturesque grid 20 traditional imperial houses survived when most elsewhere succumbed 21 Mao’s hatred 22 the old and his successors’love 23 the new. Now it has reinvented itself. Around 1.5m people visited Pingyao in 2013, up from around 50,000 in 1997 24 UNESCO named it a world heritage site.
Hopes that the streets would again be lined 25 silver are overblown. The benefits 26 the tourist boom are spread only narrowly. A small, spruced-up central area thrums with visitors enjoying the curved rooftops, traditional facades, red lanterns and, strangely, Mao memorabilia. 27 the centre, many streets look like slums: roofs slump, walls are crumbling and waste is carried 28 by a horse rather than sewers. Few can afford to fix up their homes, even 29 financial support from the government and the California-based Global Heritage Fund, a charity that is helping to preserve some of China’s historical sites.
To declutter the town, four-fifths of the city’s population have been moved 30 the city walls since 1997. But the new town’s hotels and karaoke halls are often empty. A high-speed rail link that opened in July running from the nearby provincial capital, Taiyuan, to Xi’an （home of the crowd-pulling Terracotta Army）should draw the crowds. But ease 31 access also means ease 32 retreat: most sightseers come only for the day. Making money from moving people around China may prove harder than profiting from the movement of silver.
FEW people in Africa are fortunate enough to have savings to fall back 1 in their old age. Having enrolled 2 a voluntary state-run pension scheme, Stephen Okikiola was always luckier than most. But it was not until Nigeria obliged firms 3 five or more employees to provide workers 4 pensions in 2004 that the former pharmaceuticals executive really started accumulating cash. “It’s good to be able to rely on those monthly payments now that I am retired,”he says.
Nigeria has spent a decade resurrecting its pension system. Back 5 the turn of the century, government employees were enrolled 6 a defined-benefit system （in which eventual payments are fixed）. It had run up unfunded liabilities of 2 trillion naira （12.9 billion）. Governments seldom put 7 enough money to pay existing pensioners, let alone to cover future costs. Retirees often went unpaid. Most private companies, meanwhile, ignored their obligation to provide pensions 8 their workers. At those that did, allegations of mismanagement and fraud abounded.
All this changed 9 the reforms of 2004, which not only instituted mandatory pensions at most private firms, but also converted the government scheme from defined-benefit to defined-contribution （in which the risk of poor investment returns lies 10 the participants, not the sponsor）. The management of the government scheme was also outsourced, and a regulator created to oversee the industry. Since 2005, pension schemes’assets have grown by more than 25% a year on average, 11 about 4.2 trillion naira （26 billion）.
That is still a relatively small amount, especially 12 judged 13 the government’s massively expanded estimate of the size of the Nigerian economy. In April it nearly doubled its tally of GDP 14 510 billion. That reduced pension-scheme assets 15 about 5% of GDP, compared to 170% in the Netherlands, 131% in Britain and 113% in America.
Moreover, the vast majority of Nigerians work 16 informal jobs, and so do not have a pension: 17 a working population of perhaps 80m people, only around 6m participate in any sort of scheme. The government is trying to rectify that, too: a fresh set of reforms, passed in July, extended the obligation to provide a pension 18 firms employing three or more people. It also increased mandatory contributions from 7.5% of salary for both workers and employers to 8% and 10% respectively.
As a result, savings are expected to grow further. 19 law, all the money must be invested in Nigeria. The intention is to build a big pool of local cash that will reduce the country’s dependence on foreign aid, loans and investment. That goal has seemed all the more pressing since the prospect 20 rising interest rates in America caused an exodus 21 cash 22 emerging markets last year.
Nigeria’s overwhelmed infrastructure needs billions of dollars a year 23 investment. Pension schemes looking for long-term, local investments to match their liabilities could fund desperately-needed roads, ports, railways and houses. PenCom, the national regulator, is trying to promote investments 24 electricity generation, perhaps via the government’s huge privatisation programme. It also wants more forays 25 private equity.
26 things stand, however, pension funds are shunning alternative assets. Overall, infrastructure accounts for less than 2% of their assets, compared with 68% 27 government bonds and 13% 28 shares. That is partly because there are only two registered infrastructure funds in Nigeria and no dedicated infrastructure bonds.
Meanwhile, for the lucky few, life has improved. Former civil servants say they no longer have to queue for hours to collect their payments—the money goes straight 29 their accounts. And things have become more transparent. “Ghost workers”used to account for a huge proportion of payments disbursed, according to Demola Sogunle, the boss of Stanbic. Those days, he says, are now over.
