摩根 英国驻华贸易投资参赞

终于能喘口气了。我刚刚做完四天来的第四篇中文演讲。接下来还有个记者招待会，这20分钟休息时间正好写篇博客。

周二，我在山东省首府济南市为一个尖端工程和金融服务研讨会作中文开幕致词。周三，我在英国服装品牌佰富（Byford）王府井新店揭幕仪式上，面对众多热情高涨的购物者用中文讲了话。昨天，我再次来到王府井，在英国瓷器品牌Wedgwood250周年庆典上发表演讲。今天，我又做中文演讲了－ 这次是在英国贸易投资总署赞助的德勤高科技高成长50强企业颁奖活动上。

为了做好一个中文演讲，我常常需要花好几个小时的时间做准备，而且我发现，每天花点时间，循序渐进的练习方式是最有效的。这两天，我每天早上7点一刻到8点一刻和我的中文老师李老师一起花一个小时时间梳理完善即将发表的演讲。Wedgwood的活动上我做的不错，在台上比平时轻松些，演讲本身就显得流畅自然。在佰富的活动上，我舌头却有些不听使唤－演讲稿有些太长了，我边说边想着怎么样把稿子精简一点,有些结结巴巴。刚刚做的那个还不错，尽管口误了好几次：其中一次是受到了台下摄影师的干扰，另一次则是对演讲中一个重要的中文词错用了日语发音。

我是3年前刚到中国时开始学中文的，那时我48岁。我日语还不错，中文也是对照着日文学的。由于一些字和词的写法相近，懂日文还是有些帮助的，但是在中文的发音特别是平仄四声方面，我的日文基础却一点不灵。尽管我进步还是很明显的，但要像大山那样字正腔圆，却不大可能。重要的是，我的中国话别人要听得懂。从这点看，我花在学习和联系上的时间和金钱还是值得的。毕竟，我的工作就是在中国宣传英国的贸易和投资。在很多情况下，自己说中文比用翻译更直接，效果也更好。当然，什么时候我要不靠翻译就能开自己的记者招待会就好了，估计还得一段时间，继续努力吧。

Making Sense in Mandarin

Alastair Morgan, Director, UKTI China

I can relax for a bit.  I’ve just given my fourth speech in Mandarin in as many days.  I now have 20 minutes downtime before I attend a press conference.  Time for a blog.

On Tuesday, I opened an advanced engineering and financial services seminar in the provincial capital of Shandong Province, Jinan.  On Wednesday, I spoke before assembled shoppers at the opening of a new Byford outlet in Beijing’s premier shopping district, Wangfujing.  On Thursday, I was back in Wangfujing to celebrate Wedgwood’s 250^th Anniversary.  Today, I gave a set-piece speech at Deloitte’s 2009 Technology Fast 50 Awards, which UK Trade & Investment sponsor.

It takes me several hours to practice a long speech in Mandarin.  Practice is most effective if I spread it over several days.  At present, I am spending an hour from 0715 to 0815 each morning with my teacher, Ms Zhang, trying to perfect delivery of the next speech.  We got it right with Wedgwood.  I was more relaxed than usual and the speech sounded smooth and natural.  At the Byford event I was somewhat tongue-tied.  My text was too long, and I tried to shorten it as I was speaking.  Today’s speech was not too bad, but I slipped up several times: once, when I was distracted by a photographer, a second time when I used Japanese pronunciation for a keyword.

I started to learn Mandarin when I arrived in China three years ago, aged 48.  I learned Chinese through Japanese, in which I am relatively fluent.  Knowing Japanese helped enormously with the characters and vocabulary, but not much with pronunciation and not at all with Mandarin’s four tones.  I will never speak Chinese like a native speaker, though I continue to improve.  The key thing is that I make sense.  This is worth all the time and money I devote to learning and practice.  After all, I am paid to get across key messages about UK trade and investment.  On many occasions, I can do that with much more impact and immediacy if I speak in Mandarin instead of through an interpreter.  It will, though, take more time before I trust myself to give a press conference without interpretation.