在职场竞争激烈的今天，想要有更好的发展，英语已经成为了必备的技能，但是职场上的英语和普通英语不同，需要是商务英语，今天我们为大家整理了商务英语综合教程课文及翻译，一起来看一下吧。

How to Attend a Meeting会议妙诀

To really succeed in a business or organization, it is sometimes helpful to know what your job is, and whether it involves any duties. Ask among your coworkers. "Hi," you should say. "I'm a new employee. What is the name of my job?" If they answer "long-range planner" or "lieutenant governor," you are pretty much free to lounge around and do crossword puzzles until retirement. Most jobs, however, will require some work.

There are two major kinds of work in modern organizations:

Taking phone messages for people who are in meetings, and, going to meetings.

Your ultimate career strategy will be to get a job involving primarily No. 2, going to meetings, as soon as possible, because that's where the real prestige is. It is all very well and good to be able to take phone messages, but you are never going to get a position of power, a position where you can cost thousands of people their jobs with a single bonehead decision, unless you learn how to attend meetings.

The first meeting ever was held was back in the Mezzanine Era1. In those days, Man's job was to slay his prey and bring it home for Woman, who had to figure out how to cook it. The problem was, Man was slow and basically naked, whereas the prey had warm fur and could run like an antelope. (In fact it was an antelope, only nobody knew this.)

At last someone said, "Maybe if we just sat down and did some brainstorming, we could come up with a better way to hunt our prey!" It went extremely well, plus it was much warmer sitting in a circle, so they agreed to meet again the next day,and the next.

But the women pointed out that the men had not produced anything, and the human race was pretty much starving. The men agreed that was serious and said they would put it right near the top of their "agenda". At this point, the women, who were primitive but not stupid, started eating plants, and thus modern agriculture was born. It never would have happened without meetings.

The modern business meeting, however, might better be compared with a funeral, in the sense that you have a gathering of people who are wearing uncomfortable clothing and would rather be somewhere else. The major difference is that most funerals have a definite purpose. Also, nothing is really ever buried in a meeting.

An idea may look dead, but it will always reappear at another meeting later on. If you have ever seen the movie, Night of the Living Dead2, you have a rough idea of how modern meetings operate, with projects and proposals that everyone thought were killed rising up constantly from their graves to stagger back into meetings and eat the brains of the living.

There are two major kinds of meetings:

A. Meetings that are held for basically the same reason that Arbor Day is observed --- namely, tradition. For example, a lot of managerial people like to meet on Monday, because it's Monday. You'll get used to it. You'd better, because this kind account for 83% of all meetings (based on a study in which I wrote down numbers until one of them looked about right). This type of meeting operates the way "Show and Tell"3 does in nursery school, with everyone getting to say something, the difference being that in nursery school, the kids actually have something to say.

When it's your turn, you should say that you're still working on whatever it is you're supposed to be working on. This may seem pretty dumb, since obviously you'd be working on whatever you're supposed to be working on, and even if you weren't, you'd claim you were, but that's the traditional thing for everyone to say. It would be a lot faster if the person running the meeting would just say, "Everyone who is still working on what he or she is supposed to be working on, raise your hand." You'd be out of there in five minutes, even allowing for jokes. But this is not how we do it in America. My guess is, it's how they do it in Japan.

B. Meetings where there is some alleged purpose. These are trickier, because what you do depends on what the purpose is. Sometimes the purpose is harmless, like someone wants to show slides of pie charts4 and give everyone a big, fat report. All you have to do in this kind of meeting is sit there and have elaborate fantasies, then take the report back to your office and throw it away, unless, of course, you're a vice president, in which case you write the name of a subordinate in the upper right hand corner, followed by a question mark, like this: "Norm?" Then you send it to Norm and forget all about it (although it will plague Norm for the rest of his career).

But sometimes you got to meetings where the purpose is to get your "input" on so mething. This is very serious because what it means is, they want to make sure that in case whatever it is turns out to be stupid or fatal, you'll get some of the blame, so you have to escape from the meeting before they get around to asking you anything. One way is to set fire to your tie.

Another is to have an accomplice interrupt the meeting and announce that you have a phone call from someone very important, such as the president of the company or the Pope. It should be one or the other. It would sound fishy if the accomplice said, "You have a call from the president of the company, or the Pope."

You should know how to take notes at a meeting. Use a yellow legal pad. At the top, write the date and underline it twice. Now wait until an important person, such as your boss, starts talking; when he does, look at him with an expression of enraptured interest, as though he is revealing the secrets of life itself. Then write inter-locking rectangles like this:

If it is an especially lengthy meeting, you can try something like this:

If somebody falls asleep in a meeting, have everyone else leave the room. Then collect a group of total strangers, right off the street, and have them sit around the sleeping person until he wakes up. Then have one of them say to him, "Bob, your plan is very, very risky. However, you've given us no choice but to try it. Ionly hope, for your sake, that you know what you're getting yourself into." Thenthey should file quietly out of the room.

