VOA慢速英语2011--No More Guesses at How to Say a Name（在线收听）

Technology Report - No More Guesses at How to Say a Name

This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.

这里是美国之音慢速英语科技报道。

A new online service offers a simple way to let other people know how to say your name correctly. It lets others hear you say it yourself in your e-mail.

一项新的网络服务提供一个简单的方法让他人知道如何正确念出你的名字。这项服务让他人在邮件中直接听你念出自己的名字。

Today, more people from different cultures work, live and study together. Some worry that having a difficult name could limit them. Just ask Sheetal Dube. She and her husband came to the United States from India seven years ago.

今天，许多来自不同文化的人们在一起工作、生活和学习。有人担心一个难念的名字可能会限制他们的发展。你试着问问茜多·杜贝(Sheetal Dube)，她和丈夫7年前从印度来到美国。

SHEETAL DUBE: “My name, Sheetal, is a very common Indian name and in India people would just know how to pronounce it. But I’ve been working here in the U.S. for some time and I realize people find it hard to pronounce. They haven’t heard it before.”

杜贝：“我的名字是Sheetal，这是一个很常见的印度名，在印度人们都知道如何发音。但我到美国工作了一段时间，我意识到人们觉得这个名字很难发音，他们以前都没听过这个名字。”

Ms. Dube was a user experience consultant for technology companies. She now owns a new company called Audioname. She came up with the idea after doing a presentation with someone she worked with.

杜贝女士是一家科技公司的用户体验顾问。她现在拥有一家名为Audioname的新公司。她在和同事做演示时冒出了这个想法。

SHEETAL DUBE: “My colleague was Mary and it was very easy for everyone in the room to say, you know, 'Mary’s findings showed this.' But it’s very difficult to say 'Sheetal’s findings showed this.' So that’s where this idea really stuck in my head. It’s like, you know, what if I just have an audio name and, you know, I put it in my e-mail and they have a chance to hear it before they meet me?”

杜贝：“我同事是Mary，房间里的每个人很轻松就能说，‘Mary的调查结果证实了这点。’但他们说‘Sheetal的调查结果证实了这点’就很困难。这个想法就开始在我脑海萦绕。就像是，如果我有一个语音的名字，并把它放进电邮中，他们就有机会在见到我前听到我的名字。”

Ms. Dube presented her idea at a business development conference in Portland, Oregon, earlier this year. It won the top award at the event called Startup Weekend Portland.

杜贝女士今年早些时候在俄勒冈州波特兰市的一次商业开发会议中提出了她的想法。这一想法赢得了这次被称为“波特兰市初创企业周末”活动的最高奖项。

SHEETAL DUBE: “I realized it was not only me who had a difficult to pronounce name, but a lot people actually had faced that awkward moment where they meet someone else and, you know, they don’t know how to pronounce their name.”

杜贝：“我意识到不仅是我有一个难发音的名字，很多人实际上在会见他人时都曾面临这种尴尬时刻，别人不知道如何念出他们的名字。”

The service is free. Ms. Dube hopes her idea will help make introductions a little easier.

这项服务是免费的。杜贝女士希望她的想法将有助于使互相介绍变得更容易一些。

SHEETAL DUBE: “I went ahead a created a basic Web application where people can go and, you know, record their name in their own voice. And that gives them a little audio file which sits in a Web address which they can actually go and put in their e-mail signature, in their Facebook, on their LinkedIn, on their website. So any place that they interact with other people, basically they can have this audio pronunciation next to their name.”

杜贝：“我继续创建了一个基于网页的应用程序，人们可以访问该网页并录下自己的名字。程序会生成一个保存到特定网址的小音频文件，他们可以将这个音频的网址放到邮箱签名、Facebook、LinkIn及他们自己的网站上。这样他们在任何地方与他人交流，都可以将这个音频放到他们名字旁边。”

The Portland Seed Fund chose her idea as one of one hundred twenty-six startups to receive money and mentoring support from experts. Ms. Dube left her job to start audioname.com. The site has been live since the middle of September.

波特兰种子基金从126个初创项目中选择了她的创意来获得资金和专家指导。杜贝辞职开设了audioname.com，这个网站9月中旬已经上线。

Marketing specialist Larry Chiagouris is the author of “The Secret to Getting a Job After College.” He advises people with really difficult names to consider using a nickname in their job search. Sheetal Dube says she heard advice like that while researching her idea. She thinks a service like Audioname offers a better choice.

营销专家Larry Chiagouris是“大学毕业求职秘诀”编辑。他建议名字很难发音的人们考虑在求职时使用昵称。杜贝说她在调查自己的创意时也听到了类似的建议。但她认为audioname之类的服务提供了一个更好的选择。

There are also sites like HearNames.com where people can learn how to say names from around the world. On our site, voanews.cn, you can find a link to VOA's own Pronunciation Guide to names in the news.

人们还可以通过Hearnames.com一类的网站了解如何念世界各地的人名。我们网站上也提供了美国之音新闻中出现的名字的发音指南。

And that's the VOA Special English Technology Report, written by June Simms. I'm Faith Lapidus.