英语每日一听 | 每天少于5分钟

Britain is looking for new partners and it is eyeing Africa.
英国正在寻找新的合作伙伴，并将目光投向了非洲。

With 1.2 billion people and eight of the world's 15 fastest-growing economies, Africa offers world-beating returns on investment, according to a report from the Overseas Development Institute.
海外发展研究所的一份报告显示，非洲拥有12亿人口，全球15个增长最快的经济体中非洲占了8个，投资回报率全球领先。

In the past 20 years it's about 16% and this is much higher than in other countries.
在过去的20年中，这一比例约为16％，远高于其他国家。

Even if you look at returns in Latin America and other developing countries, this case of higher returns in Africa is definitely should encourage more UK investments in the continent.
即使你观察拉丁美洲和其他发展中国家的回报率，非洲这种更高回报的情况无疑会鼓励英国在非洲大陆进行更多投资。

Britain is playing catch-up. Data from agency the International Trade Center showed France and Germany export more than double the value of goods to Africa than Britain does.
英国正在奋起直追。国际贸易中心的数据显示，法国和德国向非洲出口商品的价值是英国的两倍多。

At a London summit earlier this month, African business leaders said Britain must get proactive post Brexit.
在本月初的伦敦峰会上，非洲商界领袖表示英国必须在脱欧后积极主动。

If be okay, just sit down, the vessel will go. That turn them off. But UK companies need to come and walk with the African business model.
如果可以的话，就坐下吧，船要开了。把它们关掉。但英国公司需要参与进来，与非洲的商业模式共同发展。

British companies believe they have an edge on technology.
英国公司认为他们在技术上有优势。

The UK Space Agency is backing satellite firms that offer services to African farmers like the PRISE or Pest Risk Information Service.
英国航天局正在支持为非洲农民提供服务的卫星公司，例如PRISE。

Chris Castelli is director of programs at the UK Space Agency.
克里斯·卡斯特利是英国航天局项目主任。

So it's taking terabytes of satellite data and sending out text alerts to farmers which can tell them when pests might become a problem in the future.
它正在处理数万亿字节的卫星数据，并向农民发送文本警报，从而可以告诉他们未来何时可能出现虫灾。

African entrepreneurs are seeking investment in homegrown technology. Mobihealth is a mobile app that seeks to offer top-level health care access across Africa.
非洲企业家正在为本土技术寻求投资。Mobihealth是一款旨在为整个非洲提供顶级医疗服务的移动应用程序。

90 percent of our doctors are from the Western countries. 10% are from the rest of Africa. They provide video consultation, prescription, diagnostic tests.
90%的医生来自西方国家。10%来自非洲其他地区。他们提供视频咨询、处方和诊断检测服务。

We are looking here to connect with people who can help us to scale up our business and take this global.
我们在这里寻找能够帮助我们扩大业务规模并将其推向全球的人。

African nations need to work harder to attract investment, says the Secretary General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
联合国贸易和发展会议秘书长说，非洲国家需要加倍努力以吸引投资。

We need to develop this human resource as a contribution to the world's economy that we need to ride the conditions to make Africa the next factory of the world.
我们需要开发这一人力资源，以此为世界经济做出贡献；我们需要利用各种条件，让非洲成为世界的下一个工厂。

Then you can say, "Can Britain step in just like any other friend of Africa and offer some of the solution?"
然后你可以说：“英国能像非洲的其他朋友一样介入并提供一些解决方案吗？”

Britain says it can, but many analysts warn negotiations over its future relationship with Europe will dominate trade talks in the coming months and years.
英国表示可以，但许多分析人士警告称，未来数月乃至数年内，与欧洲未来关系的谈判将主导贸易谈判。

Its length isn't what makes the path special, says Natural England's Neil Constable, who led the project. For him, the important thing is it means you can now reach the coast anywhere in England, turn left or right, and follow the sea for as long as you like.
这条步道的长度并非它最特别的地方，这是该项目负责人、英格兰自然署官员尼尔·康斯特布尔的看法。对他而言，最重要的一点是这条步道的建成意味着现在你可以来到英格兰海岸线上的任何一个地方，向左或向右转，便能沿着海岸随心所欲地想走多远就走多远。

