"No English, no job" for some Japanese office workers
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.
為開拓海外市場，彌補日益減少的國內消費，日本一些知名零售企業要求員工開始說英語——否則就會飯碗不保。
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.
隨著日本人口的減少，該國越來越多的零售企業開始向海外拓展市場以促進產品銷售，一些公司開始意識到要成功拓展海外市場，必須會說英語這一國際商務語言。
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.
日本最大的網上零售公司樂天國際打算將英語定為公司的官方語言，而優衣庫服裝連鎖公司隸屬的迅銷集團則希望在2012年前在全公司普及英語，並計劃對員工的`英語水平進行測試。
"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.
樂天國際執行長三木谷浩史在上週在東京召開的一次新聞釋出會上說：“我們不再只是一家日本公司，我們將成為一家世界級的公司。”新聞釋出會全程基本用英語進行。
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.
這意味著樂天國際的員工在2012年之前必須熟練掌握英語，否則將被解僱。樂天希望其海外銷售額最終能佔到其所有網上交易額的70%。
試大-實用英語考試
