(A reader asked about "branch" and "office" in Fanba, the translation Q&A section, here comes the answer from Zhang Xin, a columnist from Chinadaily website.)

If you understand the concept of a company BRANCHing OUT, you’ll be able to put two and two together with these two words.

As companies grow, they may want to set up business offices in other places than the original city, or where the HEADQUARTERS is located. The new office in the new place (region) is a BRANCH OFFICE, or a regional office, or a regional branch, or simply a branch. Both the branch (office) and the headquarters are OFFICES, and yet they’re obviously different, no?

Example: ACM opens branch office in China (January 10, 2008). ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, has its headquarters (or main office if you will) in New York. The China branch (office) is located in Tsinghua University.

Go to Zhang Xin's column

About the author

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

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