A famous writer who was visiting Japan was invited to deliver a lecture at a university to a large number of students. As most of them could not understand English, he had to have an interpreter¹.

一位在日本访问的著名作家受邀到一所大学为众多学生演讲。因为他们中大多数人不懂英语，作家请了一名口译。

During his lecture he told an amusing² story which went on for rather a long time. At last he stopped to allow the interpreter to translate it into Japanese, and was very surprised when the man did this in a few seconds, after which all the students laughed loudly.

在演讲中，他用了相当长的时间讲了一个有趣的故事。最后他停下来让口译把它译成日语。他感到非常奇怪的是，口译只用了几秒钟就翻译完毕，而学生们都大声笑了起来。

Atter the lecture, the writer thanked the interpreter for his good work and then said to him, "Now please tell me how you translated that long story of mine into such a short Japanese one."

演讲之后，作家非常感谢这位口译的出色工作，并说:“请告诉我，你是如何把我那么长的一个故事译成如此简短的日语的?”

"I didn't tell the story at all," the interpreter answered with a smile. "I just said, The honourable³ lecturer⁴ has just told a funny story. You will all laugh, please.'"

“我根本就没有讲那个故事，”口译微笑着回答，“我只不过说，‘尊敬的演讲者刚才讲了一个很可笑的故事，请你们大家笑一笑。'"