如何写一手漂亮的英文文章？

小耐姐见贤思齐焉，采访英耐投资合伙人苗叔“如何才能像您那样写出在国外杂志上发表的漂亮文章？”答，并无捷径，多读多写。但是，读什么，怎么读，写作的技巧心得、可复制的成功方法，一定要认真看完此文才能深得精要。

· 关于苗祥波 Bob Miao ·

英耐合伙人，商务英语硕士，美国华盛顿大学EMBA （Washington University in St Louis）。前任米其林指南大中华区负责人。跨文化沟通专家，语言学习爱好者，精通英语，自学法语、意大利语、西班牙语、俄语。美食美酒品鉴专家，足迹遍及全球三十多个国家。

小耐姐爱心牌原滋原味原文转述

上大学的时候，我跟一位美国老师很谈的来。他叫Robert Boyd，60几岁，所以我们叫他“老罗”。老罗精通拉丁语和古希腊语，以及几乎所有的主要欧洲语言，英语、法语、西班牙语、葡萄牙语、意大利语、德语、俄语。他是我认识的在语言方面最厉害的人。

我有时到老罗住的公寓去跟他聊天，主要是聊欧美文学，从Stefan Zweig到Herman Hesse, 从Oscar Wilde到James Joyce（老罗祖上是爱尔兰人，爷爷那一辈去了美国），从Guillaume Apollinaire 到 Arthur Rimbaud，从Fyodor Dostoyevsky到Boris Pasternak，等等等等。我都是一知半解，或者仅仅读过一两篇作品，但是老罗都如数家珍。我有时仅仅知道一个作者名，就问老罗这个作者怎么样，只要是文学史上有点名气的，老罗都能说出个所以然来。记得有一次聊到南美，说到Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel Garcia Marquez，他说曾经的智利总统Salvator Allende的堂侄女Isabel Allende也是著名的作家，是他的朋友。

老罗工资不高，但是订了好几份外文报刊，International Herald Tribune, Times Literary Supplement, Le Monde, Le Figaro, 每次看完了，随手就给了我。我最喜欢看的是International Herald Tribune上面Art Buchwald的幽默专栏。每篇都仔细读，有时读好几遍。

别的外教喜欢给学生读Reader's Digest, 可那不是我的菜。China Daily我就更不爱看了，满篇的Chinglish和Propaganda.

我就想，什么时候自己可以写一手漂亮的英语文章。可是想归想，写出来的东西还是狗屁不通。

后来终于有点开窍，是因为读了王佐良先生的《文体学引论》。知道了有文体(Style)这回事，才知道遣词造句是要符合文体，有些词虽然漂亮，但是要用得恰当，否则就会不伦不类。

工作之后，虽然一直需要写英文，但是电子邮件太容易，根本就没法让人进步。

虽然写的少，读的却没间断，The Economist, New York Times, Wall Street Journal (这几个的官网现在都上不去了，以前我倒是经常上去看看），Financial Times，The New Yorker.

米其林工作的时候，做过几年的Internal Communications Manager，其中一项职责是帮总裁写内部宣传的中英文稿。令我颇为得意的一点是，每次英文稿写好了发给总裁，他都是几乎一字不改的批准，有时还会夸一句“I couldn't have done a better job".

辞职出来成了自由人之后，除了用中文写美食美酒的文章，有时也有国内外的英文报刊约我写稿，一般我也不推辞。

下面附上我最近写的一篇，是美国的Travel & Leisure网站的约稿。我写的比较长，采用的时候因为字数限制有删节。

至于如何写一手漂亮的英语文章，其实没有捷径，多读多写而已。我不敢说自己写的有多漂亮，但至少知道标杆在哪里，虽不能至，心向往之，身实践之。

附：苗叔的英语文章（发表版本链接：http://www.travelandleisure.com/partner/shangri-la-hotels-resorts/124806?prx_t=RAwDA6fcTAOeIPA）

Jing An Shangri-La

Bob Miao

Sitting in the Horizon Club Lounge on the 55th floor of Jing An Shangri-La, drink in hand, you will find this a unique spot to view Shanghai, both present and past.

On the left-hand side, stands the Shanghai Exhibition Center, a soviet-style square-shaped complex with a majestic gilt spire. It was completed in 1955 and baptized the "Sino-Soviet Friendship Tower", a name that did not last long due to China's fallout with the Soviet Union in the 1960's. The complex was built on the site of the former Hardoon Garden, residence of the eponymous Jewish businessman who amassed his fortune in Shanghai through real estate development in the late 19th century.

On the right-hand side, extends the former French Concession, with plane trees lined allées and red-roofed maisons. That colonial part of the city's history, though a painful memory in the official parlance, lends Shanghai a particular charm very different from other Chinese cities where the past has been mostly demolished. When you stay at the hotel, make sure to take some time and visit the little boutiques in this area.

Looking ahead following the Yan'an Road, a road ablaze with traffic after nightfall, you will see China's answer to Manhattan, the financial center of Pudong, where the skyline looks like a cardiograph of the Chinese economy.

Nowadays when you visit Shanghai, it seems unimaginable that it was here that the Chinese Communist Party was founded in 1921. Not too far from the hotel, you will find the venue where the first clandestine Party meeting was convened, now a protected old house surrounded by malls, bars, and restaurants, where visitors and the city's young people go partying.

If you are interested in tracing a bit more of the city's revolutionary history, just walk out of the hotel lobby, turn left, andvoila, there stands a protected old house where Mao Tse Tung used to live for a few months in 1920, the year before he joined the meeting that shaped and continues to shape China. The house was turned into an art gallery in 2014, but has been closed since early 2017.

When you have done your business, or as the norm in China, while you are doing your business, you may bring your business partners to one of the five restaurants of the hotel (a Café, a Japanese, a Chinese, a Chophouse & bar, and a Mediterranean respectively), and make your deals there. One of the things that really stands out in every Shangri-La Hotel is the wine list. Under the guidance of Group Wine Director Yang Lu, China's first Master Sommelier, each hotel now has a wine list that makes you salivate, and the price is so friendly. Drink moderately!

(A food and wine and travel writer based in Shanghai, Bob Miao was head of the Michelin Guide for Greater China between 2010 and 2013.)

以上是苗叔在美国的Travel & Leisure等网站的约稿，从艺术的视角为大家构画了上海的悠久历史和未来展望。前不久苗叔还联合莊布忠先生编辑了《100全球最佳中餐厅》美食指南，欢迎关注。