来自《耶鲁大学开放课程：古希腊历史简介 第2集 第2集》

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  They borrow the characters from what had been already
  他们从十分接近字母系统的书写体系中
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  something quite close to an alphabet
  借来字符使用
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  and had only a relatively small number.
  而这些字符相对较少
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  I forget the exact number of the ones in the Semitic alphabet,
  我忘了闪米特语中有多少字母
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  but we're talking about roughly twenty-five.
  粗略说来大概有二十五个
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  I mean, you're into the ballgame for an alphabet
  我是说 你进入了一个字母表的游戏中
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  such as ours.
  这种字母表与我们的类似
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  The Greeks borrow that
  希腊人用他们典型的创新手段
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  with typical Greek innovation.
  借用了这些字符
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  They do the big step of inventing vowels
  他们在发明元音方面迈出重大一步
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  so that now you don't have to remember anything.
  所以现在你不必去费力记忆
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  You can read every sound that is made,
  就可以读出每一个能发的元音