15. Easy and Difficult 易學(xué)的和難學(xué)的語言
    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：人們常說漢語和英語是很難學(xué)的。有的時候我想要是我學(xué)法語或日語就好了。也許這兩種語言容易些。
    B：可能，不過也可能不太容易。這要看你原來是說什么語言的。
    A：為什么呢？這有什么關(guān)系？
    B：哦，語言大體上都是同樣地難學(xué)。一種語言中所說的絕大部分東西，在別的語言中差不多都有。
    A：你的意思是說我學(xué)漢語會很容易？
    B：不，因為你的母語是西班牙語。所以意大利語可能容易些。它有很多詞同西班牙語相似。連它的語音體系也比漢語更接近西班牙語。一種語言是否難學(xué)，主要看它在多大程度上同自己的語言相近。