我们常说，交友和择邻的时候要注意“近朱者赤，近墨者黑”，那么这种说法如何翻译成英语才算地道呢？

我们先来看看汉英词典中的翻译： One who stays near vermilion gets stained red, and one who stays near ink gets stained black. 或 One takes on the color of one's company.

也有人将这句话译成：When you touch black, you become black, when you touch red, you become red.

英语国家中也有一些相近的表达方式，来看看下面这三种译法。

One takes the behavior of one's company.（一个人的行为，往往受到朋友的影响。）

One takes on the attributes of one's associates. （attributes 复数时是指品质、特性；associates 指朋友、同事）

Watch the company you keep！（小心交朋友！）

最后，我们再来看一个例句：

As one who lies with dogs will ride with fleas¹, how could your son learn anything good by mixing with those people?

就像和狗躺在一起的人身上会爬满虱子，你儿子跟那些人混在一起，能学出个好样来?

具体选用那种翻译方法，我们要根据实际情况而定。