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Catherine: Hello, I’m Catherine and welcome to Question and Answer of the Week.

Jean: And I’m Jean. And our question today comes from Chen Wenyu, who wants to know the difference between two quite similar words.

Jean: Let’s hear the question.

Question

Hello BBC. What's the difference between "recovery" and "restoration"? Can I replace recovery and restoration with each other? Many thanks for your answer. Chen Wenyu

Jean: Recovery 恢復，還有 restoration 修復。這兩個都是名詞。不過它倆的意思有很大的不同嗎？

Catherine: Sometimes they have very similar meanings, but sometimes they are quite different.

Jean: OK. 什么時候這兩個詞的意思是很相近的呢？

Catherine: Well, looking at the verb forms, both recover and restore can mean ‘to put something back to the way it was before’ especially when something was good, and then it went bad. Both recover and restore can mean ‘make it good again’.

Jean: 就是說，recover 和 restore 都有“把某物修復好”的意思。

Catherine: Here’s an example. Two people are talking about someone’s health.

Example

Person 1: Has your mum recovered from her illness?

Person 2: Well, she’s feeling a lot better, but the doctor says it will be another month before her health is fully restored.

Jean: 從這樣的例句來看，recover 和 restore 的意思比較相似，都是幫助某事某物或某人“修復”和“痊愈”的意思。那么在什么樣的時候這兩個詞的意思是比較不同呢？

Catherine: Well, there are several ways the two words are used differently. For example, when you take an old building, ornament or piece of furniture, and you clean and repair it so that it looks exactly like it did when it was new – that’s restoration.

Jean: Restoration 修復。比如有當 restoration 在有“修復”的意思的時候，往往是形容來修復被損壞或年代久遠的建筑物、美術品文物等等。比如，故宮博物院的修復，就可以用 restoration 這個詞。

Catherine: Yes, and that’s a major restoration project. In this example, restoration means repairing, cleaning and putting things back to the way they were before. And the word recovery, in this context, means finding things that were lost or forgotten.

Jean: 是的，所以 restoration 的意思是修復，包括清洗、修補、復原這樣的全過程，而 recovery 的意思相比較起來更有去尋找被遺失的東西的意思。Catherine, 是不是 recovery 在這里還有一點去“營救”的意思？

Catherine: ‘Rescue’ is a good way of putting it, yes. Do you know when the Titanic was found?

Jean: 你說的是泰坦尼克號的殘骸？美麗悲壯的《泰坦尼克號》，是我最愛的電影，實在是浪漫愛情的極致…

Catherine: Yes Jean, it was, and although the Titanic sunk way back in 1912, the remains of the sunken ship were only found in 1985.

Jean: 所以當時泰坦尼克號的海底沉船殘骸一被找到，肯定有很多船上的物品也被找到了。

Catherine: Exactly. Lots of items were recovered, including furniture and the passengers’ personal belongings.

Jean: 這些被打撈起來的文物后來被修復了嗎？

Catherine: I expect some of the recovered items have been restored.

Jean: 真有意思！看來，recover 和 restore 的根本區別在于 recover 的意思更有“找到和救起”的含義，而 restore 的意思更傾向于“修理和復原”

Catherine: More or less, yes. But don’t forget, sometimes we use the two words interchangeably. When I lose a folder from my computer, I call the IT support line. Sometimes I ask them to restore the folder, sometimes I ask them to recover it. I don't care how they do it, I just want my folder back!

Jean: 可以理解。不過我想從咱們 IT 的技術角度來講，找到一個文件夾和復原一個文件夾應該有些區別吧？

Catherine: Technically yes, I expect there is a difference. But in everyday English, this is an example of how the words ‘restore’ and ‘recover’ are used to mean pretty much the same thing.

Jean: 那倒是沒錯。

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（來源：BBC英語教學 編輯：Julie）