2014年雅思口语范文（五）话题：A second language

 题目：second language

范文：

There seems to be a mounting interest in learning another language. As a native of Chile, I am frequently asked questions about Spanish, and the benefits and difficulty of learning it. While languages do not come easy for me, I have felt a need to learn. Perhaps, here I can briefly answer a few of the most frequent questions I am asked. I hope this article will also be of interest to those learning other languages beside Spanish, for either work or for pleasure. My suggestions will be of special interest to those who wish to learn another language and sound like a native speaker rather than a foreigner.

Should I learn another language? Although it is not an easy task, surely there are benefits from learning another language. My oldest son related the following story he heard in Uruguay, "A skinny cat stood for hours waiting for the mouse to walk out from behind the hole, so he could nab him. He was having little success. A fat cat walked by, inquired about the nature of the difficulty, and volunteered to show the skinny cat the ropes. First thing, he had the skinny cat move out of the way where he could not be seen and did likewise himself. Next, he barked, "Woof, woof." The mouse, thinking a dog had scared the cat away, and it was safe, ventured out only to be nabbed and devoured by the fat cat. "You see," explained the fat cat, "it pays to be bilingual."

Developing an ear and training our tongues. A first step is to determine what we want to do with that language. Is it to travel? To read a book in another tongue? Or to communicate with people we work with? If our interest is to communicate with others, then we must focus on listening first. As an amateur radio operator I had to learn Morse Code. The dots and dashes, at first, seemed to come so fast at me that the letters all sounded the same. With time, however, I began to distinguish their sounds and rhythms. A friend gave me some good advice. "Don't even attempt to learn how to send the Morse Code," he said. "First, learn how to listen, and when you have learned how to copy the messages down well, it will take less than a day to learn how to send." My friend was correct. With a foreign language, we deal with additional challenges. Every language sounds different and uses different sounds. Different muscles are employed. The mouth, cheeks, nose, and tongue, along with breathing in or out, may be combined in almost endless ways.

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