纪录片《为何讲话》 第29期：绝望的雌鸟

Ofer hoped that the females would find the male's call attractive enough

奥弗希望雌鸟能被雄鸟的叫声吸引

that they would mate and create the next generation.

这样它们就会结合生子

In the beginning, the first problem that we had is

刚开始 我们面临的第一个问题是

that the females were not very interested in the isolate¹ male.

雌鸟对被隔离过的雄鸟完全不感兴趣

When he start singing his isolate unstructured song,

雄鸟鸣唱自己独创的无序歌曲时

they say "Yuk!" and they wouldn't go with him.

雌鸟们非常反感 不予理睬

But, we didn't let go and we kept going like that with a few tries

但我们并没有放弃 又尝试了几次

And in the end one female became desperate enough

最终 有一只雌鸟绝望了

and mated with the isolate founder²,

和那只雄鸟结合了

and then we had baby birds that imitated their father.

然后它们有了孩子 孩子开始模仿父亲

The young birds instinctively³ copied their father's song

幼鸟本能地模仿其父亲的叫声

despite its unstructured unattractive sound.

即使这声音无序又难听

And interestingly enough,

非常有趣的是

in isolate song we see song that may be more prolonged.

独创的鸣叫每个音节会拖得长一些

We can see syllable⁴ that go like "Waaaaah" Like that

发出的音节就像 "喂"

instead of "Choob-chab-choob."

而不是"吱吱吱"

And this is something that they were still imitating

而幼鸟们仍在模仿这样的声音

so they were listening to that tutor that was singing abnormal song

它们听到"老师"吟唱这种非正常歌曲

and they imitated his abnormal song,

就模仿这种非正常歌曲

and so did their children.

它们的孩子也是如此

1 isolate   

vt.使孤立，隔离

参考例句：

• Do not isolate yourself from others.不要把自己孤立起来。
• We should never isolate ourselves from the masses.我们永远不能脱离群众。

2 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

3 instinctively   

adv.本能地

参考例句：

• As he leaned towards her she instinctively recoiled. 他向她靠近，她本能地往后缩。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He knew instinctively where he would find her. 他本能地知道在哪儿能找到她。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 syllable   

n.音节；vt.分音节

参考例句：

• You put too much emphasis on the last syllable.你把最后一个音节读得太重。
• The stress on the last syllable is light.最后一个音节是轻音节。