At a Loss for Words
Imagine a friend is heading out to face a difficult task. As a last word before they disappear, you want to encourage them. What might you say? If you are speaking English, the likeliest choice is “good luck”.
If you stop to think about it, that is a little odd. Though you might indeed hope luck smiles on your friend, neither they nor you can do much about the probability.
English does not allow you to pair any old adjective with any old noun in a fixed expression. You may wish someone “good morning”, “good afternoon” or “good night”, but not “good weekend”.
It is tempting to draw deep cultural conclusions from the presence of this or the absence of that in a language.
A.Special occasions are another way in which languages differ. |
B.It is natural to be critical of languages that lack expressions you think necessary. |
C.What you really want to wish them is courage not fortune. |
D.Having no English equivalent is annoying for those who are used to it. |
E.You can say that phrase if you like, but your neighbour would look at you strangely. |
F.But not having a word for something doesn’t mean you can’t coin one—or borrow it. |
In this article, I’m going to show you certain aspects of the Chinese language and explain why they make learning the language a lot easier than you might think.
No verb conjugations (变化)
When you learn English, you need to remember how the verb changes with the subject and time. In Chinese, there are no verb inflections (词尾的屈折变化) at all.
No grammatical cases
In English, we make a difference between how pronouns are used depending on if they are the subject or the object of a sentence.
Flexible parts of speech
When learning English, you need to remember different forms of the words depending on what part of speech they belong to. For example, we say “ice” (noun), “icy” (adjective) and “to ice” (verb). These look different.
Word order in Chinese can be a little bit tricky, but it becomes much easier at more advanced levels. As a beginner, there are a few patterns you need to learn, and once you’ve done that, you can just fill in the words you’ve learnt and people will be able to understand. It also helps that the basic word order is the same as in English: subject—verb—object.
What all these boil down to is that learning Chinese needn’t be all that hard. Yes, reaching an advanced level takes a lot of time and effort.
A.Relatively easy word order |
B.The same subject—verb—object order |
C.In short, it is very easy to learn Chinese well |
D.We say “he talks to her”, while “him talks to she” is wrong |
E.In Chinese, though, these could all be represented by one single word “ice” |
F.For example, you can use “look” for any person and refer to any period of time |
G.But getting to basic conversational fluency is easy for anyone who really wants it |
Once you can speak another language, it will open many doors. Here are five excellent reasons why you should learn a foreign language.
Improve your brain healthy.
Increase your job opportunities. Many companies operate in countries around the world.
Help you make friends and build relationships. Speaking a different language helps meet new people who also speak that language.
Improve your confidence. During the process of learning a new language, you can learn from your mistakes, find out more about yourself, and challenge yourself.
A.Improve your holiday selection. |
B.Help you become a better learner. |
C.You don’t need to rely on translated films or books any longer. |
D.Learning a foreign language can do wonders to your courage and determination. |
E.This can result in lifelong friendships that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to make. |
F.Many studies have shown there are plenty of benefits of learning a foreign language. |
G.Therefore, hiring employees who can speak at least one foreign language is vital to the company. |
How do the world’s only flying mammals(哺乳动物) communicate? Researchers have observed young bats adopting new “dialects” simply by hearing them repeatedly, making them one of the few animals known to be capable of voice learning. “These bats may help us clarify the development of speech learning skills,” says Yosef Prat, a PhD at Tel AvivUniversity.
For one year, researchers raised 14 Egyptian fruit baby bats with their mothers in controlled area, surrounding each young bat with two different voices: the natural call of its mother and a distinct recording that varied in loudness or tone. They found that the baby bats in each group developed a dialect like the recording. “The general assumption in this field is that most animals develop their born voices in despite of what they hear, and that human voice learning abilities have developed as time goes by,” says Mr. Prat. “The finding that bats learn the common dialect in their rest place was unusual. ”
Scientists know little about the origin of spoken language, which is believed to have appeared in humans within the past 500,000 years. A diversity of theories attempts to give a detailed clarification of this skill, but none have done so conclusively.
“Studying voice communication and voice learning in animal models is a very useful way to approach the problem,” says Olga Feher, an assistant professor at the University of Warwick in England.
But animal voice s and human speech are very different things, says Jamin Pelkey, a professor at Ryerson University. “All species communicate. Unlike other animals, though, human beings are able to use sound patterns for functions that are far stranger—functions that are imaginative, theoretical, and critical. When speech is involved in these stranger functions, that is what we mean by spoken ‘language’. ‘‘
【小题1】How do young bats pick up their “language” according to the research?A.By hearing it constantly. | B.By interacting with partners. |
C.By learning from researchers. | D.By repeating it with their mothers. |
A.It is distinct from the general assumption. |
B.It helps people understand human voice leaning. |
C.It proves animals only develop their inborn voices. |
D.It makes the previous assumption more convincing. |
A.Illustrating the origin of animal voices. |
B.Giving a full account of spoken language. |
C.Helping animals develop their born voices. |
D.Telling the differences between animal voices and human speech. |
A.It is not so relevant to understanding human speech. |
B.It promotes people to use imaginative sound patterns. |
C.It is essential for analyzing animal voice learning skills. |
D.It helps people explore more functions of spoken language. |
组卷网是一个信息分享及获取的平台,不能确保所有知识产权权属清晰,如您发现相关试题侵犯您的合法权益,请联系组卷网