例3：

       二是向前看，不争论，少宣扬，多实干。改革之初，有些同志曾提出，要改革，首先就要批判过去高等教育体制的弊端。对此我坚决不同意，并说服这些同志要用历史唯物主义的观点看问题，否则我们就永远没有正确的是非标准。中国共产党之所以是个成熟的政党，其中重要的一条就是我们善于用辩证唯物主义和历史唯物主义来正确地处理“继承与发展”的关系问题。不管你的成就多大，都有历史的局限，不能当事后诸葛亮。我们今天的改革，大家认为是正确的，甚至是很有前瞻性的。但过多少年以后，用那时的标准来看今天的改革，也许会被后人认为是难以理解的“古董”。但你能否认今天的改革成果吗？所以，不必要的争论不但对推进改革无益，反而会影响改革进程。我们只有从实际出发，针对现存的问题进行改革，尽量做好在当前时代条件下能做到的事。

       Second, we must look forward, waste absolutely no time on unnecessary arguing and hype, and work more in a down-to-earth way. (11) In the beginning, some people had suggested criticizing the drawbacks in higher education prior to reform. (12) I said no and persuaded them to look at things from the perspective of historical materialism, otherwise we could never find the criteria for telling right from wrong. (13) A major reason why the Communist Party of China is a mature party is because we are good at applying dialectical materialism and historical materialism when handling the relationship between inheriting and developing. All achievements, no matter how big, have historical limits, and the "I told you so" attitude gets us nowhere. (14) Today, everyone is saying the reform is correct and rather farsighted. However, many years in the future, if people use their contemporary standards to judge the reform of today, they may see it as some sort of unfathomable "antique". But can you negate the reform and its results today because of that? Therefore, unnecessary arguments can do nothing for the progress of reform but hinder it. (15) We can only proceed from reality, carry out reform to redress existing problems, and do what we can under the circumstances. (16)

       注11. 此处与注3所谈情况一样，加we作主语。此外，arguing前面加了unnecessary 一词，这也不是译者随意加的。本段倒数第二句提到unnecessary arguments，前后呼应。

       注12. 此句原文两次提到“改革”，译文都没有用reform，而把它与prior to 连用，修饰the drawbacks in higher education，真可以说用在了该用的地方。

       注13. “对此我坚决不同意”译作 I said no，这是一个非常简洁有力的译法。此外，“正确的是非标准”译作the criteria for telling right from wrong，表面上“正确的”没有译，实际上已经意在其中了。这是翻译中常见的一种现象，许多形容词和副词的含义已经包含在它所修饰的词里了，就不必单独用一个词来表示。这种现象值得注意。

       注14. 此处原文用了一个典故“事后诸葛亮”，若照字面译，不能使外国读者产生同样的联想，因此译文用了英语里一个相应的说法。

       注15. 译文用it，避免重复“改革”。

       注16. 原文是一个主语带三个并列谓语动词，译文也是一样，但原文没有用连词，译文里这个and却是必需的。

       例4：

       与此同时，这十年来，我一直要求大家少宣扬，多实干。这是因为改革是一个不断探索的进程，孰是孰非，还要经过一段实践的检验，不宜作不必要的宣传，更不应事情还没有做好就先吹一通。何况宣传不适当还会引发不必要的争论或简单的“刮风”，影响改革的进程，甚至把好事变坏。

       Over this decade I always asked my colleagues to cut the hype and do more solid work. This is because reform is a process of progressive exploration. Whether we are doing things right or wrong, only time and practice can tell. Hype is unnecessary; we should not brag before our accomplishments are in place. (17) Untimely publicity can trigger avoidable controversy or simplistic "campaigning," thus affecting the progress of reform or even damaging the good results we have achieved. (18)

       注17. 这一句说明提出上述要求的原因，内容比较多，因此译文分了三句，这样译比较清楚。

       注18. simplistic 有贬义，意思是“过于简单化的”，用在这里正合适。后半句译文用了两个分词短语，说明上述做法可能产生的后果。

       例5：

       三是“借东风”，抓机遇。要推动改革，每一个重大的机遇都要抓住不放。例如上面我提到的，1998年国务院进行机构改革，撤销了9个部门，“皮之不存，毛将焉附？”部门没有了，部门所属的那些高校怎么办？我们就抓住这一机遇，整体推进了部门所属高校以地方管理为主共建的改革，受到地方和这些高校的普遍欢迎。改革后，我去这些学校考察，有些校领导对我说，改由地方为主管理后，他们受到地方政府的重视和种种优待，发展比过去快多了，早该这样改革了！

       Third, don't let a good opportunity slip through your fingers. (19) To promote reform you've got to act every time a good opportunity presents itself. One such opportunity appeared during the 1998 State Council organizational reshuffle, in which nine ministries were abolished. (20) Now that these ministries were gone, what was to be done with the universities under their charge. (21) We acted immediately and launched a wholesale reform by delegating reconstruction responsibilities for these universities to the local authorities, a decision well received by the localities and the universities themselves. When I visited these universities toward the end of the reform, some leaders told me that they won much attention and preferential treatment from local governments, and that their development was much faster than before. This reform was long overdue, they said. (22)

       注19. 在这里“借东风”和“抓机遇”是同样的意思。这就是为什么本节的题目中“借东风”只译作seizing the opportunities。“借东风”本是汉语里的一个典故，来自《三国演义》，但翻译起来，很难对外国读者说清楚，只好把它要表达的意思译出来算了。但这个典故用在这里确实很生动，于是译者在英文里找了一个与之相对应的习语。根据《Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary》（《牛津高阶英汉双解词典》）第6版，let sth slip (through your fingers)意思是to miss or fail to use an opportunity，因此用在这里是非常恰当的。

       注20. reshuffle一词很有用，谈到政府的重大人事或机构变动，最常用的就是这个词。

       注21. 这句译文具体说明了前面引语“皮之不存，毛将焉附?”在这里的含义，因此这句引语就没有译，若译出来就显得重复了。此外，请注意后半句what was to be done...。此处不能用what to do，因为它只是一个短语，不能独立构成一个问句。

       注22. 最后一句译文加了they said。若不加，读者就可能认为最后一句是作者的话了。