大家在学习英语的过程中对介词和连词应该有了非常清楚的认识，这里只就翻译过程中经常涉及的重点摘要讲述。
1. 大会、协议、合同、条约、法律等涉及的内容，往往通过“on”来连接，具体案例如下。
大会类：
Conference on Disarmament；
the 2015 White House Conference on Aging；
the 2014 Asian Conference on the Life Sciences and Sustainability；
the Fifth International Conference on Communications and Electronics；
the Third International Conference on Communications and Information Technology.
协议、合同、条约类：
Agreement on Rules of Origin （原产地规则协议）；
Agreement on Safeguards （WTO保障措施协议）；
the Rio+20 Treaty on Higher Education;
Singapore Treaty on the Law of Trademarks;
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade （GATT）;
the General Agreement on Trade in Services （GATS）;
Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons （NPT）;
the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea （UNCLOS）；
Treaty on the Southeast Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone （Bangkok Treaty）.
法律类：
Sharia Law on Divorce；
Common Law on Trademark Abandonment；
Law on the Protection of Trademarks and other Signs；
Law on the Protection of Literary and Artistic Property；
Law on the Protection of Rights and Interests of Women；
Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests.
2. 有关某方面上升、下降、增加、减少介词选用“in”，具体案例如下。
rise in population of elderly；
the biggest rise in population;
16% rise in population;
a spike in investment activity;
spike in first half investment;
benefit from spike in prices;
huge spike in London hotel investment in Q1;
the increase in the green coverage area;
an increase in cost of living;
a surprise drop in US job creation;
drop in unemployment;
the drop in labor force;
a decline in domestic violence;
a decline in competence;
a decline in operating profit.
3. 关于“as”必须予以重视，这里重点学习“as”作为连词引导事实背景，中文的大致意思就是“随着……”，“在……的背景下”，逻辑上来讲属于主句的原因，在讲授汉英翻译技巧时也会再次学习作为“三剑客”之一的“as”。具体案例如下。
As population ages, driving issues will increase.
As Connecticut population ages, elder abuse rises.
As pollution worsens, China turns to big data.
Texas pollution worsens as budget shrinks for regulators.
China’s manufacturers feel the squeeze as costs rise.
4. 其他的介词使用规则需要平时点滴积累，特别是固定词组搭配，绝对不能掉以轻心。
FOR months the world has sat largely idle 1 an Ebola epidemic has marched steadily from the remote jungles 2 Guinea to the slums 3 Liberia, and beyond. 4 September 16th that changed. Barack Obama announced the largest humanitarian deployment by America’s armed forces to fight an infectious disease. Saying that the epidemic “is not just a threat 5 regional security—it’s a potential threat 6 global security 7 these countries break down”, the president began the process of sending some 3,000 American troops to set up treatment centres with 1,700 beds and to train local health workers.
The dispatch of troops to west Africa may seem an odd priority 8 American forces are preparing to confront jihadists in Iraq and Syria and are stretched thin elsewhere. Ebola is a disease that is usually absent 9 human populations, has been quickly stamped 10 in the past and in its worst recorded outbreak has thus far caused 3,000 known deaths. Moreover it is unlikely to spread widely in rich countries 11 good health-care systems. Set 12 killers such as HIV, the virus that kills some 1.6m people a year, or tuberculosis （TB）, which takes another 1.3m lives, an expensive fight against Ebola may seem a misallocation of resources.
Yet Ebola is now growing exponentially, 13 the number of new cases roughly doubling every three weeks or so. In Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, it is thought to be doubling every two weeks. Previous outbreaks were usually in rural villages 14 it was easier to contain. 15 this rate of progress, small numbers quickly become big ones, and there is a real risk 16 the disease spreading to cities such as Lagos, which is home 17 more than 10m people. The longer Ebola is allowed to replicate 18 humans, the greater the risk that it will become more contagious. Some virologists fret that it might even acquire the ability to be transmitted 19 the air 20 coughs and sneezes. Although this seems unlikely, nobody wants to find out just how quickly Ebola can adapt to humans.
Two things are urgently needed. The first is the rapid provision 21 basic protective gear such as gloves, gowns, surgical masks and disinfectant. Domestic health systems in affected countries have crumbled 22 nurses and doctors have fallen ill or died 23 lack of basic gear.
The second need is for trained staff to run the treatment centres and work in them. Poorly run ones 24 weak infection controls may hasten the spread of the disease. Both are needed soon, 25 the cost of halting Ebola’s spread is also rising exponentially. In August the World Health Organisation estimated that it would take nine months and cost $490m to contain Ebola. Now it reckons the cost has risen to over $1 billion. The longer the world prevaricates, the harder and costlier it will be to contain this outbreak.
