中英之鑒 中式英語之鑒378

[誤] The game is at hand and every athlete is training hard to improve their previous records.

[正] The game is at hand and every athlete is training hard to improve on their previous records.

注：improve 指“改善，提高”，如 improve one\'s language ability（提高某人的語言能力）。在英國人看來，以前的紀(jì)錄（previous records）是既成事實，不可能再加以改變（improve）了，所以應(yīng)該在 improve 后面加上介詞 on，以表示創(chuàng)造新的、更高的紀(jì)錄。