Mark decides to give Maggie some insight into the developments of the internet,intranet and e-mail in his own country and culture.
馬克決定告訴瑪姬關于互聯網、內部網和電子郵件在他的國家、文化中發展的根本情況。
Mark: I can’t remember if I told or not,but I’m from France.
馬克：我不記得我是否告訴過你，我來自法國。
Maggie: Really? You hardly have an accent.
瑪姬：真的?你幾乎沒帶什么口音。
Mark: Anyway ,I’d like to explain a little about the historcial development of e-mail in Europe.
馬克：不論如何，我想解釋一點關于電子郵件在歐洲特別是在法國的發展歷史。
actually in France ,Now you see we in France do have our own system to support electronic correspondence .It’s called an intranet.
現在你可以看到在法國我們有自己的系統來支持電子通信業務。人們稱之為內部網。
Maggie: Isn’t that what used in Net-works within companies and stuff.
瑪姬：是不是在公司和職員之間的計算機網絡上操作使用的。
Mark: Something like that .Well ,France came up with this computer network the intranet-before the introduction of the internet.
馬克：有點像，嗯，法國在互聯網介紹進來之前就有了這種電腦網站——內部網。
Maggie: Intranet.I think I’ve heard of that ...
瑪姬：內部網。我想我曾聽說過……
Mark: It was very popular and a very exciting technological advance.
馬克：這是一個非常受人歡迎，非常令人激動的技術性突破。
Maggie:Wait,Isn’t that what companies use to keep their employees connected.
瑪姬：等等，是不是公司用來保持與他們雇員聯系的?
Mark: Yeah,That’s one kind of intranet.
馬克：是的，這只是其中一種。
Maggie: But on the intranet you can only send messages to people who share your same network.It’s like a big club.
瑪姬：但是在這種網上，你只能發送信息給和你聯網的人，就像一個大俱樂部。
Mark: Exactly and that was the problem with the intranet in France...But I’m getting ahead of myself.
馬克：確切地說在法國這種網有一個大問題是……我現在找不著頭緒了。
Maggie: Sorry,I didn’t mean to interrupt you.
瑪姬：對不起，我并不想打斷你。
Mark: Like I was saying it was very popular and very advanced but it was limited in its range.
馬克：正如我所說，它非常受人歡迎而且很先進，但在區域范圍上有局限。
Maggie: That’s when the internet came along.
瑪姬：這是在互聯網出現以后……
Mark: Right ,It was introduced in France some time after the intranet had been adopted by quite a few people .
馬克：是的，在內部網已經被相當一部分人接受以后的一段時間，才被介紹到法國來的。
However it was slightly more appealing because it was not limited in range to France.
可是它還是有一定的吸引力，因為對于法國來說，它在范圍上是不受限制的。
Maggie: Did the internet really pose much of a threat to the intranet?
瑪姬：互聯網真的對內部網已夠成相當威脅了嗎?
Mark: Yes and no.It wasn’t too successful because people were already used to the intranet and it was not too convenient to get everyone to swith.
馬克：可以說是也可以說不是。這并不是很成功，因為人們已經習慣內部網了，而且任何人都可以互通信息也并不很方便。
However ,it’s competitive advantage came from the fact that it’s scope was much larger and this larger and this was a huge advantage in eyes of a younger generation.
但是，它有一個競爭優勢就在于它的范圍要大得多，在年輕一代人的眼中，這是一個巨大的優勢。
Maggie: Fascinating ,So that’s why the internet is not so widely used in France.
瑪姬：這太有趣了，這就是為什么互聯網在法國不是很普及的原因。
Mark: In part....and in my opinion ,it’s going to take some time to make the shift.
馬克：部分原因是這樣，我看還要再過一段時間才會有所變化。
Hey look there’s the Post Office.
瞧，郵局在那。
Maggie: Thanks,It’s really decent of you.
瑪姬：謝謝，你真是太好了。
