14. Learning a language 学习一种语言

A: To speak a language, one must know its grammar almost completely, not just its vocabulary or its sounds, not even sets of rules for constructing sentences. But one can't learn a language by studying only its grammar. If you do this, you may learn only the grammar and not the language. Instead, by memorizing how to use them, one can learn both the grammar of the language and the language.

Notes

Instead-rather

A great many-a great deal

A：为了能说一种语言，一个人不仅要掌握词汇和发音，以及一系列造句的规则，还应对语法做到差不多融汇贯通。但是仅仅学习语法，还不能掌握一种语法。如果只做到这点，那你学会的可能只是语法，而不是语言。相反，记住大量句子并学会使用这些句子，就能既学会语法，又学会语言。