要想在某个公司或机构中真正取得成功，了解自己的工作是什么，有什么责任，有时会对你有所帮助。问问周围的同事，你

说：“嗨，我是新来的。我的职务是什么?”如果他们的回答是“远期计划员”或“副州长”，那么你大可四处闲逛，玩字谜游戏玩到退休。不过，大多数工作还是需要你做点什么的。

现代的机构中有两类主要的工作：

为正在出席会议的人记电话留言，以及——出席会议。

你的根本择业策略应该是尽快去找一个主要涉及第2项——出席会议的工作，因为这才是真正名望的所在。当然，能给别人记电话留言也不错。但是，除非你学会怎么出席会议，否则，你将永远得不到大权在握的位置，那种你的一个愚蠢决定就能让千万人丢掉饭碗的位置。

有史以来的第一次会议可上溯到“夹生代”时期。那时候，男人的工作就是捕杀猎物并把它带回给家里的女人，后者负责解决如何烹制的问题。问题是，男人行动缓慢，基本上是一丝不挂，而猎物却有温暖的毛皮，跑得像羚羊一般飞快。(实际上那就是一只羚羊，只不过没人知道而已。)

最后有人说了：“我们干脆坐下来集体出出主意，这样说不定能找到更好的办法来捕捉猎物!”聚会进行得非常顺利，而且坐成一圈还要暖和许多，所以他们约定第二天再次碰面，如是日复一日。

但是，女人说了，男人没有带回来任何东西，人类快要饿死了。男人也认为形势严峻，并表示将把这一事项列入“议程表”的最前列。到了这一步，简单却不愚蠢的女人只好开始以植物为食，现代农业就此诞生。要是没有会议，这一切就不可能发生。

不过，现代的商务会议更像是一场葬礼：与会人员穿着不舒服的衣装，心里面巴不得能去别的什么地方。其间的主要区别在于大多数葬礼都有一个明确的目的。此外，在会议上从来不会真的有什么东西被埋葬。

某种意见可能看似已经咽了气，但它总会在此后的某个会议再次露面。如果你曾经看过《活死人之夜》这部电影，你就会对现代会议的运行方式有一个粗略的概念：所有人都认为已经死掉了的计划和建议不断从坟墓中爬出来，摇摇晃晃重新走进会议当中，吃掉活人的大脑。

会议主要分为两种类型：

一、基本上跟过植树节一样的会议，也就是说，只是一个传统。比如说，许多管理人员爱在星期一开会，就因为这天是星期一。你会习惯的，而且最好得习惯，因为这样的会议占所有会议的83%(这一数字来自我所作的一项研究，就是不断写出数字，直到其中一个看起来像那么回事为止)。这种会议按照幼儿园里的“秀秀说说” 模式进行，每一个与会者都要说点什么。它与“秀秀说说”的区别在于：孩子们确实有东西要说。

轮到你说话的时候，你应该说自己还在干着不管是什么反正是该干的工作。这看起来相当白痴，因为很显然你是在干着自己该干的工作，就算不是，也会说是。但这是所有人按例该说的事情。如果主持会议的人肯这么说：“所有还在干着自己该干的事的人请举手”，那么会就要开得快得多。算上插科打诨的时间，你也可以在5分钟之内开完会。但是我们美国人不是这么干的。我猜这是日本人的做法。

二、据说有某种目的的会议。这种情形就比较复杂了，因为你该做什么取决于会议的目的是什么。有时候，会议的目的无伤大雅，比如是有人想放点饼图幻灯片并发给大家一份又大又厚的报告。你在这种会议中要做的只是坐在那里发精彩的白日梦，然后把报告拿回办公室再一扔了之。当然，如果你是一位副总裁的话，情况就有所不同了。在这种情形下你应该在报告的右上角写上一个下属的名字，再添上一个问号，就像这样：“诺姆?”然后你把它交给诺姆并把这事忘到九霄云外(尽管这会给诺姆此后的事业带来无尽烦恼)。

但是，有些时候会议的目的是让你对某个事情“发表”点你的想法。这种情形实在严重，因为这意味着他们其实是想肯定，万一出了什么愚蠢或是致命的差错，你也要背上一部分黑锅。因此你必须在他们有机会来问你任何事情之前逃离会议，其中一个办法是把自己的领带点着了。

另一种办法是找一个同伙来打断会议，宣称有重要人物给你打电话，比如说本公司总裁或者教皇。只能是其中之一，因为要是你的同伙这样说就会显得很可疑：“有人打电话给你，是本公司总裁，或者教皇。”

你要懂得怎样作会议记录。用一本黄色的便签簿，在顶头写上日期，再在下面划双横线，然后开始等待，直到有重要人物——比如说你的老板——开始讲话。在他讲话的时候，你要带着充满浓厚兴趣的表情看着他，就像他是在揭露生命本身的秘密一样。然后，在纸上画类似这样的互相交错的长方形：

如果这是一个特别冗长的会议，你可以试试这样的东西：

如果有人开会时睡着了，就让其他人都离开会议室。然后就在大街上找一群完全陌生的人，让他们坐在梦中人周围。等到他醒来的时候，就让其中一个人对他说：“鲍勃，你的计划风险非常、非常之大。但是，你让我们没得选择，只能去尝试了。为你考虑，我只希望你明白你把自己置于了什么样的境地。”然后，这些人应该鱼贯而出，悄然地离开会议室。

以上就是为大家整理的商务英语综合教程课文及翻译，希望能够对大家有所帮助。商务英语学习是有困难的，因为不仅要学习英语，还要学习商务知识，但是只要努力，相信都是可以学好商务英语的。