VOA慢速英语2016 推特10岁了

AS IT IS 2016-03-22 Twitter Turns 10 推特10岁了

This is What’s Trending Today…

这是今天的热点。

On Monday,Twitter turned 10.

周一，推特满10周岁了。

The 140-character messaging service launched in March 21, 2006. Since then, Twitter has become a global communication tool, with 320 million users.

这个140字的网络短信服务软件在2006年3月21日开始启用的。从那时起，推特就成了一个全球性的交流工具，拥有3.2亿的用户。

It all began with a simple tweet from Twitter founder¹ Jack² Dorsey. On the afternoon of March 21, 2006, he posted, "just setting up my twttr."

一切要从推特创始人Jack Dorsey 发的一通简讯说起。在2006年3月21日的一个下午，他发布了一条消息，”创立我的twttr（推特原名）“。

Some of the biggest news events in the past 10 years broke first on Twitter.

10年来很多大新闻事件都是率先从推特上传开的。

Twitter, the popular social media tool, turned 10-years-old on Monday, March21. About 320 million people around the world use the Twitter service.配图文字：推特，流行的社交媒体工具，3月21日，星期一，已经满10周岁了。全世界大约有3.2亿人在使用推特。

The first report of the U.S. raid that killed Osama Bin³ Laden⁴ came from a Pakistani man's tweet. And the first photo of an American airplane that landed in New York's  Hudson River was posted on Twitter.

美国突袭并击毙奥萨马.本.拉登的消息就是率先从一个巴基斯坦人的推特上传出来的。第一张美国飞机降落在纽约哈德逊河上的照片就是在推特上发布的。

Thepro-democracy Arab Spring protests played out and spread on Twitter. And the #BlackLivesMatter movement gained strength through the social media site.

支持民主的阿拉伯之春运动就是在推特上爆发和蔓延的。BlackLivesMatter运动增加体现了社交媒体的力量。

Today, Twitter users are showing their gratitude⁵ for the past 10 years with the hashtag #LoveTwitter.

今天，用户们通过发起话题标签#LoveTwitter来表达对推特10年来的感谢。

The idea for a hashtag came more than a year after Twitter's creation. On August 23, 2007,Chris Messina suggested the idea of using the pound (#) symbol to organize tweets.

推特创立1年多之后就有了话题标签的主意。2007年8月23日，Chris Messina 建议用#标签来组织话题。

Twitter started using the hashtag feature in 2009.                  

2009年，推特上才开放这个标签功能。

The hashtag made twitter a more powerful platform for activists⁶ and a popular tool for breaking news.

话题标签功能，使推特变成了更有力的活动号召平台，和时尚的发布爆炸性新闻的方式。

The most commonly used hashtag is #FF, which stands for Follow Fridays. Twitter user Micah Baldwin proposed #FF in a tweet back in January of 2009.

用得最多的话题标签是#FF，代表#Follow Fridays （账号推荐功能）。2009年1月，推特用户Micah Baldwin 创立了#FF标签。

The idea of a retweet function also came from a Twitter user. Eric Rice posted the world's"first" retweet on April 17, 2007.

转推功能这主意也是来自一个推特用户。Eric Rice 在2007年4月17日，发布了世界上的“第一“条转推消息。

Twitter users soon began copying tweets with an "RT" at the beginning of the post. Retweeting became afeature on Twitter more than two years later, in November 2009.

推友们很快在推文前面加上“RT”来表示转推。转推成为功能键大约是在两年之后，即2009年12月。          

The most retweeted post of the past 10 years is comedian⁷ Ellen DeGeneres' #OscarSelfie. DeGeneres took the famous selfie during the 2014 Academy Awards. It received more than 2 million retweets.

过去10年间被转推的是喜剧演员Ellen Degeneres发布的的奥斯卡大咖自拍秀的推文。Degeneres在2014年奥斯卡金像奖颁奖仪式期间发布了这张著名的自拍照。这条推文大约被转发了两百万次。

Twitter may need some more great ideas from its users to survive the next 10 years. Observers are questioning the company's future. Despite its worldwide popularity, Twitter has yet to find a way to make money. It has also been criticized for being slow to control hate speech. And for the first time ever, the number of Twitterusers went down during the last quarter. The company reported itlost 2 million users during the last months of 2015.

推特还需要从用户们那收集到一些更棒的主意来生存下一个10年。观察者们对推特公司的未来发展存疑。抛开它的风靡全球不说，推特还需要找到收费的方式。仇恨言论的控制速度之慢也饱受诟病。此外，史无前例地，上个季度推特用户数量竟然在减少。推特公司报告，2015年最后几个月的用户数量减少了200万。

The problems led Twitter's founder, Jack Dorsey, to return to the company.

这些难题也让已经离任的推特创始人，Jack Dorsey，又回到了推特公司。

Last year, the company said it was considering removing Twitter's famous 140-character limit.

去年，推特公司表示他们在考虑解除推文的140字限制。

But Dorsey said earlier this month that the limit would remain.

但是Dorsey此月早些时候说这个140字限制仍会保留。

Words in This Story 

movement - n. a series of organized activities in which many people work together to do or achieve something

gratitude - n. a feeling of appreciation⁸ or thanks

propose - v. to suggest something to a person or group of people to consider

quarter - n. one of four divisions of a year : a period of three months

1 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

2 jack   

n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克

参考例句：

• I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
• He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。

3 bin   

n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件

参考例句：

• He emptied several bags of rice into a bin.他把几袋米倒进大箱里。
• He threw the empty bottles in the bin.他把空瓶子扔进垃圾箱。

4 laden   

adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的

参考例句：

• He is laden with heavy responsibility.他肩负重任。
• Dragging the fully laden boat across the sand dunes was no mean feat.将满载货物的船拖过沙丘是一件了不起的事。

5 gratitude   

adj.感激，感谢

参考例句：

• I have expressed the depth of my gratitude to him.我向他表示了深切的谢意。
• She could not help her tears of gratitude rolling down her face.她感激的泪珠禁不住沿着面颊流了下来。

6 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 comedian   

n.喜剧演员；滑稽演员

参考例句：

• The comedian tickled the crowd with his jokes.喜剧演员的笑话把人们逗乐了。
• The comedian enjoyed great popularity during the 30's.那位喜剧演员在三十年代非常走红。

8 appreciation   

n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨

参考例句：

• I would like to express my appreciation and thanks to you all.我想对你们所有人表达我的感激和谢意。
• I'll be sending them a donation in appreciation of their help.我将送给他们一笔捐款以感谢他们的帮助。