新视野大学英语视听说教程 3 Unit 5-14

Task 2: What do you know about business?
Script
Historically, the term business referred to activities or interests. By extension, the word became, as recently as the 18th century, synonymous with “an individual commercial enterprise”. When referring to activities, the terms business and industry sometimes appear interchangeable. Thus a fisherman might say either that he is in the “fishing business”, which is a bit colloquial¹ or that he works in the “fishing industry”, which sounds somewhat formal. The word “trade” may serve as an equivalent of both “business” and “industry”.
People establish business in order to perform economic activities. With some exceptions, such as non-profit organizations and institutions of the government, businesses exist to product profit. In other words, the owners and operators of a business have receiving or generating a financial return for their time, effort and capital as one of their main objectives.
One can classify businesses in many different ways. In recent years, service businesses have become increasingly popular. They offer intangible products and typically have different, usually smaller, capital requirements than manufacturers. Distributors need smaller funds than manufacturers.
Most laws specify² the forms that a business can take, and a body of commercial law has been developed for each type. Some common types include partnerships³, corporations, also called limited liability companies, and sole ownerships.
 

1 colloquial   

adj.口语的，会话的

参考例句：

• It's hard to understand the colloquial idioms of a foreign language.外语里的口头习语很难懂。
• They have little acquaintance with colloquial English. 他们对英语会话几乎一窍不通。

2 specify   

vt.指定，详细说明

参考例句：

• We should specify a time and a place for the meeting.我们应指定会议的时间和地点。
• Please specify what you will do.请你详述一下你将做什么。

3 partnerships   

n.伙伴关系( partnership的名词复数 )；合伙人身份；合作关系

参考例句：

• Partnerships suffer another major disadvantage: decision-making is shared. 合伙企业的另一主要缺点是决定要由大家来作。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• It involved selling off limited partnerships. 它涉及到售出有限的合伙权。 来自辞典例句