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Alice:  Sometimes  British  people might  say  "I  am  leaving  soon."  "I'm  going  for lunch  in 5 minutes"  "The bus  is  leaving  in an hour". All  these progressive
sentences  are  actually  talking  about  something  that  is  going  to  happen soon instead of actually happening. 
 
Wang  Fei:   对，这些都是在英语中用现在进行时表示将来的例子。中国的学习者往往会说  "I'll leave soon" "I'll go for lunch in 5 minutes" 听起来就不太自然了。
 
Alice:  Let's  hear  from  Ken  Paterson  again  and  see  what  problems  he's  found when Chinese learners are speaking English. 
 
Insert 
 
A big area which is a problem is modal verbs, because modal verbs are often connected with  politeness.  To  give  an  example  of  a  non-polite  problem,  then  a  Chinese  student might say, "This isn't correct" and that's a perfectly good English sentence but what you would be looking for in a more natural speaker would be, "This can't be correct." 
 
In order to be very carefully polite, you need to have a good command of modals. So a Chinese  student  may  say  something  which  seems  polite  and  is  quite  polite,  like  for
example, they may say, "Please read this text."
 
An English person in a similar circumstance who is in a situation with someone they don't know very well would say something like, "You might like to read this text." So there's a problem there and sometimes Chinese learners can seem a little bit rude. That's not their intention but that's how it comes across.
 
Alice:  He  said  Chinese  learners  can  sometimes  seem  a  little  bit  rude  because they're not using modal verbs. 
 
Wang Fei:    Ken 感觉很多中国人的口语听起来不够有礼貌，不是因为他们没有礼貌，而是因为他们不太会用情态动词。
 
Alice:  Ken gave a typical example: "Please read this text". 
 
Wang Fei:    "Please read this text". 听起来很有礼貌啊？
 
Alice:  That's  the  problem.  Some  Chinese  people might  think  'please'  is  a  very polite word. It is. So when I was in China, people would say "Alice, please do this, please do that". Actually, 'Please' at the beginning of the sentence sometimes sounds very direct  to a native speaker and  it sounds a bit like it's an order. 
 
Wang Fei:    Alice 说  'please' 这个词太直接了，在句首的时候，听起来有点儿像是命令的意思。所以看来我们在说英语的时候，不要觉得说了一个 please 就很有礼貌了，你还需要再加上 modal verbs 才能够得上英国人礼貌的标准。
 
Alice:    Ken gave another example about disagreeing with other people: "This isn't correct". In English it sounds quite a strong sentence. So it would be better if you said something  like  "This can't be correct", or  "I'm not sure  this  is 
 
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correct,"  or  "I  think  it's not  correct."  You  can use  the modal  verb  "can", and the tone of the sentence sounds more polite. 
 
Wang Fei:   英国人的文化就是不太直接。  So  Alice,  I'll  use  some  sentences  Chinese learners  of English might  say. Can  you help make  these  sentences more polite? 
 
Alice:    Of course I'll try.              
 
Wang Fei:   在咖啡店点咖啡的时候，我们可能会说  I want to have a coffee, please.
 
Alice:  Can I have a coffee please?
 
Wang Fei:   在餐馆结账的时候，我们可能会说 Bring me the bill, please. 
 
Alice:  May I have the bill please? 
 
Wang Fei:   在问路的时候，我们可能会说 Do you know how to get to the British Museum?
 
Alice:  Could you please show me how to get to the British Museum?
 
Wang Fei:   希望你能体会到这些情态动词的用法，同时也学会使用情态动词让你的英语更有礼貌。
 
Alice:  Welcome  back  to  the  programme.  Ken  also  noticed  that many  Chinese people make  one  particular  mistake  when  they  are  speaking.  However, they might  not make  this mistake  when  they  are  writing  because  it's  a simple one.
 
Wang Fei:    That's interesting. So let's hear what the problem is?  
 
Insert 
 
Ken: Gender is still a problem, because of the gender pronouns. I have a friend who is a superb speaker of English – a Chinese friend. But he will still say, "That's my sister, have you met him?" 
 
Alice:  Ken  said  his  Chinese  friend  is  a  superb  speaker  of  English  but  he  still makes mistakes using 'he' and 'she'. 
                
Wang Fei:  A superb speaker of English, 说英语超级棒的人。仍然会弄错英语中最简单的两个词 he 和  she. 
 
Alice:  Many Chinese  learners of English  find  this difficult. I'm guessing you also sometimes have this problem, Wang Fei?
 
Wang Fei:  That's right. I do have this problem. It's so easy but I repeatedly make this mistake. So why is that?
 
Alice:  According to Ken, it's because of interference from your mother tongue. 
 
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Insert 
 
These are all problems of interference from your own mother tongue; which means that your own mother tongue has such a strong control over your linguistic expression that it begins to have its effect on the language you're learning. This is the same for everybody, it's not a Chinese problem; it's a problem for any language learner. The difficulty is that
the Chinese and English languages are so different and therefore Chinese students have extra problems.
 
Alice:  Ken  explains  the  interference  very  clearly.  It means  your mother  tongue has such a strong control over your language usage that it influences  the language you're learning. 
 
Wang Fei:  Ken 解释说你的母语对你的语言表达有极强的控制力，所以就造成了你很容易通过母语的表达方式来使用你学习的外语。 
 
Alice:            It's easy to understand why you keep on making mistakes when using 'he' and 'she', isn't it?
 
Wang Fei:  我明白了。汉语中  he 和  she 的发音是相同的，所以中国人也就容易忽略  he 和 she 在英语中的不同发音。这是母语的干扰造成的。
 
Alice:  Similarly,  because  of  this  strong  interference  from  your mother  tongue, Chinese  people  tend  to  have  a  similar  accent,  and  a  similar  way  of
speaking English.  
 
Wang Fei:  I see. So Alice, we've talked a lot about accents. Do you think it's possible for a Chinese learner to get rid of his or her Chinese accent? 
 
Alice:  It's a good question and  I don't  think  there's a  yes or no answer.  In  the next  programme  we  will  speak  to  some  language  experts  about  their attitudes towards Chinese accents.
 
Wang Fei:   我们在下期节目中，将邀请数位专家谈一谈对中国人的英语口音的态度。
 
Alice:  I hope to see you next time. Bye for now.
 
Wang Fei:    Bye.