实战口语情景对话：Common Errors 常见错误

Tom: Jess, you were talking before about mistakes that your Hungarian students always made, and how some students from the same country all make the same mistakes again and again and again. Well, I work here in Thailand and they have a very cute phrase, "same, same" which I think means to describe something as being the same as something else, I spend five — ten minutes talking to a student explaining that instead of using same same, she should use "the same as" and I was trying to get this phrase over to her and finally she understood what I meant and she looked at me and said, "Ah, same as same same same same".

汤姆：杰西，你之前说过匈牙利学生常犯的错误，同一个国家的学生经常会重复犯同样的错误。我在泰国工作，泰国有一个非常可爱的短语“一样一样”，我想那是形容某样东西和其他东西一样的一个短语，我花了5到10分钟和一个学生解释，我们不应该用same same这个短语，而是应该用the same as来表示和……一样，我努力让她理解这个短语，最后她终于明白我的意思了，她看着我说，“啊，same as就是same same的意思啊”。

Jess: In Spain I think the most common mistake was that in Spanish the noun people is a singular noun. You would say "le gente es" so when my Spanish speakers would use this noun they would always say, "Oh the people is very hungry" or "the people is very quiet" and I spent most of my time in Spain going "are — are — are" after these, the people even upper intermediate, advanced learners will still making that mistake. In France, one very common mistake was the pronuciation error. The sound "Th" at the beginning words, for example, "there" or "those" that the French would pronounce with a zed sound, so "zere" or "zose" and I was very reluctant to correct it because it's such a sexy accent and it sounds so much more gorgeous with the French "ZZ" but I did have to correct it and I was always in France sticking my tongue out of my mouth to emphasize to them that there tongue needed to be forward to their teeth to make the correct sound. You said you worked in Libya. What were the common mistakes for Libyan students?

杰西：我认为西班牙学生最常犯的错误是，在西班牙语里people这个词是单数名词。你要说：“le gente es”，所以我的西班牙学生用这个单词时经常会说，“哦，人们非常饿”或者是“人们非常安静”，我在西班牙的大部分时间都在纠正他们要用表复数的are，而不是is，甚至中级以上的学生和高级班学生还会犯这个错误。在法国，一个非常常见的错误是发音错误。举例来说，开头单词“th”在法语中会发“z”的音，我非常不愿意纠正这个，因为这是一个非常性感的口音，法语里的“Z”音听起来更华丽，不过我必须要纠正，我在法国时，经常要把舌头伸出来，向他们强调舌头要抵到牙齿发出正确的音。你说过你曾在利比亚工作过。利比亚学生常犯的错误是什么?

Tom: One that always made me smile was when a cheery student or the security guard at the school or people that I met around the compound where I was living would give me a cheery wave and say "How are you? I'm fine" and it took me a good month or two before I realized that in Arabic the question and answer to go together. It just sounds strange in English. I thought they were jumping the gun by answering their own question.

汤姆：会让我笑的一个错误是，我在学校里碰到的活泼的学生和警卫或是在住宅楼里遇到的人们，会一边开心地向我挥手，一边说，“你好吗?我很好。”我用了一两个月才明白，在阿拉伯语里，问题和回答是要一起说的。这在英语里听起来很怪。我想他们是通过自问自答抢先行动。

Jess: Sounds like they were talking to themselves. And how about in Japan?

杰西：听起来他们在和自己说话。那日本的情况呢?

Tom: Now, Japanese have another common phrase which I think it used both in Japanese and because it comes from English they use it in English to. It's "so-so". I'm not quite sure when you might use it. It's when things are not quite good, not quite bad, so if you say, "hey, how are you doing?", they will say "so-so" or if you say, "Hey, how's your food?" they'll say, "so-so". It's not English and the first few months I had of hearing that, I really couldn't quite work out. I understood the meaning, but I knew that it was not something I would ever say, but the difficulty there is trying to think of a good alternative. It's that kind of non-committal, I don't really care answer. I like strong opinions. I love it. I hate it. Let's leave this so-so.

汤姆：日本的常见错误是另一个，我想日语和英语里都用这个词，因为这个词来源于英语。那就是“so-so”。我不太确定什么时候用这个词。事情不好不坏时，你可能会说，“嘿，你最近怎么样?”对方可能会答：“一般吧”，如果你问“嘿，食物怎么样?”对方可能会答：“还行。”英语并不这么说，前几个月我听到这种说法时，我实在是不能明白。后来我理解了这个词的意思，可是我知道我不会这么说，不过很难想出一个准确的替代词。这是种含糊的说法，我不太在意回答。我喜欢有力的观点，比如我喜欢，我讨厌。我们忘掉这个so-so吧。

Jess: I agree. It's like over use of the adjective nice. It just sounds really bland.

杰西：我同意。就好像是过度使用nice这个形容词。听起来非常乏味。