美国校园情景会话 15_情景口语

15. easy and difficult 易学的和难学的语言

a: people always say that chinese and english are very hard to learn. sometimes i wish i were learning french or japanese. maybe they'd be easier.
b: maybe, but maybe not too. it all depends on what language you already speak.
a: why should that be? what diffrence does it make?
b: well, languages are more or less equally difficult. most of the things one language says must be said by every language in some way.
a: you mean i could learn chinese easily?
b: no, because your native language is spanish. but italian might be easy. it has a lot of words that are similar to words in spanish. even the sound systems are more similar than that of chinese is to spanish. how difficult a language is to learn depends mostly on how much it resembles your own language.

notes
sound system-the total arrangement of the vocal units of a language
resembles-is like

a：人们常说汉语和是很难学的。有的时候我想要是我学法语或日语就好了。也许这两种语言容易些。
b：可能，不过也可能不太容易。这要看你原来是说什么语言的。
a：为什么呢？这有什么关系？
b：哦，语言大体上都是同样地难学。一种语言中所说的绝大部分东西，在别的语言中差不多都有。
a：你的意思是说我学汉语会很容易？
b：不，因为你的母语是西班牙语。所以意大利语可能容易些。它有很多词同西班牙语相似。连它的语音体系也比汉语更接近西班牙语。一种语言是否难学，主要看它在多大程度上同自己的语言相近。