马克和玛姬继续向邮局走去，
Mark decides to give Maggie some insight into the developments of the internet,intranet and e-mail in his own country and culture.
马克决定告诉玛姬关于互联网、内部网和电子邮件在他的国家、文化中发展的根本情况。
Mark: I can't remember if I told or not,but I'm from France.
马克：我不记得我是否告诉过你，我来自法国。
Maggie: Really? You hardly have an accent.
玛姬：真的？你几乎没带什么口音。
Mark: Anyway ,I'd like to explain a little about the historcial development of e-mail in Europe.
马克：不论如何，我想解释一点关于电子邮件在欧洲特别是在法国的发展历史。
actually in France ,Now you see we in France do have our own system to support electronic correspondence .It's called an intranet.
现在你可以看到在法国我们有自己的系统来支持电子通信业务。人们称之为内部网。
Maggie: Isn't that what used in Net-works within companies and stuff.
玛姬：是不是在公司和职员之间的计算机网络上操作使用的。
Mark: Something like that .Well ,France came up with this computer network the intranet-before the introduction of the internet.
马克：有点像，嗯，法国在互联网介绍进来之前就有了这种电脑网站——内部网。
Maggie: Intranet.I think I've heard of that ...
玛姬：内部网。我想我曾听说过……
Mark: It was very popular and a very exciting technological advance.
马克：这是一个非常受人欢迎，非常令人激动的技术性突破。
Maggie:Wait,Isn't that what companies use to keep their employees connected.
玛姬：等等，是不是公司用来保持与他们雇员联系的？
Mark: Yeah,That's one kind of intranet.
马克：是的，这只是其中一种。
Maggie: But on the intranet you can only send messages to people who share your same network.It's like a big club.
玛姬：但是在这种网上，你只能发送信息给和你联网的人，就像一个大俱乐部。
Mark: Exactly and that was the problem with the intranet in France...But I'm getting ahead of myself.
马克：确切地说在法国这种网有一个大问题是……我现在找不着头绪了。
Maggie: Sorry,I didn't mean to interrupt you.
玛姬：对不起，我并不想打断你。
Mark: Like I was saying it was very popular and very advanced but it was limited in its range.
马克：正如我所说，它非常受人欢迎而且很先进，但在区域范围上有局限。
Maggie: That's when the internet came along.
玛姬：这是在互联网出现以后……
Mark: Right ,It was introduced in France some time after the intranet had been adopted by quite a few people .
马克：是的，在内部网已经被相当一部分人接受以后的一段时间，才被介绍到法国来的。
However it was slightly more appealing because it was not limited in range to France.
可是它还是有一定的吸引力，因为对于法国来说，它在范围上是不受限制的。
Maggie: Did the internet really pose much of a threat to the intranet?
玛姬：互联网真的对内部网已够成相当威胁了吗？
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.
马克：可以说是也可以说不是。这并不是很成功，因为人们已经习惯内部网了，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，它有一个竞争优势就在于它的范围要大得多，在年轻一代人的眼中，这是一个巨大的优势。
Maggie: Fascinating ,So that's why the internet is not so widely used in France.
玛姬：这太有趣了，这就是为什么互联网在法国不是很普及的原因。
Mark: In part....and in my opinion ,it's going to take some time to make the shift.
马克：部分原因是这样，我看还要再过一段时间才会有所变化。
Hey look there's the Post Office.
瞧，邮局在那。
Maggie: Thanks,It's really decent of you.
玛姬：谢谢，你真是太好了。