公众人物毕业演讲 第191期:苏珊沃西基2014在约翰霍普金斯大学(4)

 　　Thanks to a mutual¹ friend, we rented our garage to two graduate students at Stanford

　　经朋友介绍 我们将车库租给了两个斯坦福研究生

　　who had just started a company, who were looking for office space

　　他们刚开了一家公司 正在寻找办公场所

　　They seem nice

　　他们看起来很棒

　　There ideas sounded kind of crazy

　　他们的想法听起来有些疯狂

　　Back then

　　当时

　　no one had heard of Larry Page and Sergey Brin

　　没人听说过拉里·佩奇和谢尔盖·布林

　　or the new company with the funny name

　　或是他们开的那家名字滑稽的公司

　　Google?

　　谷歌？

　　What?

　　什么

　　What does that mean?

　　这是什么意思

　　It doesn't really matter

　　这没关系

　　As long as you guys pay the rent on time, you guys can build your Google anything here

　　只要你们能够按时交房租 管你们是谷歌还是别的什么

　　Wednesday moved in, we have late night

　　一个周三的深夜

　　together in the garage, eating pizza and M&M's

　　我们一起坐在车库吃批萨和M&M

　　when they talked to me about how their technology could change the world

　　他们跟我讲 说自己的技术能够改变世界

　　But then they would go on equally excited

　　之后他们同样兴奋地告诉我

　　about the fact that my house had a washer and dryer²

　　说我家有洗衣机和烘干机真是太好了

　　They made bold³ proclamations

　　他俩很大胆地宣布说

　　We are going to organize the entire World Wide Web

　　我们将把全球网络组织到一起

　　followed by -- which day is recycling day?

　　说完之后 他们问我 垃圾回收日是哪一天来着

　　And when I asked them how much experience they had to back their ambitious⁴ plan

　　我问他们 你们有多少经验来支持这一雄心壮志

　　they would say well our combined age is almost 50

　　他们说 我们的年龄合起来可有将近50岁

　　and they were entering a competitive⁵ area

　　他们进入是一个竞争性极强的领域

　　There were many well-funded search engines

　　当时有很多资金充裕的搜索引擎公司

　　famous at the time, although you probably never heard of them

　　当时这些公司都很有名 只是你们可能没听说过

　　AltaVista, Lycos, Excite

　　比如AltaVista Lycos Excite

　　Can you imagine if you wanted to search for something online

　　想象一下 要搜索东西的时候你要说

　　and you had to say I'm going to AltaVista?

　　我要去AltaVista一下 这会是什么感觉

　　The answer, that would be kinda awkward

　　肯定会显得非常笨拙

1 mutual   

adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的

参考例句：

• We must pull together for mutual interest.我们必须为相互的利益而通力合作。
• Mutual interests tied us together.相互的利害关系把我们联系在一起。

2 dryer   

n.干衣机，干燥剂

参考例句：

• He bought a dryer yesterday.他昨天买了一台干燥机。
• There is a washer and a dryer in the basement.地下室里有洗衣机和烘干机。

3 bold   

adj.果敢的，冒险的，无畏的；冒失的，鲁莽的

参考例句：

• Her words were so bold that people caught their breath.她的话太大胆了，使人们都倒抽了一口气。
• The room was decorated in bold colours.房间的色调布置得鲜明醒目。

4 ambitious   

adj.有雄心的，劲头十足的，有野心的

参考例句：

• One may be poor but never ceases to be ambitious.人穷志不穷。
• He is an ambitious young man full of enthusiasm and vitality.他是个充满热情与活力的有远大抱负的青年。

5 competitive   

adj.竞争的，比赛的，好竞争的，有竞争力的

参考例句：

• Some kinds of business are competitive.有些商业是要竞争的。
• These businessmen are both competitive and honourable.这些商人既有竞争性又很诚实。