Creating the route has taken 18 years, an act of parliament, andextensiveplanning and construction. More than a thousand miles of new path have been built, withupgradessuch asboardwalksand bridges. Newlegal provisionsmean the route can also adapt to climate change,shiftinginlandaserosionand rising seasreshape the coastline.
这条路线的建成历时 18 年，期间通过了一项议会法案，并进行了大量的规划和建设。其中新建的步道超过 1000 英里，并增设了木栈道和桥梁等升级设施。新的法律条文确保了该路线能够应对气候变化，随着海水侵蚀和海平面升高不断重塑海岸线，步道位置可随之向内陆迁移。

Animals build their homes to achieve different living goals. Bees build hives to store and protect food, spiders spin webs to catch prey and beavers build dams to create pools. But, as you walk around a town or stroll along a countryside pathway, you may notice some unique homes up on the treetops – nests.
动物建造家园是为了实现不同的生活目标。 蜜蜂建造蜂巢来储存和保护食物，蜘蛛结网来捕捉猎物，海狸建造水坝来形成水池。 但是，当您在城镇中漫步或沿着乡村小路漫步时，您可能会注意到树顶上有一些独特的房屋 - 巢穴。

Like architects, birds carefully engineer their nests before building them. A report named Architectural traditions in the structures built by cooperative weaver birds says that their designs are influenced by those before them. A study released by iScience finds that birds follow a culture that gets passed down. Not the high culture of art, literature and music, but an older process of transmitting traits and skills through generations.
像建筑师一样，鸟类在建造巢穴之前会仔细设计它们。 一份名为《合作织鸟建造的建筑中的建筑传统》的报告称，它们的设计受到了前辈的影响。 iScience 发布的一项研究发现，鸟类遵循一种可以传承下来的文化。 不是艺术、文学和音乐的高雅文化，而是代代相传特征和技能的古老过程。

Bird nest building: visions for the future, says that birds who are first-time builders will often copy familiar individuals, highlighting how important this individual, perhaps the parent, is. Sound familiar? An article in the National Library of Medicine explains how children learn by imitating their caregiver.
鸟巢建造：对未来的愿景 首次建造鸟巢的鸟儿经常会模仿熟悉的个体，这强调了这个个体（也许是父母）的重要性。 听起来很熟悉吗？ 国家医学图书馆的一篇文章解释了孩子如何通过模仿他们的照顾者来学习。

These behaviours, though, can also change in response to pressures of natural selection, a term coined by Charles Darwin in his theory of evolution. Competition is one of the three components of that theory.
不过，这些行为也会因自然选择的压力而发生变化，自然选择是查尔斯·达尔文在其进化论中创造的术语。 竞争是该理论的三个组成部分之一。

And it's not just in the human world where certain property locations are highly desirable. Some species of birds even steal nest locations from others. Studies at the Zoological Society of London have discovered that invasive species will compete with native birds for suitable trees to build their nests in. Experiments published in Science Direct also show that most female birds look for fresh, green nests when choosing their mate. A report from RSPB further adds that in some species of birds, such as wrens, the male will build multiple nests from which the female can choose her favourite and even tidy it up. This tells us that, like humans, the quality of a home, in addition to its location and cleanliness, can influence whether a pair of birds decide to live and start a family there.
不仅仅是在人类世界中，某些房产位置非常令人向往。 有些鸟类甚至会窃取其他鸟类的巢穴位置。 伦敦动物学会的研究发现，入侵物种会与本地鸟类竞争合适的树木来筑巢。《Science Direct》上发表的实验还表明，大多数雌性鸟类在选择配偶时都会寻找新鲜、绿色的巢穴。 皇家鸟类保护协会的一份报告进一步补充说，在某些鸟类中，例如鹪鹩，雄性会建造多个巢，雌性可以从中选择她最喜欢的，甚至清理它。 这告诉我们，像人类一样，房屋的质量，除了位置和清洁度之外，还会影响一对鸟是否决定在那里生活并建立家庭。

