Sentence Translation
1. Susan Sontag was considered one of the most influential liberal thinkers in the United States. She wrote seventeen books. They have been translated into thirty languages.
2. You should smoke the fish for five days or longer if you plan to store them for a long time. After you finish smoking the fish, remove them and let them cool.
3. On September fifteenth, Lehman Brothers, a one hundred fifty-eight year-old investment bank, sought legal protection from its creditors. It had failed to find a buyer after months of searching.
4. Falling car sales threatened America's carmakers. The big three automakers -- General Motors, Ford and Chrysler -- told Congress that they needed loans or they faced bankruptcy.
5. Credit rating agencies downgraded A.I.G. because of concerns it could not honor its contracts. Unable to get new loans, A.I.G. asked for government help.
Passage Translation
1. We look back at this year's bad economic news in the United States. Economic growth was expected to slow in two thousand eight. Housing prices had been falling in the United States since two thousand six. But few economists predicted the financial collapse only a few months away. With the economy slowing, Congress passed a bill in February designed to ease the economic slowdown. The bill returned over one hundred fifty billion dollars to taxpayers.
2. Some unemployed job hunters also hurt their chances by volunteering to take a significantly lower salary than what they earned in their last job. An offer to take a pay cut of more than 20% can suggest to employers that you're biding your time and would re-enter the job market in search of higher-paying positions once the economy improves Or, you might unwittingly imply that you're going to ask for a raise soon after coming on board.