LAST summer, researchers at Yale published a study proving that physicists, chemists and biologists are likely to view a young male scientist more favorably than a woman 1 the same qualifications. Presented 2 identical summaries of the accomplishments of two imaginary applicants, professors 3 six major research institutions were significantly more willing to offer the man a job. If they did hire the woman, they set her salary, on average, nearly $4,000 lower than the man’s. Surprisingly, female scientists were as biased as their male counterparts.
The new study goes a long way 4 providing hard evidence 5 a continuing bias against women in the sciences.
As one of the first two women to earn a bachelor of science degree 6 physics 7 Yale—I graduated in 1978—this question concerns me deeply. I attended a rural public school whose few accelerated courses 8 physics and calculus I wasn’t allowed to take because, as my principal put it, “girls never go on 9 science and math.”Angry and bored, I began reading about space and time and teaching myself calculus from a book. When I arrived 10 Yale, I was woefully unprepared. The boys in my introductory physics class, who had taken far more rigorous math and science classes in high school, yawned 11 our professor sped 12 the material, 13 I grew panicked 14 how little I understood. The only woman in the room, I debated whether to raise my hand and expose myself 15 ridicule, thereby losing track of the lecture and falling further behind.
In the end, I graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, 16 honors in the major, having excelled 17 the department’s three-term sequence in quantum mechanics and a graduate course 18 gravitational physics, all while teaching myself to program Yale’s mainframe computer. But I didn’t go into physics 19 a career. At the end of four years, I was exhausted by all the lonely hours I spent catching up 20 my classmates, hiding my insecurities, struggling to do my problem sets while the boys worked 21 teams to finish theirs. I was tired of dressing one way to be taken seriously as a scientist while dressing another to feel feminine. And 22 some of the men I wanted to date weren’t put off by my major, many of them were.
Mostly, though, I didn’t go on in physics because not a single professor—not even the adviser who supervised my senior thesis—encouraged me to go to graduate school. Certain this meant I wasn’t talented enough to succeed in physics, I left the rough draft of my senior thesis outside my adviser’s door and slunk away 23 shame. Pained by the dream I had failed to achieve, I locked my textbooks, lab reports and problem sets in my father’s army footlocker and turned my back 24 physics and math forever.
Not until 2005, when Lawrence Summers, then president of Harvard, wondered aloud at a lunchtime talk why more women don’t end up holding tenured positions 25 the hard sciences, did I feel compelled to reopen that footlocker. I have known Summers since my teens, when he judged my high-school debate team, and he has always struck me 26 an admirer 27 smart women. When he suggested—among several other pertinent reasons—that innate disparities 28 scientific and mathematical aptitude at the very highest end of the spectrum might account for the paucity of tenured female faculty, I got the sense that he had asked the question because he genuinely cared about the answer. I was taken aback by his suggestion that the problem might have something to do with biological inequalities between the sexes, but as I read the heated responses to his comments, I realized that even I wasn’t sure why so many women were still giving up 29 physics and math 30 completing advanced degrees. I decided to look up my former classmates and professors, review the research 31 women’s performance in STEM fields and return to Yale to see what, if anything, had changed since I studied there. I wanted to understand why I had walked away from my dream, and why so many other women still walk away from theirs.
练习一
1. from 2. on 3. of 4. in 5. to
6. with 7. on 8. in 9. with 10. with
11. across 12. in 13. by 14. as 15. if
16. over 17. for 18. between 19. from 20. of
21. to 22. of 23. of 24. when 25. with
26. of 27. Beyond 28. away 29. with 30. outside
31. of 32. of
练习二
1. on 2. in 3. with 4. with 5. at
6. in 7. aside 8. for 9. with 10. with
11. to 12. when 13. against 14. to 15. to
16. in 17. of 18. to 19. By 20. of
21. of 22. from 23. in 24. in 25. into
26. As 27. for 28. for 29. to
练习一
1. as 2. of 3. of 4. On 5. to
6. to 7. if 8. when 9. from 10. out
11. with 12. against 13. with 14. where 15. At
16. of 17. to 18. in 19. through 20. by
21. of 22. as 23. for 24. with 25. as
练习二
1. with 2. with 3. at 4. toward 5. of
6. in 7. from 8. in 9. in 10. at
11. as 12. through 13. while 14. at 15. to
16. with 17. in 18. in 19. as 20. to
21. in 22. while 23. in 24. on 25. in
26. as 27. of 28. in 29. on 30. before
31. on