Streaming video platforms have given filmmakers massive budgets and allowed them to make creative and artistic films and series free of the restrictions of cinema or broadcast time slots. But, maybe, just maybe, not everyone wants a three-hour long work of creative genius. Minute-long micro-dramas are taking the entertainment market by storm.
流媒体视频平台为电影制片人提供了大量预算，使他们能够不受影院或广播时段的限制制作创意和艺术电影和电视剧。 但是，也许，只是也许，并不是每个人都想要一部长达三个小时的创意天才作品。 时长一分钟的微剧正在席卷娱乐市场。

Perhaps most people are looking for something that they can squeeze into their everyday life. Micro-dramas cater perfectly for this need. It's not just that you can watch them on your phone, they're made for it. They're shot in vertical format, so you don't even have to turn your phone round to start watching. Series are split into as many as a hundred short episodes, so they can fit into any spare downtime that you have.
也许大多数人都在寻找可以融入日常生活的东西。 微剧正好满足了这种需求。 您不仅可以在手机上观看它们，而且它们是为此而设计的。 它们以垂直格式拍摄，因此您甚至无需转动手机即可开始观看。 系列分为多达一百个短集，因此它们可以适合您的任何闲暇时间。

For this to work, it needs a new kind of programme. US tech company Quibi tried to use traditional Hollywood stars, and collapsed in less than a year, taking $1.75 billion dollars' worth of investment with it. Chinese start-up companies took a different approach, focusing on low-cost production and using analytics data and AI analysis to identify exactly what gets the audience to start watching, and then how to make the next episode feel unmissable.
要实现这一点，需要一种新的计划。 美国科技公司Quibi试图利用传统的好莱坞明星，不到一年就倒闭了，带走了价值17.5亿美元的投资。 中国的初创公司采取了不同的方法，专注于低成本制作，并使用分析数据和人工智能分析来准确确定什么让观众开始观看，然后如何让下一集感觉不容错过。

Billionaires, breakups and bust-ups: those are the key themes that get the audience watching. There isn't much room for nuance or slow-build character development in a micro-drama, but what is needed is drama. Rather than a subscription model, monetisation in the world of micro-dramas is often based on a freemium model. You can see enough episodes to get you hooked for free. But you need to buy credits to find out how the story ends. This means that dramatic cliffhangers are a commercial tool.
亿万富翁、分手和分手：这些是吸引观众观看的关键主题。 微剧中没有太多的空间来进行细微差别或缓慢的角色发展，但需要的是戏剧性。 微剧领域的货币化通常基于免费增值模式，而不是订阅模式。 您可以免费观看足够多的剧集，让您着迷。 但你需要购买积分才能了解故事的结局。 这意味着戏剧性的悬念是一种商业工具。

These dramas are increasing in popularity around the world. There is also great potential to make money from advertising as audiences are highly engaged. After China, the US has become the biggest micro-drama market. Could it be that soon most of the drama we watch is on our phones in those minutes we find between our other daily tasks?
这些电视剧在世界各地越来越受欢迎。 由于受众高度参与，通过广告赚钱的潜力也很大。 美国已成为继中国之后最大的微剧市场。 难道我们很快就会在其他日常任务之间的那几分钟里通过手机观看大部分电视剧吗？

Years ago discrimination against people with disabilities often started right at birth.
多年前，对残疾人的歧视往往始于出生。

When I was born, a doctor came in to my mom and explained to her my diagnosis in this way, your son is a midget like you see in the circus.
当我出生时，一位医生走进来对我妈妈这样解释我的诊断结果：你的儿子就像你在马戏团里看到的那种侏儒。

So in that one sentence, that he said to my mother he's basically laid out my entire future.
在他对我母亲说的那句话里，他基本上已经规划好了我的整个未来。

