叹息的美 回答得很好了,本不想答了. 可PM楼主,楼主不回复.
又发现第一句可能有误：
gran had been dead for six years now.
这句话如单独出现,是有时态错误的.
应用现在完成时has been dead
但在叙述性故事中是可以的,这时的now=then
now=by now 可以与完成时连用.
经搜索,果然是这样：
《暮色》
I WAS NINETY-NINE POINT NINE PERCENT SURE I WAS dreaming.
The reasons I was so certain were that, first, I was standing in a bright shaft of sunlight—the kind of blinding clear sun that never shone on my drizzly new hometown in Forks, Washington—and second, I was looking at my Grandma Marie. Gran had been dead for six years now, so that was solid evidence toward the dream theory.
Gran hadn't changed much; her face looked just the same as I remembered it. The skin was soft and withered, bent into a thousand tiny creases that clung gently to the bone underneath. Like a dried apricot, but with a puff of thick white hair standing out in a cloud around it.
不知道你第一个不理解“had been dead”,到底是什么?是不明白为什么不用 had died呢还是为什么不用has been dead?
前则他们已经答过了.后则我答了.
第二个问题,先问你,到底是学口语呢还是学翻译呢?如果学口语,这个材料不合适.学翻译,你要看翻译教程.好的翻译是有技巧的,不可能是一字一词对译的.
要光是理解,这句话一不是很难.in a cloud字面意思是 以.的形式,翻译就成了“象.一样”.