1. 这是什么词?
词:viable
英英释义:able to be done, or worth doing
例句:Renewables are economically viable alternatives.
2. 为什么选这个词?
“viable”是个形容词,它本身的意思是“可以存活的”,常被引申使用表示“可行的” “值得做的”。正如健康的生命才可以存活,好的想法、产品、解决方案才能存活,我们可以用 viable 来形容表示想法、产品、解决方案这一类词,也常可以用它替换 effective, feasible 等词。
在产品设计中,有个概念叫“最简可行产品”,它的英文就是 Minimum Viable Product(MVP),我们可以从它的英文解释中体会一下 viable 的意思:
A minimum viable product (MVP) is a product with just enough features to satisfy early customers and to provide feedback for future product development.
这里的 viable 就可以理解为“satisfy early customers”。如果一个产品可以满足用户的需求,实现盈利,那它就是一个 viable product。
比如星巴克在某一个四线城市开店半年以来,收入明显好于预期,就可以说:
Starbucks' new store in this fourth-tier city has proved commercially viable.
从经济角度来看,可再生能源是合适的替代能源。用英文可以说成:
Renewables are economically viable alternatives.
《经济学人》在一月份一篇讲电脑芯片的文章中就用到了 viable:
To keep its design pipeline full of viable new ideas, the firm must constantly forecast the computer industry’s direction.
3. 怎样学会使用这个词?
1)使用《牛津英语搭配词典》查“viable”,了解它作为形容词时的常用搭配。
2)翻译下面的句子:
中国经济下行,许多 O2O 模式显得不再可行。
As China's economy is going downhill, many online-to-office(O2O) businesses no longer seem commercially viable.
参考翻译:As China’s economy is going downhill, many online-to-offline (O2O) businesses no longer seem (commercially/economically) viable.
3)结合自己的生活、学习、工作、兴趣等,想象在什么语境下会用到这个表达。先简要描述这个场景,再造句。
例子: 商业运行
场景 :It is only without requiring employees to work madly long hours that makes a business consistently viable. Tired workers will not be productive since creativity,progress and impact do not yield to brute force. Sleep-deprived managers are likely to be counterproductively impatient. In certain company, employees have a 40-hour week, except in the summer when the company runs a four-day, 32-hour week. They also get three weeks’ holiday every day(subsidized by the firm to the tune of $5000 per person), a month-long sabbatical every three years, and a monthly massage at a spa. Those are the right sort of perks. The wrong kind,found in many offices, include free dinners, games rooms and snack bars, which are all devices to keep employees at the office for longer. Workers should also beware of companies that declare we’re family here-a ruse to get workers to put their employers ahead of the needs of their real families.