【双语新闻】日公司聚焦海外市场 要求员工说英语
In a bid to plug dwindling domestic consumption by tapping into overseas markets, some of Japan's big-name retailers are telling their employees to start speaking English -- or find another job.As Japan's population shrinks, the country's retailers are increasingly looking to boost sales by expanding abroad and some firms are waking up to the necessity of being able to speak the global language of business in order to succeed overseas.
Rakuten, Japan's biggest online retailer, plans to make English the firm's official language, while Fast Retailing, operator of the Uniqlo apparel chain, wants to make English more common in its offices by 2012 and plans to test its employees for proficiency.
"It's about stopping being a Japanese company. We will become a world company," Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani said last week at a news conference in Tokyo -- conducted almost entirely in English.
Employees at Rakuten, which hopes overseas sales will eventually account for 70 percent of all transactions made through its websites, will need to master English by 2012 to avoid facing the sack.
"No English, no job," Mikitani told the Asahi newspaper.
Other high-profile Japanese companies, including automakers Toyota Motor and Nissan Motor, have announced moves to make the use of English more common in the workplace.
Some experts say the switch to English is healthy but just one of the changes companies need to make to go global.
"What's interesting is that these companies really stand out as pioneers," Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University's Japan campus.
"They have a relatively new outlook. They realize that Japan is going to need to strike into foreign markets given the dormant state of its economy," he said.
为开拓海外市场，弥补日益减少的国内消费，日本一些知名零售企业要求员工开始说英语——否则就会饭碗不保。
随着日本人口的减少，该国越来越多的零售企业开始向海外拓展市场以促进产品销售，一些公司开始意识到要成功拓展海外市场，必须会说英语这一国际商务语言。
日本最大的网上零售公司乐天国际打算将英语定为公司的官方语言，而优衣库服装连锁公司隶属的迅销集团则希望在2012年前在全公司普及英语，并计划对员工的英语水平进行测试。
乐天国际首席执行官三木谷浩史在上周在东京召开的一次新闻发布会上说：“我们不再只是一家日本公司，我们将成为一家世界级的公司。”新闻发布会全程基本用英语进行。
这意味着乐天国际的员工在2012年之前必须熟练掌握英语，否则将被解雇。乐天希望其海外销售额最终能占到其所有网上交易额的70%。
三木谷告诉《朝日新闻》说：“不会说英语，就没工作。”
丰田汽车和日产汽车等日本其它一些知名公司也已宣布了在工作场所普及英语的措施。
一些专家称，将英语定为工作语言有益于企业的长远发展，但这只是企业走向国际化所需做出的改变之一。
天普大学日本校区亚洲研究部主任杰夫•金士顿说：“有意思的是，这些公司率先做出改变，的确引人注目。”
他说：“这些企业的发展观相对较新。他们意识到在如今这种低迷的经济状态下日本需要进军外国市场。”
[b]Vocabulary:[/b]
plug: to fill a hole with a substance or piece of material that fits tightly into it 堵塞；封堵
dwindle: to become gradually less or smaller （逐渐）减少，变小，缩小
tap into: 打入（市场），开拓生意
wake up to: become aware of 意识到；认识到
apparel: clothing, when it is being sold in shops/stores （商店出售的）衣服，服装
proficiency: skillfulness in the command of fundamentals deriving from practice and familiarity 精通；熟练
get the sack: 被解雇；被开除
dormant: not active or growing now but able to become active or to grow in the future 休眠的；蛰伏的；暂停活动的
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