A chance in a million

原文

We are less credulous than we used to be. In the nineteenth century, a novelist would bring his story to a conclusion by presenting his readers with a series of coincidences -- most of them wildly improbable. Readers happily accepted the fact that an obscure maidservant was really the hero's mother. A long-lost brother, who was presumed dead, was really alive all the time and wickedly plotting to bring about the hero's downfall. And so on. Modern readers would find such naive solution totally unacceptable. Yet, in real life, circumstances do sometimes conspire to bring about coincidences which anyone but a nineteenth century novelist would find incredible.

When I was a boy, my grandfather told me how a German taxi driver, Franz Bussman, found a brother who was thought to have been killed twenty years before. While on a walking tour with his wife, he stooped to talk to a workman. After they had gone on, Mrs. Bussman commented on the workman's close resemblance to her husband and even suggested that he might be his brother. Franz poured scorn on the idea, pointing out that his brother had been killed in action during the war. Though Mrs. Busssman fully acquainted with this story, she thought that there was a chance in a million that she might be right. A few days later, she sent a boy to the workman to ask him if his name was Hans Bussman. Needless to say, the man's name was Hans Bussman and he really was Franz's long-lost brother. When the brothers were reunited, Hans explained how it was that he was still alive. After having been wounded towards the end of the war, he had been sent to hospital and was separated from his unit. The hospital had been bombed and Hans had made his way back into Western Germany on foot. Meanwhile, his unit was lost and all records of him had been destroyed. Hans returned to his family home, but the house had been bombed and no one in the neighbourhood knew what had become of the inhabitants. Assuming that his family had been killed during an air raid, Hans settled down in a village fifty miles away where he had remained ever since.

译文

我们不像过去那样轻信了。在十九世纪，小说家们常常通过一连串的巧合来结束他们的故事——这些巧合大都荒诞不经。读者们欣然接受这样一个事实：一个不起眼的侍女竟然是主人公的母亲。一个失散多年的兄弟，本来被认为已经死了，其实一直活着，并且阴险地图谋着主人公的 downfall。以此类推。现代读者会觉得这样的天真解决办法完全无法接受。然而，在现实生活中，情况有时确实会 conspire to bring about 一些巧合，这些巧合除了十九世纪的小说家，谁都会觉得难以置信。

当我还是个孩子的时候，我祖父告诉我一个德国出租车司机弗朗茨·布斯曼是如何找到他那个被认为二十年前就已阵亡的兄弟的。一次，他和妻子一起外出徒步旅行，他停下来和一个工人攀谈。继续往前走后，布斯曼夫人评论说那个工人长得非常像她的丈夫，甚至暗示他可能是他的兄弟。弗朗茨对这个想法不屑一顾，指出来他的兄弟在战争中阵亡了。尽管布斯曼夫人完全知道这个故事，她还是认为有一百万分之一的可能她是对的。几天后，她派一个男孩去问那个工人他的名字是否是汉斯·布斯曼。不用说，那人的名字 indeed 是汉斯·布斯曼，而且他真是弗朗茨失散多年的兄弟。当兄弟俩团聚时，汉斯解释了他为什么还活着。战争快结束时，他受了伤，被送往医院，与他的部队失散了。医院被轰炸，汉斯步行回到了西德。与此同时，他的部队失踪了，他的一切记录都 destroyed 了。汉斯回到他家的老地方，但是房子被轰炸了，邻居们都不知道居民们怎么样了。以为他的家人都在空袭中丧生了，汉斯在五十英里外的一个村子里安顿了下来，从那以后就一直住在那儿。

词汇表

credulous

形容词

英:/ˈkredjʊləs/

美:/ˈkrɛdʒələs/

定义

1. 易相信的；轻信的 - Willing to believe or trust too readily, especially without proper evidence.

例子: People in the nineteenth century were more credulous about coincidences in stories.

例子: She is too credulous and often falls for scams.

近义词

gullible: 强调容易上当受骗，常用于负面语境，而 'credulous' 更侧重于过度信任。

naive: 暗示缺乏经验或世故，'credulous' 则更具体地指向相信不实信息。

trusting: 更中性，强调对人的信任，'credulous' 可能带有轻信的负面含义。

反义词:

skeptical, doubtful, cynical

用法

常用于描述人们对信息的态度，尤其在文学或日常对话中，语境通常是非正式的，常搭配如 'credulous readers'（轻信的读者）。

形式:

副词形式: credulously, 名词形式: credulity

深入解析：关键句型 "would + verb"

定义

"would + verb" 是一种常见的句型，用于表达过去的习惯性动作、假设性情况或礼貌的请求。在权威教材如《新概念英语》中，这个句型通常定义为情态动词 would 后跟动词原形，结构为：主语 + would + 动词原形 + 其他成分。例如，文章中的 "a novelist would bring his story to a conclusion" 表示在过去特定时期的一种反复发生或假设的行为。其核心含义是描述过去经常发生的动作或对过去的虚拟情况进行推测，帮助构建叙述性语言。

用法

这个句型主要用于以下场景：第一，描述过去的习惯性行为，如文章中的 "a novelist would bring his story to a conclusion"，表示19世纪小说家们常见的写作习惯；第二，表达对过去的假设或条件，如 "Modern readers would find such naive solution totally unacceptable"，用于推测如果放在现在会如何反应；在语法体系中，它属于情态动词的范畴，与其他情态动词如 could 或 should 相关联，建立跨语法点联系。例如，它可以与条件句结合，如 "If I were rich, I would travel more"，从简单过去习惯过渡到更复杂的假设结构。同时，它常用于叙述故事或历史事件中，链接到过去时态体系，帮助学生从一般过去时（Simple Past）过渡到更 nuanced 的表达方式。

注意事项

学生易犯的错误包括将 would 与 used to 混淆，例如错误地说 "I used to bring" 而非 "I would bring"，导致含义不精确；另一个常见偏误是错误使用时态，例如在现在时中使用 would，如 "I would go tomorrow"，这会使句子变得不合逻辑。纠正建议：记住 would + verb 主要用于过去语境，并通过练习区分它与 will 的区别（will 用于未来）。此外，避免在正式写作中过度简化，例如不要省略主语或动词，以免句子不完整。学生还应注意语境：如果是礼貌请求，如 "Would you help me?"，则需确保语气柔和。

练习

一个额外的例子：基于文章内容，学生可以构建句子如 "In my childhood, I would visit my grandparents every weekend." 这表示过去的习惯性行为。通过这个例子，学生可以尝试替换动词，例如用 "play" 或 "read"，并在上下文中应用，如 "If I had more time, I would learn a new language."，以强化对句型的掌握和实际使用。

额外内容

背景知识：这个句型源于英语中情态动词的演变，在古英语中已有类似表达，对比分析中，与法语的条件句类似，但英语版更简洁。补充信息：在现代英语中，would + verb 常用于礼貌表达，如 "Would you like some tea?"，这有助于学生在对话中提升礼貌度，并与假设条件句（如三类条件句）建立联系，丰富语言表达的多样性。