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Passage Two
短文二
The earliest printed book we know today appeared in China in the year 868 and metal type was in use in Korea at the beginning of the fifteenth century, but it was in Germany around the year 1450 that a printing press using movable metal type was invented.
已知最早的印刷書籍于868年在中國出現。十五世紀之初朝鮮就使用了金屬印刷。1450年德國發明了使用金屬活字的印刷機。
Capitalism turned printing from an invention into an industry.
資本主義將印刷從一項發明發展為一項產業。
Right from the start, book printing and publishing were organized on capitalist lines.
書籍印刷從開始就由資本家組織。
The biggest sixteenth-century printer, Plantin of Antwerp, had twenty-four printing presses and employed more than a hundred workers.
十六世紀最大的印刷業大亨是安特衛普的普蘭廷，他擁有二十四臺印刷機，雇傭了超過一百名工人。
Only a small fraction of the population was literate, but the production of books grew at an extraordinary speed.
只有一小部分人受過教育，但書籍產量飛速增長。
By 1500 some twenty million volumes had already been printed.
到1500年印刷了約兩千萬卷書籍。
The immediate effect of printing was to increase the circulation of works that were already popular in a handwritten form, while less popular works went out of circulation.
印刷的直接影響下，手寫版就已經流行的書籍得到更多傳播，不那么流行的作品卻不再傳播。
Publishers were interested only in books that would sell fairly quickly in sufficient numbers to cover the costs of production and make a profit.
出版商只在意那些賣得很快很多的書籍，以此抵消成本，賺取利潤。
Thus, while printing enormously increased access to books by making cheap, high-volume production possible, it also reduced choice.
因此，印刷使得低成本大量制造書籍有了可能，由此極大提高了人們獲取書籍的機會，不過也減少了選擇。
The great cultural impact of printing was that it facilitated the growth of national languages.
印刷術對文化的一大影響在于促進了本土語言的發展。
Most early books were printed in Latin, but the market for Latin was limited, and in its pursuit of larger markets the book trade soon produced translations into the national languages emerging at the time.
早期印刷的大多是拉丁文書籍，但拉丁文書籍的市場有限，為了獲取更大的市場利益，圖書業立刻生產當時興起的本國語言譯本。
Printing indeed played a key role in standardizing and stabilizing these languages by fixing them in print, and producing dictionaries and grammar books.
通過印刷品中修正語言，以及生產字典和語法書籍，印刷確實在語言的標準化和穩定化中起了關鍵作用。
Questions 12 to 15 are based on the passage you have just heard.
請根據你剛剛聽到的對話回答問題12至問題15。
12. What happened in Germany around the year 1450?
問題12：1450年德國發生了什么？
13. What does the speaker say about the printer, Plantin of Antwerp?
問題13：關于印刷大亨安特衛普的普蘭廷，說話者說了些什么？
14. What was the immediate effect of printing?
問題14：印刷的直接影響是什么？
15. What was the great cultural impact of printing?
問題15：印刷對文化的巨大影響是什么？
