Black Friday
黑色星期五

Black Friday is the Friday following Thanksgiving Day in the United States (the fourth Thursday of November), often regarded as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. In recent years, most major retailers have opened extremely early and offered promotional sales to kick off the holiday shopping season, similar to Boxing Day sales in many Commonwealth nations. Black Friday is not a holiday, but California and some other states observe “The Day After Thanksgiving” as a holiday for state government employees, sometimes in lieu of another federal holiday such as Columbus Day. Many non-retail employees and schools have both Thanksgiving and the day after off, followed by a weekend, thereby increasing the number of potential shoppers. It has routinely been the busiest shopping day of the year since 2005.
“黑色星期五”是指美国感恩节(11月第4个星期四)之后的星期五，一般预示着圣诞购物季的开始。近年来，各大零售商为了迎接这个假日购物季，开展提前营业时间、提供打折促销等活动。类似的节日，还有英属联邦制国家的节礼日(圣诞节后的第1个工作日)。黑色星期五虽然不是公共假日，但是加利福尼亚等部分州还是将感恩节之后的那一天定为政府工作人员的法定假日，以此取代另一联邦假日“哥伦布纪念日”。许多非零售行业的雇员以及学校在感恩节和其之后的那一天都休息，而且接着又是周末，因此潜在的购物者数量大大增加。这一天自2005年起通常都是一年中最繁忙的购物日。

More recently, Black Friday has been promoted to nations outside of North America such as the United Kingdom by major online retailers like Amazon and Apple. In 2013 Asda (part of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) announced its “Wal-Mart's Black Friday by ASDA” campaign promoting the Black Friday concept in the UK. A number of other online and in-store companies are now celebrating the American tradition. In Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Mexico, Black Friday was also the inspiration for the retailing industry to create an annual weekend of discounts and extended credit terms.
如今，黑色星期五在线零售巨头亚马逊和苹果等公司的推动下，已经推广到北美以外的国家，如英国等。沃尔玛旗下的阿斯达公司曾于2013年在英国开展“沃尔玛-阿斯达黑色星期五”宣传活动，在英国推广“黑色星期五”的概念。许多其他的电商网站和实体商家也加入到庆祝这一美国传统节日的行列。在德国、奥地利、瑞士和墨西哥等国家，黑色星期五也被零售业用来开展年度周末打折和延长信用时限等优惠活动。