“universe”是“宇宙”, “universal”是宇宙的、全世界的,也可表示某种情况非常普遍,与common,popular,prevalent一样,英英释义:existing everywhere or involving everyone
例句:
① 比如我们常说“爱美之心,人皆有之”,就可以说成:
The desire to look attractive is universal.
或者It’s a universal trait to want people to find you attractive.
② 当我们想表示“全民xx”这层意思时,就可以用到 universal。比如“全民医保”就可以说成“universal health care”,“普世价值”可以是“universal values”。《经济学人》曾在一篇特别报道中评价美国是“the only large rich country without universal health care”。
③ universal 的副词形式 universally 也很常见,当想强调普遍程度时就可以用到它。比如《傲慢与偏见》中的经典开篇第一段中就用到了“universally acknowledged”:
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
根据这段话我们也可以提取常见句型 It is a universal truth that… 比如《经济学人》中就出现过:
It is a universal truth of human nature that a dollar tomorrow is worth less to us than a dollar today.
1)使用《牛津英语搭配词典》查“universal”,了解它作为形容词时的常用搭配。
动词(verb) +universal
be, seem 普遍;好像共通 become 变得普遍 remain 仍然普遍
副词(adv) + universal
truly 确实普遍的 by no means绝非寻常, far from 完全不普遍. Some of the teachers are technical specialists, but this is far from universal. 有些老师是技术方面的专家, 但这绝不是普遍现象。
almost, near, nearly, virtually 几乎是普遍的; 接近共通;实际上通用
pretty 颇为普遍 apparently 显然普遍 supposedly 一般认为通用。 supposedly universal standards 据称通用的标准
universal +介词(prep)
among 在… 中普遍。 These practices remain universal among the islanders. 这些依然是岛上居民惯常的做法。in 在…方面普遍。 a scheme that is universal in scope 在应用范围上很普遍的计划
2)翻译下面的句子:
中国的全民教育取得了巨大的进步。
China has made remarkable progress toward/towards universal literacy.
China has made giant strides in universal access to education.
3)场景:在南方因为气候温暖,普遍很少见到雪。
造句:It's truly universal that the south of China sees little snow because of the mild climate.