标准美国英语口语 15 Talking about languages

Unit 15 Talking about languages

281.A person who speaks two languages is bilingual.

282.A person who speaks three languages is trilingual.

283.How many languages do you speak?

284.Can you speak Mandarine?

285.Can you understand your American teacher?

286. In class, how much do you understand your English teacher?

287. He speaks English with a strong accent.

288. What's your native language?

289.My mother tongue is Italian.

290.John is a native peaker-English.

291.David is a linguist 1, he knows many languages.

292.I have a lot of trouble with English pronunciation.

293.My English sounds awful.

294.Your English is getting better and better evry day.

295.How can I improve my English?

296.Read easy and interesting English stories that have tapes or CDs.

297. Learning 2 a language takes a lot of time and effort.

298.What are the differences between British English and American English?

299.She is studying English as a second language.

230.Jane has been teaching 3 for ESL for many years.

Conversation 1 Can you understand your Spanish teacher?

Can you speak French? Yes, but not very well.Can you understan your Spanish teacher? More or less. How well do you understand your Chinese teacher, Mr. Wang?

About 40 percent, if he speaks slowly.When he speaks fast, I can only catch a word here and there. Mr. Wang is an excellent Chinese teacher.With his help, my Chinese is getting better and better every day.

Conversation 2 Going down town on a snowy day.

It's really snowing hard. Thanks for the ride. I'm really glad not to be out there waiting for the bus and it's rotten 4 weather. You're welcome.May I ask you how many languages you speak? Three. What are they? Italian, English and Spanish.I'm also studying Chinese now. Wow, what is your native language? Italian. I was born in Italy.

We moved to Spain when I was seven and we moved to South Africa when I was twelve.How many languages does your teacher Mr. Wang speak? He speaks five languages, Chinese, English , Japanese, Spanish and Russian. Chinese is his mother tongue.Wow, he must have majored in linguistics 5. For sure. How many languages do you speak? Me? Only English and Swedish 6.I moved here eight years ago.I live with my uncle's family.Your English is excellent. In Sweden I started learning English in the kindergarten. Do you want to learn another language like Chinese? I'm not sure. Chinese might be too difficult for me. How with Mr. Wang to Chinese class? Not bad. I like him a lot. Hey, let me tell you a joke that Mei told me in Chinese class today.Sure.

What do you call a politician 7 that speaks two languages? Bilingual. What do you call a politican that speaks three languages? Trilingual. Then, what do you call a politician who speaks only one language? An American. Hey, how did you know? Mei told everyone that joke when she came from Nigeria.That was two years ago. I think she misses Nigeria. I miss South Africa. I miss Sweden. But welcome to America.It isn't perfect, but it is a new home. Guess so.

Conversation 3 Learning a language takes a lot of time and effort

I give up. I can’t learn Chinese. Don’t give up. Keep trying. Learning a language is not easy. It takes a lot of time and effort. I can’t do it. Remember an old saying, time on task, work at it. you’ll get better. I have difficulty 8 with four tones 9. No matter how hard I try, my pronunciation stinks 10. My Chinese sound awful. Try, try, and never say die. Listen to simple songs and ……. Read easy and interesting Chinese stories that have tapes or CDs. You will learn to speak Chinese. That’s a promise. Will you help me? We’re friends and that’s what are friends for. Don’t worry.

Conversation 4 Differences between American English and British English

Why is there difference between American English and British English? It seems so crazy. Basically 11, they are the same. But they do have a lot of differnces in spelling, pronunciation and usage 12. When I just came from India, I sometimes wondered wheather American spoke 13 English. Could you refresh 14 my brain? OK. Here are some examples. The American say, “she is in the hospital.” The British say, ‘she is in hospital.” The American say, “I’ll talk to him tomorrow.” The British say. “ I’ll have a word with him tomorrow.” The American say, “his family is going to the movie.” The British would say, “his family are going to the movie.” I’m beginning to remember it.Tell you what You give American expression and I give the British expression. Good idea. May I please have some whole-wheat bread?. May I please have some brown bread? The post office is five blocks away. The post office is five streets away. He has a nice apartment. He rents a nice flat.

He is fond of math. He is fond of maths. It looks like it’s going to rain. It looks as if it’s going to rain. He looked at me real strange. He looked at me really strangely. Pretty good. You must have read a lot of British novels. When I was younger. But now I mostly read American books and magazines. I figure your American English is far or more useful. That’s probably true. There are about sixteen million British people while the American’s number is about three hundred million, so the Brits are a number 5 to 1. And America creates out so many movies and songs every year that it seems like American’s only English language.Maybe so, and that’s it again, maybe not. Around two billion people speak English as a second language. You mean lots. Right, a lot of people like us make movies or write songs that produce in America. But really, we are not Americans. No, we are not American. I want to go back to Iceland after my master degree. I’ll be a high school English teacher and get married to a good man and have a few healthy children.That’s an excellent plan. How many childrn do you want to have? Three. Wow, I’m impressed. I think having children is the most thing we do. More power to you. Don’t let anyone change your thinking.