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：人们常说汉语和英语是很难学的。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。