金融英語閱讀：貨幣的三個作用

We look at the functions of money. Firstly it's a medium of exchange, so it's some commodity which facilitates the exchange of goods and services.

首先貨幣是一種交換媒介，是幫助其他貨物與服務進行交換的手段。

It is also a unit of account, which means that we use money to reckon prices and reckon values for comparisons between goods and services or over time.

其次它是一種計算單位，就是說我們用錢來測量貨物、服務或時間之間的價格和價值的比較。

And thirdly, money is a store of value. It is an asset. It's something that we can use to store value away to be retrieved at a later point in time. So we can not consume today, we can hold money instead - and transfer that consumption power to some point in the future.

第三它是價值存儲手段，是一種資產。我們可以用它把價值儲存起來，在以后的某個時刻再取回。這樣我們不必現在就把它用掉，而是可以存著錢，把這種消費能力轉移到將來的某個時刻。

In the earliest days, for example in ancient Babylon, measures of wheat were the money commodity. People would exchange other goods and services firstly by exchanging quantities of wheat. And eventually it was worked out by the Babylonian priests that they could hold the wheat in a central store and then simply keep records of who owned the wheat. And rather than physically moving the wheat around, eventually we had a primitive system - quite advanced by the terms of the day - of record keeping. We had ledgers.

古時候，比如在古巴比倫，小麥被當作實物貨幣使用。人們在交換其它貨物和服務之前先要交換一定數量的小麥。后來巴比倫的祭司們發(fā)現，他們可以把小麥保存在一個中心倉庫中，然后只需要記錄下誰擁有這些小麥就可以了。這樣就用不著把小麥搬來搬去了，于是我們就有了在當時條件下很先進的原始簿記制度，也就是分戶賬。

Notes：

1.Medium of exchange 交換媒介

2.Unit of account 計算單位

3.Store of value 價值儲存手段

4 money commodity 商品貨幣，實物貨幣

5 primitive system of record keeping 原始簿記制度

6 ledger 分戶賬 轉