VOA慢速英语：美国中学“扫地僧”，指导学生们玩国际象棋

At a school in Hampden, Maine, David Bishop works to keep floors clean and classrooms in good shape.

在缅因州汉普顿的一所学校，大卫·毕晓普(David Bishop)努力保持地板清洁和教室整洁。

Bishop is a janitor. But he is also known as the coach of the chess teams at Reeds Brook Middle School and Weatherbee Elementary School.

毕晓普是个看门人。但他也是里德斯布鲁克中学和威瑟比小学国际象棋队的教练。

The middle school students who play chess with Bishop's help recently finished 8th out of 52 teams at a national competition. The elementary school students participated in a national event for beginning players last weekend.

在毕晓普的帮助下，下国际象棋的中学生最近在一次全国比赛中从52支队伍中获得了第八名。上周末，小学生们参加了全国初级棋手比赛。

The success of both teams has some people comparing Bishop to a character from the Netflix television program, The Queen's Gambit.

两支队伍的成功让一些人把毕晓普比作Netflix电视节目《后翼弃兵》(The Queen’s Gambit)中的一个角色。

The show came out in 2020. It is about a girl who learned to play chess from the janitor at the institution where she lived. She went on to be a great chess player.

该剧于2020年上映。讲述的是一个女孩从孤儿院看门人那里学会下棋的故事。她后来成了一名伟大的棋手。

Bishop said he understands why people compare him to the janitor in the television program. He said he enjoyed watching the show.

毕晓普说，他理解为什么人们把他比作电视节目中的看门人。他喜欢看这个节目。

But unlike the character in The Queen's Gambit, Bishop is helping a lot of young chess players -- not just one girl.

但与《后翼弃兵》中的角色不同，毕晓普正在帮助许多年轻的棋手，而不仅仅是一个女孩。

Sometimes, the chess players beat their teacher.

有时，棋手会打败他们的老师。

Bishop is 61. At first, he did not like losing to the children. He called it "humiliating and demoralizing." But then he understood it was good for him to lose. That meant his chess students were getting stronger.

毕晓普现年61岁。起初，他不喜欢输给孩子们。他称之为“羞辱和打击士气”。但后来他明白，输了对他是有好处的。这意味着他的国际象棋学生正越来越强。

The children in Maine are part of a nationwide trend. Today, many more young people are interested in chess than were before the COVID-19 pandemic.

缅因州的孩子们是全国趋势的一部分。今天，与COVID-19大流行之前相比，更多的年轻人开始对国际象棋感兴趣。

Many of them started playing the game with others on the internet, using the website Chess.com. The website had about 1.5 million daily users in February 2020. By the end of 2020, it had 4.5 million users each day. And at the beginning of 2023, the number was up to 10 million.

他们中的许多人开始在互联网上使用Chess.com网站与其他人一起玩这个游戏。截至2020年2月，该网站的日用户约为150万。到2020年底，每天有450万用户。到2023年初，这一数字达到了1000万。

Leon Watson is a spokesperson for Chess.com. He called the increase "unprecedented," or never experienced before.

里昂·沃森(Leon Watson)是国际象棋网站的发言人。他称这一增长是“前所未有的”，或者说从未经历过。

Bishop said he was a good chess player as a boy but did not like to let his friends know. He did not want to be called a "nerd" and did not join his school's chess club.

毕晓普说，他小时候是个好棋手，但不喜欢让朋友们知道。他不想被称为“书呆子”，也没有参加学校的象棋俱乐部。

He wishes he had.

他希望他有参加过。

But now that the game is more popular among young people, no one thinks less of chess players like Eli Marquis, who is 12. Marquis joined other players on a recent day at his school's library. All the students were either playing or watching chess.

但现在象棋在年轻人中更受欢迎，没有人看不起像12岁的伊莱·马奎斯(Eli Marquis)这样的棋手。马奎斯最近在学校图书馆加入了其他棋手的行列。所有的学生不是在下棋就是在看棋。

He said he likes the game because he is always learning.

他说他喜欢这项运动，因为他总是在学习。

You can never run out of things to learn and to practice and to do, and you can just keep on getting better as long as you practice. There's no end to it. Really, he said.

“你永远不会缺少学习、练习和做的东西，只要你练习，你就能变得更好。没有尽头。真的，”他说。

Eddie LaRochelle, 13, said chess is like other sports where you have to work hard and practice a lot. However, there are some differences.

13岁的埃迪·拉罗谢尔(Eddie LaRochelle)说，国际象棋就像其他运动一样，你必须努力练习。然而，也有一些不同之处。

You don't need to work out every single day in the gym. To get stronger, you can exercise your brain with puzzles, chess and other things, he said.

他说:“你不需要每天都去健身房锻炼。为了变得更强大，你可以通过拼图、象棋和其他东西来锻炼大脑。”

The young people said chess helps them think ahead, consider strategy and think about the effects of their decisions.

这些年轻人说，国际象棋帮助他们提前思考，考虑策略，并权衡所做决定的影响。

Chess is so good for them, and most of them don't know it, Bishop said. "They're just playing chess, but it's like a workout for the brain."

毕晓普说:“国际象棋对他们很有好处，他们中的大多数人都不知道这一点。他们虽然只是在下棋，但其实是在锻炼大脑。”

Bishop said he wants to see his players get better, even if that means losing to them more often. He is happy to see so many young people playing the game. But he is concerned there are not very many girls playing. There is only one girl on his middle school team, but he hopes that will change if players start when they are younger.

毕晓普说，他希望看到他的棋手们变得更好，即使这意味着会更频繁地输给他们。他很高兴有这么多年轻人玩这个游戏。但他担心参与这个游戏的女孩并不多。他所在的中学队只有一名女生，但他希望，如果选手们从小就开始学习下棋，这种情况会有所改变。

I'm Dan Friedell.

丹·弗里德尔报道。