学习外语的7个错误观念
China Daily
学外语到底难不难?不如来听听一个会讲10种语言的人现身说法。
学外语到底难不难?不如来听听一个会讲10种语言的人现身说法。
There are over 6,000 languages in the world. Some are more important than others, not better or more advanced, just more important. Why? Because they are spoken by more people, in more countries. That does not mean that Finnish is not important to the Finns, and Maori is not important to the Maoris. It is just that these languages are not so important to the rest of us.
世界上的语言超过6000种,其中有些更重要些,有些则不是很重要。这不是说那些重要的就是更好的或者更高级的语言,而是因为使用者更多、分布也更广。芬兰语对芬兰人很重要,毛利语对毛利人也很重要,但对于其他人来说就不那么重要了。
On the other hand, Mandarin Chinese is spoken by over one billion people. Chinese origin words account for 60% of Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese vocabulary. Knowing Chinese will help you learn these languages too. It helped me. Chinese culture has influenced the world for thousands of years with its art, philosophy, technology, food, medicine and performing arts. Today China’s economy is booming. Chinese seems well worth learning.
汉语普通话的使用者有十多亿,而且日语、韩语、越南语中有60%的词汇都来源于汉语,掌握了汉语,学习这些语言会容易许多,这是我的亲身体验。中国文化——包括艺术、哲学、技术、饮食、医药以及表演艺术等——几千年来不断影响着世界,如今中国经济又日益强大,所以汉语是值得好好学习的。
Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese are essentially dialects of the same language. If you learn one, you can learn the others. I did. If you learn Spanish, you open the door to the culture, music, history and possible business dealings with 800 million people in 60 countries, including the US and Canada.
西班牙语、法语、意大利语和葡萄牙语其实就是一种语言的不同方言。学会了一种,就能学会其他几种。我就是这样。如果你学会了西班牙语,你就打开了一扇通向8亿人的大门,包括他们的文化、音乐、历史,以及同他们做生意的机会。这些人分布在60多个国家,包括美国和加拿大。