Okay, just in one second, Lydia. Boss is busy firing me because I make him uncomfortable,
好吧，就在一会儿，莉迪亚。老板正忙着解雇我，因为我让他不舒服，

But luckily times have changed. Woodburn who was diagnosed with dwarfism went on to have a successful acting career, appearing in more than 30 films and making more than 150 television appearances, including the popular TV series Seinfeld.
但幸运的是，时代发生了变化。被诊断患有侏儒症的沃德本恩后来在演艺事业上取得了成功，参演了30多部电影并出演了150多部电视剧，其中包括热门剧集《宋飞正传》。

It's little people. You got that. His success reflects the impact of the ADA.
这是小人物，你明白的。他的成功反映了《美国残疾人法案》的影响。

The ADA stands for the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the important thing that we would really want everyone to know, is that it's a civil rights law.
ADA全称是Americans with Disabilities Act，最重要的是我们希望每个人都知道这是一部民权法案。

Individuals with disabilities were not part of that protection, and it became evident that they were not being included in ways that other previously marginalized groups were.
残疾人曾经并未受到这种保护，而且很明显，他们未能像其他曾被边缘化的群体那样被纳入其中。

Signed into law by president George HW Bush in 1990, the ADA provided protection against discrimination to millions of Americans in school, on the job, and in all public and private places.
《美国残疾人法案》于1990年由乔治·H·W·布什总统签署生效，该法案为数百万美国人在学校、职场以及所有公共和私人场所提供了免受歧视的保护。

By doing so, it improved access and quality of life for millions.
通过这样做，它改善了数百万人的生活便利性和生活质量。

I think one of the most important things that we look at with the Americans with Disabilities Act is its opportunity to level the playing field.
我认为《美国残疾人法案》最重要的意义之一在于它提供了公平竞争的机会。

But in the area of employment for people with disabilities, Goss acknowledges that the number remains low.
但在残疾人就业领域，戈斯承认，这一数字仍然很低。

In 2019, less than 20 percent of disabled adults had jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It's one reason why more advocacy is needed, says Woodburn.
在2019年，只有不到20%的残疾人有工作，据美国劳工统计局统计。沃德本恩表示，这正是需要更多倡导的原因之一。

And part of my advocacy with my own industry has been to change the landscape of employment of actors with disability, for example, because the belief system is that for kids, if you can't see it you can't be it.
我呼吁改变残疾演员的就业状况，因为人们的观念是，对于孩子来说，看不见榜样就无法成为那样的人。

But many of the law's provisions have improved lives, and even benefited those without disabilities.
但许多法律规定改善了人们的生活，甚至让那些没有残疾的人受益。

Ramps and curb cuts designed to accommodate wheelchairs, for example, help others.
例如，为方便轮椅通行而设计的坡道和路缘斜坡也能帮助到其他人。

After those were put in place, people started to see more and more mothers walking their babies in the strollers and delivery persons using those.
这些设施到位后，人们开始看到越来越多的母亲推着婴儿车散步，快递员也开始使用这些设施。

And text messaging was born out of technology for the hearing impaired.
短信是为听障人士研发的技术衍生而来的。

We owe that to the deaf community and their need to have that access.
我们应该为聋人社区着想，满足他们获取信息的需求。

As the ADA celebrates 30 years of advancing the lives of millions of Americans, Woodburn says there's still plenty of room for improvement.
在《美国残疾人法案》庆祝推动数百万美国人生活改善的30年之际，沃德本恩表示还有很大的改进空间。

We have to be included every step of the way and we're just not right now.
我们必须全程参与，可目前我们并没有做到。

So my hope is that anyone that has diversity or inclusion discussion, either as an advocate or as a corporate leader, that they always include disability, despite how uncomfortable it might make them feel.
我希望任何讨论多元化或包容性的人，无论是倡导者还是企业领导者，都能始终将残障人士纳入其中，尽管这可能让他们感到不适。