讓大前研一當你的英文老師

提出「M型社會」一詞、被譽為全球五位管理大師之一的大前研一（Ohmae Kenichi），不同於我們對一般日本人的認識，他的英文聽不到濃濃的日本腔；相反的，他在全球各地的巡迴演講都以英文發聲。

大前研一說，語言能力總在迫切需要的時候才會發揮效用。十九歲那一年，大前研一開始擔任口譯導覽員，一做就是六年。這六年帶給他難以計數的寶貴經驗。最明顯的是外語能力的提升。剛開始講的時候，他當然也覺得很辛苦，不過一旦習慣和各國人士交談後，不知不覺就習慣於各國的腔調了。因此，只要把自己丟到非用英文不可的情境，語言能力自然發揮出來。只是學校教的英文太重視「正確性」，扼殺了語言的功能其實只要能表達「訊息」就可以了。

語言的功能只要表達「訊息」就夠了，這是大前研一對語言所提出來的看法。以下是大前研一在台灣進行的一場演講所節錄的一段內容。這段文字不長，請先唸出聲音來，讓自己聽到自己的聲音。

In the wake of 三通, I think Taiwan could seek to become a super Silicon Valley because you have been very successful in establishing research parks, but not only for Taiwan, but Super Silicon Valley for entire East Asia.

Anybody who’s gone to business school has seen this smile curve. Taiwan EMS concentrated on this lowest profitable area and still able to make money. See, and then driving the Japanese, Europeans, Americans from the bottom of the smile curve. So we in Japan had to go upstream, this is the materials, machinery, etc. I think Taiwan’s strength is, number one knowing Japanese psychology, speak the language, buying the best machines—components. And also Taiwan managers establish long term relationship, human relationship, with Japanese companies. They also manage larger operations in mainland China in mother tongue with full of Taiwan experience in manufacturing and management, sell products worldwide in the English language, and maintain high level contact with global brand owners. In other words communication capability in English, Chinese, Japanese seem to be what is behind Taiwan’s enormous success to date.

All of the companies that have IPO in IT industries in the United States—number one is Israeli, number two is India and number three is Taiwan. And so you have tremendous number of talents given the size of your country, it is overrepresented in that region. Take advantage of that, become Super Silicon Valley, count this for your innovation and R&D, trading engineers and manufacturers from China which, 三通can enable, will enable, manufacturing support for Asian countries not only for China but for the rest of the world. All countries are looking for industrial parks, or science parks, to attract companies and capital. You have a very successful example of industrial parks and R&D centers. You can export this concept. Taiwan’s great success in East Asia, this is tremendous. And also contribution to China’s success. Taiwanese people should be celebrating this, but China should be very much appreciative of this.

China's own emergence of the super power of the 21st century: Taiwan is lucky because you are the best beneficiary. You take advantage of this upward migration of China—no other country can do better than Taiwan can.
註：EMS為全球電子製造服務產業

唸完之後，你會清楚發覺，這是很典型的口語英文。口語英文有什麼特徵：

1、清楚傳達訊息。唸完之後，你應該立即可以掌握大前研一主要想表達的概念：台灣有許多值得其他國家學習的地方。

2、文法無需準確。口語是傳達個人腦袋思惟，一邊思考，嘴巴就要一邊跟著說出來，無法要求達到完全準確。

3、不用難字。若要從這段演講節錄中找出生字，大概勉強可以算得上是難字的應該是beneficiary（受惠者）這個字。

4、簡單句型。口語英文以直接、簡單、容易理解為原則。從中你大概不容易找到你不懂的英文；但是，你一定找得到你不會用的英文句型。例如，given這個字，You have tremendous number of talents given the size of your country. （衡量到你們國家的規模，你們的人才是很豐富的）。“given...”中文的意思是，「考量到...」或是「在這種情況下」。但是given的普遍的用法應該是given the fact...,譬如，I gave her a promotion given the fact she's a good employee. （我升她的官，代表她是一個很棒的員工。）

作者簡介_世界公民文化中心