中国文化成为外国汽车制造商揽客良方

 Mandarin¹ has become a new vehicle for foreign automakers to woo Chinese customers.

普通话现在已成为外国汽车制造商招揽中国消费者的新手段。

It sometimes even sings — such as when Nicholas Speeks, a Briton who heads sales and marketing³ for Mercedes-Benz in China, drew cheers on last Monday by serenading a crowd at Auto² China in Beijing with the ballad⁴ Great China.

有时候甚至是唱歌--比如身为英国人的梅赛德斯·奔驰中国区市场销售总裁倪恺，就在上周一的车展上演唱民谣《大中国》，从而引来人们的喝彩。

"We have the same home, and its name is China," Speeks crooned in Mandarin to applause at the company's booth at the show.

倪恺在公司的展台上用普通话这样唱道："我们都有一个家，名字叫中国。"

中国文化成为外国汽车制造商揽客良方

That was a day after the brand's new E-class car was unveiled to the tune⁵ of the Chinese classic song In the Field of Hope. Participants joked that the country truly is "a field of hope" for Mercedes-Benz.

一天之前，梅赛德斯·奔驰还用一首中国经典歌曲《在希望的田野上》拉开了新E级车全球首发的序幕。与会者开玩笑称，中国真的是奔驰公司的"希望的田野"。

China became the automaker's largest market when it sold 373,500 vehicles on the mainland last year. Sixty-seven percent of its vehicles were manufactured in China, 12 percentage points more than in 2014.

去年，中国大陆共售出37万3500辆汽车，从而成为了汽车制造商的最大市场。其中，67%的汽车都是中国制造的，这一数字相比2014年增加了12个百分点。

Jaguar⁶ Land Rover CEO Ralf Speth ended his speech at the auto show by declaring in Mandarin, "I love China." His speech centered on the company opening an aluminum⁷ workshop in Jiangsu province earlier this year, its first such plant outside the United Kingdom. Speth also referred to a saying used in both Chinese and Western cultures: "Teaching one how to fish is better than giving fish to him."

此外，捷豹路虎集团首席执行官斯佩思在北京国际车展上以一句普通话"我爱中国"结束了自己的讲话。他演讲的中心主要是今年早些时候在江苏省开办的全铝车身车间，该车间也是其在英国本土之外的第一家工厂。在演讲中，斯佩思还引用了一句中西文化通用的谚语："授人以鱼不如授人以渔。"

"Showgirls have not been allowed at the auto show for the past two years. So car companies are trying something new to attract attention," said John Zeng, managing director of Shanghai-based consultancy LMC Automotive.

上海艾尔西汽车市场咨询有限公司总经理曾志凌对此表示，在过去两年里，车展上禁止出现车模，因此车企纷纷尝试能引人注目的新手段。

"Many carmakers have localized, and such behavior is part of localization," said an auto analyst⁸.

一位汽车分析师称："许多汽车制造商已经本土化，这些行为就是本土化的一部分。"

1 Mandarin   

n.中国官话，国语，满清官吏；adj.华丽辞藻的

参考例句：

• Just over one billion people speak Mandarin as their native tongue.大约有十亿以上的人口以华语为母语。
• Mandarin will be the new official language of the European Union.普通话会变成欧盟新的官方语言。

2 auto   

n.(=automobile)(口语)汽车

参考例句：

• Don't park your auto here.别把你的汽车停在这儿。
• The auto industry has brought many people to Detroit.汽车工业把许多人吸引到了底特律。

3 marketing   

n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西

参考例句：

• They are developing marketing network.他们正在发展销售网络。
• He often goes marketing.他经常去市场做生意。

4 ballad   

n.歌谣，民谣，流行爱情歌曲

参考例句：

• This poem has the distinctive flavour of a ballad.这首诗有民歌风味。
• This is a romantic ballad that is pure corn.这是一首极为伤感的浪漫小曲。

5 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

6 jaguar   

n.美洲虎

参考例句：

• He was green with envy when he saw my new Jaguar car.看见我那辆美洲虎牌新车，他非常妒忌。
• Should you meet a jaguar in the jungle,just turn slowly,walk away.But slowly,never look back.你在丛林中若碰上美洲虎，就慢慢转身走开，可一定要慢，切莫回头看。

7 aluminum   

n.(aluminium)铝

参考例句：

• The aluminum sheets cannot be too much thicker than 0.04 inches.铝板厚度不能超过0.04英寸。
• During the launch phase,it would ride in a protective aluminum shell.在发射阶段，它盛在一只保护的铝壳里。

8 analyst   

n.分析家，化验员；心理分析学家

参考例句：

• What can you contribute to the position of a market analyst?你有什么技能可有助于市场分析员的职务？
• The analyst is required to interpolate values between standards.分析人员需要在这些标准中插入一些值。