[whale sound] Maybe you've heard that sound. It's an Orca, a killer whale. We know that whales have a kind of language. Families and closely related groups even share dialects.
（鲸鱼的声音）也许你听到过这种声音。这是一只逆戟鲸，虎鲸的一种。我们知道，鲸是有语言的。鲸鱼家族和彼此关系密切的鲸鱼群体甚至还有自己的“方言”。

Are they letting members of the pod know where the food is, crooning a romantic ballad to a potential mate, or something else altogether? That's what researchers want to know--and where citizen scientists come in.
他们的语言用来干嘛呢？是告诉群体成员食物在哪里？是求爱时浪漫的低声吟唱？还是别的什么原因？其实，这就是研究人员同是也是市民科学家们想揭开的秘密。

The first step in understanding whale talk is cataloging the calls. You might organize your messy drawer by matching up the socks--at our website, citizen scientists can match up the whale calls. You listen to an uncategorized call [sound] then find one that it sounds like it [similar sound].
要想了解鲸类的语言，第一步是将它们的声音进行分类。就像你可以把袜子分类然后整理好你的袜子抽屉一样——市民科学家们可以在我们的网站上给鲸鱼的声音进行匹配。这是你听到的未经分类的叫声（声音），然后找到一个听起来和它类似的声音（类似的声音）。

So far, more than 5,000 volunteers have matched 100,000 calls. That effort would have taken professionals years. The data will help answer questions like: How many kinds of calls do whales make? And: What does the number of calls say about intelligence? The studies will also help researchers develop guidelines to reduce the impact of man-made sounds on marine life. To lend us your ears, just go to whale.scientificamerican.com
目前，有超过5000名志愿者已经匹配了100,000个鲸鱼的声音。这样的工作要是让专业人员来做，估计需要耗费他们好几年的时间。这些数据有助于给这些问题做出解答：鲸类可以发出多少种声音？有多少种声音是和鲸类的智商有关的？这项研究也将有助于研究人员找到减少人类声音对海洋生物的影响的方法。登陆whale.scientificamerican.com网站，把你的耳朵借给我们，帮助我们匹配鲸鱼声音吧。

重点讲解

1. dialect n.方言，土语
例句：She speaks a dialect, not the Queen's English. 她说一口方言，不是标准w88中文。

2. ballad n.歌谣，小曲
例句：The musician made the legend into a beautiful ballad. 这位音乐家把传说编成了一首美丽的民谣。

3. match up 和谐, 相配
例句：The colours on the oil painting match up very nicely. 这张油画上的色彩配得很协调。

4. guideline n. 指导路线, 方针, 指标
例句：The secretary of state issue guidelines for expenditure. 国务大臣发布了开支的指导原则。