精美英文欣赏:拉里•佩奇密歇根大学演讲

（单词翻译）

A long time ago, in this cold September of 1962,there was a Steven's co-op at this very university.

很久以前，1962年的寒冷9月，这座校园里有一家史蒂文消费合作社。

That co-op had a kitchen with a ceiling that had been cleaned by student volunteers probably every decade or so.

此合作社有一间厨房，那里的天花板由学生志愿者打扫，大概每十来年才一次吧。

Picture a college girl named Gloria,climbing up high on a ladder,struggling to clean that filthy¹ ceiling.

想象一下，画面上有位名叫格洛里亚的女大学生，爬上了高高的梯子，努力地打扫那脏兮兮的天花板。

Standing² on the floor,a young boarder named Carl was admiring the view.

一位名叫卡尔的寄宿生站在地上，为该情景钦佩不已。

And that's how they met.

这就是他俩的初次邂逅。

They were my parents,so I suppose you could say I'm a direct result of that kitchen chemistry experiment,right here at Michigan.

他俩就是我的父母亲。所以我想你们会说，我就是这里—密歇根大学那个“厨房化学实验”的直接成果。

Everyone in my family went here to Michigan: my brother,my Mom, my Dad-all of us.

我们家的所有成员都毕业于密歇根大学:我哥哥、我妈妈和爸爸—我们全家。

My father's father worked in the Chevy plant in Flint, Michigan.

我的祖父在密歇根州弗林特的雪佛兰汽车工厂工作，

He was an assembly line worker.

他是装配线上的一名工人。

He drove his two children here to Ann Arbor,and told them: That is where you're going to college.

他曾开车把两个孩子送到安娜堡这儿，并告诉他们:这是你们今后要上的大学。

I know it sounds funny now.

我知道现在听起来很好笑。

Both of his kids actually did graduate from Michigan.

他的两个孩子也的确从密歇根大学毕业。

That was the American dream.

这就是“美国梦”。

You know what it's like to wake up in the middle of the night with a vivid dream?

你们知道，午夜从一个逼真的梦境中醒来是什么感觉吗?

And you know how,if you don't have a pencil and pad by the bed,it will be completely gone by the next morning?

你们知道如果床边没有纸笔，而第二天一早就忘个精光又会怎样吗?

Well, I had one of those dreams when I was 23.

喔，我23岁的时候，就做过一个那样的梦。

When I suddenly woke up, I was thinking:

我猛然惊醒，想着:

What if we could download the whole web,and just keep the links?

如果我们能把整个网络下载下来，但仅保存链接会怎样?

And I grabbed⁴ a pen and started writing!

然后我抓起一支笔写了起来。

Sometimes it's important to wake up and stop dreaming.

有时候别做梦，及时醒来是非常重要的。

I spent the middle of that night scribbling⁵ out the details and convincing myself it would work.

我花了一个午夜描画出细节，并确信那是可以做得到的。

Soon after, I told my advisor⁶, Terry Winograd,it would take a couple of weeks for me to download the web-he nodded knowingly,fully aware it would take much longer but wise enough not to tell me.

不久后，我告诉我的导师特里?温诺格拉德，那要花几周时间来下载整个网络—他只是会意地点点头，他完全知道要花的时间其实长得多，但他很睿智，并没有告诉我。

The optimism⁷ of youth is often underrated!

年轻人的乐观精神通常不可低估!

Amazingly, at that time,I have no thoughts building a search engine.

令人惊讶的是，我当时没有想过要造一个搜索引擎。

The idea wasn't even on the radar⁸.

这一概念甚至没有进入我脑海。

But, much later we happened upon a better way of ranking and we made a really great search engine,and Google was born.

但很久以后，我们突然找到更好排列网页的方法，并造出一个非常好的搜索引擎—谷歌就这样诞生了。

When a really great dream shows up, grab³ it!

当伟大的梦想闪现时，抓住它吧!