西班牙语拼字游戏冠军不会说西班牙语
📖 逐句对照翻译
A New Zealand man recently won an international Spanish Scrabble competition although he does not speak Spanish.
一名新西兰男子最近赢得了一场国际西班牙语拼字比赛，尽管他并不会说西班牙语。
Scrabble is a board game in which players form words from letters to gain points.
拼字游戏是一种棋盘游戏，玩家通过字母拼成单词来获得分数。
Nigel Richards is a professional Scrabble player.
奈杰尔·理查兹是一名职业拼字游戏玩家。
He holds five English-language world championships in the board game.
他在这款棋盘游戏中五次夺得英语世界冠军。
But in November, he won the Spanish world Scrabble championship in Granada, Spain.
但在11月，他在西班牙格拉纳达赢得了西班牙世界拼字游戏锦标赛冠军。
In the competition, he lost one game out of 24.
在比赛中，他24局只输了一局。
Many people are wondering how Richards could win without speaking Spanish.
许多人都在纳闷，理查兹不会说西班牙语怎么能赢呢。
Liz Fagerlund is a New Zealand Scrabble official and a friend of Richards.
莉兹·法格伦德是新西兰拼字游戏官员，也是理查兹的朋友。
She recently told the Associated Press that Richards started memorizing the Spanish language Scrabble word list one year ago.
她最近告诉美联社，理查兹一年前开始背诵西班牙语拼字游戏的单词表。
She said, “He can’t understand why other people can’t just do the same thing.”
她说：“他不明白为什么其他人就不能也这样做。”
Fagerlund added, “He can look at a block of words together, and once they go into his brain as a picture he can just recall that very easily.”
法格伦德补充道：“他可以一眼看一整段文字，一旦这些文字像图像一样进入他的大脑，他就能轻松地回忆起来。”
In second place was defending champion Benjamín Olaizola of Argentina.
获得第二名的是卫冕冠军、阿根廷选手本哈明·奥莱索拉。
He won 18 of his games.
他赢了18场比赛。
Nothing like the New Zealander’s win had ever happened in Spanish Scrabble, said Alejandro Terenzani, an organizer of the competition.
赛事组织者亚历杭德罗·特伦扎尼表示，西班牙拼字比赛中从未出现过像这位新西兰人那样的胜利。
“It was impossible to react negatively, you can only be amazed,” Terenzani said.
“不可能作出负面反应，你只能感到惊叹，”特伦扎尼说。
“We certainly expected that he would perform well, but it is perhaps true that he surpassed our expectations.”
我们当然预料到他会表现出色，但或许确实可以说，他超出了我们的预期。
However, the recent Scrabble competition is not the first that Richards has won in a language that he does not speak.
然而，理查兹最近赢得的斯克拉布尔比赛并非他首次在不使用的语言中获胜。
In 2015, he became the French language Scrabble world champion although he does not speak French.
2015年，尽管他不会说法语，却成为了法语拼字游戏的世界冠军。
He studied the French language word list for nine weeks.
他花了九周时间学习法语单词表。
He won the French championship again in 2018.
他在2018年再次赢得了法国锦标赛冠军。
Richards is known in the world of international Scrabble as the greatest player of all time.
理查兹在国际拼字游戏界被誉为史上最伟大的玩家。
He has been playing in competitions for about 30 years.
他参加比赛已经有大约30年了。
But other players have said his Spanish language victory was notable even by his standards.
但其他球员也表示，即便以他的标准衡量，他用西班牙语发表的胜利感言也尤为引人注目。
Playing Spanish Scrabble required some different methods to win.
玩西班牙语拼字游戏需要一些不同的方法来获胜。
The wooden pieces, or tiles, used in the word game have different values in English and Spanish Scrabble.
在英语和西班牙语拼字游戏中，单词游戏所用的木块或 tiles 具有不同的分值。
Richards also had to consider thousands of additional seven-, eight- and nine-letter words in the Spanish language.
理查兹还必须考虑西班牙语中数千个额外的七个、八个和九个字母的单词。
In 2008, Richards was the first player ever to hold the world, U.S., and British titles at the same time.
2008年，理查兹成为史上首位同时持有世界、美国和英国冠军头衔的球员。
He had to “forget” 40,000 English words that do not appear in the American Scrabble word list to win in the U.S.
他不得不“忘记”4万个未出现在美国拼字游戏单词列表中的英语单词，才能在美国获胜。
His victories are famous in the Scrabble community.
他的胜利在拼字游戏界很有名。
Tens of thousands of people have watched and analyzed his games in YouTube videos.
成千上万的人在YouTube视频中观看并分析了他的比赛。
Scrabble does not require players to know the definitions of words.
拼字游戏并不要求玩家知道单词的定义。
Players only need to know what combinations of letters can be used in a country’s version of the game.
玩家只需知道在该国版本的游戏里可以使用哪些字母组合。
Native speakers have “a huge leg up,” American Scrabble player Will Anderson said in a video explaining Richards’ Spanish win.
以英语为母语的人拥有“巨大的优势”，美国拼字游戏玩家威尔·安德森在一段解释理查兹西班牙语获胜的视频中说道。
In 2010, Richards’ mother, Adrienne Fischer, told a New Zealand newspaper that he was not a great English student in school.
2010年，理查兹的母亲阿德里安娜·费舍尔向新西兰一家报纸透露，他在学校时并不是一个出色的英语学生。
He never attended university.
他从未上过大学。
And he took a mathematical approach to the game rather than a linguistic one.
他从数学角度而非语言学角度来研究这个游戏。
“I don’t think he’s ever read a book,” she said, “apart from the dictionary.”
“我觉得他除了字典以外，从没读过一本书。”她说。
Fagerlund said Richards impressed her when he arrived at his first Scrabble club meeting at age 28.
法格伦德说，理查兹28岁第一次参加拼字俱乐部聚会时，给她留下了深刻印象。
Two years later, in 1997, he rode a bicycle 350 kilometers from Christchurch to the city of Dunedin where he won the New Zealand championship on his first try.
两年后，也就是1997年，他骑自行车从基督城出发，行驶了350公里到达达尼丁市，在那里他首次尝试便赢得了新西兰冠军。
Then he rode the bicycle home again.
然后他又骑自行车回家了。
At the Spanish event, he was shy and modest, organizer Terenzani said.
组织者特伦扎尼说，在西班牙的活动中，他显得害羞而谦逊。
But he happily had his picture taken and spoke with fans who sought him out.
但他还是高兴地让人拍照，并与找到他的粉丝交谈。
“Although he did so in English, of course,” Terenzani joked.
“当然，他这么做时用的是英语，”特伦扎尼开玩笑说。
Richards now lives in Malaysia.
理查兹现在住在马来西亚。
He never speaks to reporters.
他从不和记者说话。
What drives him is a mystery.
驱动他的动力是个谜。
“I get lots of requests from journalists wanting to interview him, and he’s not interested,” Fagerlund said.
“我收到很多记者想要采访他的请求，但他对此不感兴趣，”法格伦德说。
She added that he does not understand what all the fuss is about.
她补充说，他不明白这一切大惊小怪是为了什么。
I’m Anna Matteo.
我是安娜·马特奥。
Charlotte Graham-Mclay reported this story for the Associated Press.
夏洛特·格雷厄姆-麦克莱为美联社报道了这一故事。
Anna Matteo adapted it for VOA Learning English.
安娜·马特奥为VOA英语学习频道改编了此内容。
