美語情景對話 第292期:Learning Japanese 學習日語

Todd: So, Eli, how are your Japanese classes going?

託德：艾麗，你的日語課怎麼樣了？

Eli: They're going OK. Japanese is a very difficult language and I think as someone who has never learned another language before I'm struggling more than other kids are. I feel that a lot of the other, say European kids, that this is there third or fourth language, that they can speak fluently, they pick it up very quickly, and for me it's slightly more difficult. As I say, our school is quite advanced and it moves very, very quickly in conversation. We're not learning any Kanji, which is kind of difficult cause that's one thing you really do need to learn if you're living here, but the conversation moves very quickly and we learn a lot of new stuff, so it's quite difficult to practice it all. I think that's the problem I'm finding, and a lot of my friends say the same thing: they're learning it all but then they don't have time to practice. It's actually crazy to think, you're in Japan but it's quite difficult to actually practice the Japanese language. You see all my Japanese friends they want to practice English with me, so, you actually end up being very lazy, and not talking that much Japanese, so I think that is the problem, just you have to have conversation through conversation all the time and I'm not really doing that at the moment, so yeah, it's difficult. I think I'll get there. I'm just about starting to understand stuff now.

艾麗：進行得不錯。日語是非常難的語言，我想就像以前從沒學過其他語言的人一樣，相比於那些孩子們，我的學習更艱難。我覺得，日語是那些歐洲小孩的第三或者是第四語言，他們的日語說得非常流利，而且他們學得非常快，而對我來說日語學習就有點難。就像我說過的，我上的學校非常先進，對話進行的非常快。我們不學習日文漢字，這個非常難，因爲如果你要在這裏生活就必須要學習日文漢字，但是因爲對話進行的很快，所以我們要學很多新東西，所以很難都練習到。我想這是我發現的問題，而我的許多朋友也說了同樣的問題：他們學習了所有的東西，但是他們沒有時間練習。實際上這很瘋狂，你在日本，但是你很難練習日語。你知道，我所有的日本朋友都想和我練習英語，所以實際上完成英語練習時就非常慵懶了，不再說更多的日語了，所以我認爲這就是問題所在，你必須要一直進行對話練習，而我現在就沒有在用日語對話，所以，這很難。我認爲我會做到的。我現在只是剛剛開始明白這件事。

重點講解：
1. pick up
（不費力地）獲得，學會；
eg. She soon picked up French when she went to live in France.
她到法國居住後很快就學會了法語。
eg. Interviewers quickly learn to pick up non - verbal signals.
採訪者很快學會讀懂非言語信號。
2. end up
最終；結果；到頭來；
eg. Wasteful people usually end up in debt.
揮霍浪費者最後往往負債。
eg. If you do that, you'll end up with egg on your face.
你要是做那件事,必將以恥辱告終。
3. need to do sth.
需要做某事；
eg. The method seems good but it needs to be tried out.
這個方法似乎不錯，但需要試驗一下。
eg. People need to be conscientized about their rights.
需要讓人們明白自己的權利。