英语口语学习:怎样跟陌生人打招呼

　　编者按：出门在外总会遇到想要与陌生人打招呼的情况，这个时候应该怎么称呼呢?先生，小姐，美女等等词汇，一旦用错了会产生尴尬哦，我们来看一看用英语应该怎么称呼陌生人吧。

　　Lady? Miss? Waiter? Chinese has many ways to address people, and they're all risky.

　　Imagine you just left the office and find a Chinese restaurant that looks satisfactory, head on in, and find a seat that faces the entrance. An employee hands over a menu and you peruse the options. After deciding, you look up, and it suddenly dawns on you that the identity of the female employee across the room is a mystery. Maybe you should say 老板 (boss/lǎobǎn), in case she's the owner? Maybe 服务员 (attendant/fúwù yuán) would be fine? Then there's the possibility of小姐 (Miss/xiǎojiě), 美女 (pretty lady/měinǚ), or simply 你好 (hello/nǐhǎo).

　　The scenario is familiar to everyone in China, and is not just limited to dining services. The vast number of salutations available in Chinese makes it hard to get people's attention in unfamiliar settings—especially when coffee-shop employees insist that they are not 服务员 (waiters) but 咖啡师 (baristas).

　　Fortunately, there is one underused phrase that is applicable to every circumstance—laojia (劳驾láojià).

　　Laojia is a fairly archaic word that can be translated as “excuse me.” Constructed from the characters for “service” (劳láo) and “harness” (驾jià), the phrase is not used by much of the population, but despite its lack of prominence, laojia has many advantages over more common phrases with similar meanings, such as 不好意思 (bù hǎo yì si) and 打扰一下 (dǎ rǎo yī xià).

　　It is inherently more polite in its address of others, as well as being short. Laojia also implies a need for aid or for others to make way, depending on the context, reducing the need for extraneous words.

　　But it is the underlying respect and reverence that makes it such a useful tool to have in one's verbal arsenal.

　　One may cause offence with options is chosen, but it is almost one hundred percent impossible for someone to be offended by laojia.

　　Of course, it may be more convenient and less formal to use the relevant honorific (of which there are many) if you know the person. For everyone else, there's laojia.

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