中英文本

Beer was the staple drink in Mesopotamia and was issued as rations to workers.
啤酒是美索不达米亚的主要饮料，用以分配给工人饮用5cy)zo%hY@@1wq)。
Money, laws, trade, employment; this is the stuff of early writing, and it's writing like the writing on this little tablet that changes the nature of state control and state power-bureaucratic and economic.
金钱、法律、贸易、雇佣:这些便是早期写作的内容uEq7jmL8*R。 如本节中写字板般的记录，最终改变了国家管理与政府权力的本质GqdSiKeWS^X9QHAmr。
Only later does writing move from rations to emotions; the accountants get there before the poets.
到后期，文字的作用才从记录变为抒情，这也就是说，会计师掌握书写的年代远比诗人更早#vdw)+^c8&f%。
It's all thoroughly bureaucratic stuff, and so we asked Gus O'Donnell, the head of the British civil service, to talk to us about why he thinks the first writing in Mesopotamia was about organising the state:
文字是彻头彻尾的行政系统的产物0S5@bh!V&2。我曾为此询问英国内阁秘书长格斯奥唐奈爵士的看法：
"This tablet is amazing. You've got a civil service here, starting to come into place in order to record what's going on.
这块写字板是对文字的最早记录，同时，它也能让我们了解早期国家的发展，当时巳有公务人员开始记录正在发生的事M-=e_lKcGJczv。
Here is very clearly the state paying some workers for some work that's been done, they need to keep a track of the public finances, they need to know how much they've paid: it needs to be fair."
很明显，这里记录的是国家向工人分发工作报酬f4o]3k6Z9)qxlGx。他们需要将公共财政的支出记下来，并了解付出的酬劳有多少，这些都要秉公处理%DrgTtxjBhNnFi7q3S++。
So, by 3000 BC, the people who had to manage the various city-states of Mesopotamia were discovering how to use written records for all kinds of day-to-day administration, keeping large temples running or tracking the movement and storage of goods.
公元前三千年，美索不达米亚各个城邦的管理者发现了如何将文字记录运用到日常管理，运用到大型庙宇的运作、活动记录以及货物储存中的方法hXR3B;bMzUa^j。
Most of the early clay tablets in our collection, like this one, come from the city of Uruk, roughly halfway between modern Baghdad and Basra.
大部分的早期黏土板，如本节中的这块，都来自今巴格达与巴士拉之间的乌鲁克s~G*~OZr2aoQz73b。
Uruk was just one of the large rich city-states of Mesopotamia that had grown too big and too complex for anyone to be able to run them just by word of mouth. Gus O'Donnell again.
乌鲁克是美索不达米亚的大型富庶城邦之一，城市已经发展得过于庞大复杂，无法仅靠口头表达来进行统治iJ!)G!5J@+JQZX4r。奥唐奈爵士再次解释道[#vOs9Yt-y7.Bnh。

重点讲解

1.talk to 谈话；责骂

Getting out of the building to talk to people is kind of an unnatural act.
放下手头的工作，与人对话，并不是本能行为[ODK79w]eTSh。

I need to talk to him.
我得跟他谈谈TT~BCW]+G=]jxE。

2.in order to 为了

They buy patents in order to sue infringers.
他们购买专利的目的就是为了起诉专利侵权者G)DvNmO9]Z-rd。

Why does my iphone need so much data in order to assist it in finding my location today?
为什么iPhone需要如此多的数据以帮助定位我的当前位置？

3.need to 需要做

Cmos need to get personally involved.
首席营销官需要亲身参与BW1JwK5Xu^PoU[。

That's all you need to do!
别的什么都不用做！

4.be able to 能，会；能够

Customers will be able to order more types of objects in more materials.
而普通消费者也能买到用更多材料打印的更多种类的物品o-G7HY|]Bx。

To build a community of advocates, you have to be able to talk to them.
要想建立一个支持者的群体，首先要能够和他们说上话4&;=RWoRG]5Ii02S-sI*。