谁是英语普及的受害者？

Anthony Bolton, veteran star stock-picker at Fidelity International, is moving to Hong Kong to set up a China fund. He is following Michael Geoghegan, HSBC's chief executive, who has already announced he is moving from London to Hong Kong. “The centre of gravity is clearly shifting,” Mr Bolton says.
富达国际老牌明星基金经理安东尼·波顿(Anthony Bolton)准备移师香港，创立一只中国基金。他是在追随汇丰(HSBC)首席执行官纪勤(Michael Geoghegan)的脚步，后者已宣布将办公室从伦敦迁至香港。波顿表示：“重心显然在转移。”
　　
It certainly looks that way, although it is worth recalling that it was not that long ago that Japan was tipped to be the new number one. Economies have their ups and downs – look at Dubai.
情况看起来的确如此，不过值得一提的是，就在不久前，人们还预计日本可能成为新的老大。经济体有自身的起伏——这一点不妨看一看迪拜。
　　
What we can forecast with some confidence is that English will remain the world's leading language for as long as anyone reading these words is alive. Economies can tip into crisis, fund managers can switch their investments at the click of a button and executives can relocate to the other side of the world, but it takes a lot more to topple the global language.
我们能够略带自信地预测，只要阅读这些文字的人还活着，英语就仍将是全球主要语言。经济体可能陷入危机，基金经理可能点击按钮来改变投资，高管们可能搬到地球的另一边去办公，但要想颠覆这种全球性的语言，难度要大得多。
　　
If Mandarin – or Spanish, or Arabic – is to replace English as the world's lingua franca, children in San Paulo, St Petersburg and Auckland had better start learning it now. Forget all those advertisements promising you can learn a language in three months. You can't. You may be able to summon up a few phrases. Perhaps you could engage a taxi driver in a minute of conversation before you seize up.
如果说汉语（或西班牙语、阿拉伯语）将取代英语，成为世界上的通用语言，那么圣保罗、圣彼得堡和奥克兰的孩子们最好从现在就开始学习这种语言。别轻信那些承诺能在3个月掌握一门语言的广告。你做不到。或许你能够说上几句。或许你可以与出租车司机聊上1分钟，然后就张口结舌了。
　　
There are many ways to learn a language, but they all require years of graft, getting new words to stick, mastering grammatical forms and endlessly watching television and films until the indistinguishable babble separates itself into the odd word you recognise. It takes much of a lifetime to master a language and the world's pilots, seafarers, traders and academics have already devoted their best years to learning English. They would not relish the prospect of starting out again in, say, Portuguese or Hindi.
学习语言有许多种方法，但它们都需要多年的磨练，记住新单词，掌握语法规则，不断看电视和电影，直到这些难以辨别的嘈杂之语变成一个个你所认识的词汇。要掌握一门语言，需要花费人生中很大一部分时间。全世界的飞行员、海员、交易员和学者们已经将自己的黄金时期用于学习英语。他们不会愿意重新开始，再去学习葡萄牙语或北印度语。
　　
English will endure, but its predominance is throwing up some surprising winners and losers. A forthcoming British Council report, English Next India (I hope the Council can find a way of punctuating that before it comes out), says India may now have fewer English speakers than China.
英语将经久不衰，但其主导地位正催生一些意料之外的赢家与输家。英国文化协会(British Council)即将发表的一份报告《English Next India》（我希望该协会能够在报告发表前找出加标点的方法）指出，现在印度讲英语的人可能没有中国多。
　　
This is an extraordinary outcome, given India's colonial past, the fluent English of its cricketers and its profusion of call centres providing train times and computer support to the English-speaking world.
鉴于印度曾经是英国殖民地，板球运动员操着一口流利的英语，而且到处是向讲英语国家提供培训时间和计算机支持的客服中心，这是一个非同寻常的结果。