英语 / 雅思写作中，除了not，你还会哪些否定表达？

（本文首发于微信公众号Cynthiawriting）

为什么不宜滥用not

一想到否定，我们都下意识地使用not，但有时候使用not的情况只会使句子语义模糊，因为它给出的只是一个大范围。而在英文写作中，语义越明确能越有效地传达意思。

例如：She is not happy. 我们只知道她是不开心的。但不开心到什么程度呢？如果说She is depressed. 那么语义就显得更明确了。

又如：The playground is not small. 不如用 “The playground is as large as ten basketball courts. ”来得更直观明确。

其次，not使用过多，你的表达看上去会有种幼稚感。来对比以下几组句子：

The environment we are living in is not as good as before.

The environment we are living in has deteriorated.

They didn’t spend much time together,so at last they got divorced.

Failure to spend much time together led to their final divorce.

大家可以看出，上面两组的第二个句子质量明显高出一些。

如何用其他方法去表达否定

说了以上这些理由，并不是强调我们不能使用not或no，而是说不要每一处否定我们只能想到用not，掌握一些其他表达，会使我们的句子更多样化，更灵活。

那么我们结合上面的例子来总结一下有哪些实用的表达。

1.  掌握反义词，如例子中的happy – depressed, small – large。

例：

He didn’t always win the arguments, but he was often right.

He sometimes lost the arguments, but he was often right.

2.  掌握带否定前缀的词，如unable, unimportant, degenerate, disillusioned, irregular等。

例：

What he said was not related to what he did.

What he said was unrelated to what he did.

If we can’t recognize the English names for some food, we will meet some trouble in America.

Inability to recognize the English names for some food will cause us some trouble in America.

3.  掌握含有否定意义的动词及动词词组，如fail, miss, lose, avoid, deny, deprive, lack, fall short of。

例：

The woman didn’t allow her ex-husband to get close to her son.

The woman denied her ex-husband access to her son.

If you accept homeschooling, you will not have the opportunity to mix with your peers.

If you accept homeschooling, you wil lmiss out on / be deprived of the opportunity to mix with your peers.

He would fire the employees who didn’t reach his high standards.

He would fire the employees who fell short of his high standards.

4.  记住常用的含否定含义的介词及其他词组，如without, beyond, above, far from, free from, more than(不仅仅), instead of, rather than。

例：

If children are not supervised by their parents, they may be indulged in using electronic products.

Without parental supervision, children may be indulged in using electronic products.

Because there are too many new words, the children cannot understand the article.

Due to too many new words, the article is beyond / above the children’s understanding.

Your suggestion is not feasible at all.

Your suggestion is far from feasible.

Prison is not justa punishment machine.

Prison ismore than a punishment machine.

实践一下

用以上的方法来替代not

To reduce children’s leisure time is not a correct way.

Punishment aims to make them not make the same mistakes again.

答案可以留言哦。