评论
打印
Conversation Two
对话二
Listen to the conversation.
听对话。
Then read the four choices marked A, B, C and D, and decide which is the best answer according to what you hear.
根据对话内容选出最佳答案，并将答案的标号A，B，C，D写在答题纸上的相应位置。
OK, everyone. Who knows what the world’s most spoken language is?
好了，各位。谁知道世界上说得最多的语言是什么？
Well, it’s an ambiguous question.
这是个模棱两可的问题。
If you just look at how many individual speakers there are around the world, then the answer is Mandarin Chinese with 836 million speakers.
如果你只看世界上有多少个人说，那么答案是有8.36亿人说的普通话。
English was second until a few years ago, but it has since been overtaken by Hindi with 333 million speakers and Spanish with 332 million speakers.
直到几年前，英语还位居第二，但后来被印地语（3.33亿人）和西班牙语（3.32亿人）取代。
Now English is after Spanish with 322 million speakers in South America.
现在，英语仅次于西班牙语，在南美洲有3.22亿人说西班牙语。
Oh yes, South America. I didn’t think of that.
哦，是的，南美洲。我没想到这一点。
Yes, it’s easy to forget.
是的，这很容易忘记。
You can look at the question in a different way if you look at the number of countries that use English.
如果你看使用英语的国家的数量，你可以从不同的角度来看待这个问题。
English is a massive 115, ahead of French, Arabic and Spanish with 35, 24 and 20 countries respectively.
有115个国家使用英语，分别有35个、24个和20个国家使用法语、阿拉伯语和西班牙语。
English has different statuses around the world.
英语在世界各地有着不同的地位。
Core countries are where English has a full official status like England, the US and Australia.
核心国家指的是英语拥有完全官方地位的国家，如英国、美国和澳大利亚。
In outer core countries English has some official status as in India, and then there are fringe countries such as Japan and the UAE where it’s used a lot in business and tourism.
在外核心国家，英语有一定的官方地位，比如印度，然后在一些边缘国家，如日本和阿联酋，英语在商务和旅游中使用比较多。
A more important list is the world’s most influential languages.
一个更重要的榜单是世界上最有影响力的语言。
This is compiled by weighing 6 factors which were the number of primary speakers, the number of secondary speakers, the number and population of the countries where the languages are used,
这是通过权衡6个因素编制而成的，这6个因素是：母语使用者的数量、第二母语使用者的数量、使用这些语言的国家的数量和人数。
the number of major fields using the languages internationally, the economic power of countries using the languages and socio-literary prestige.
在国际上使用这些语言的主要领域的数量、使用这些语言的国家的经济实力和社会文学声望。
And the list shows the following in order of most influential: English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Chinese, German, Japanese, Portuguese and Hindi.
该榜单按影响力大小排序如下：英语、法语、西班牙语、俄语、阿拉伯语、汉语、德语、日语、葡萄牙语和印地语。
How up to date are these figures?
这些数字是最新的吗？
Fairly. They came out just last year.
非常新。它们去年才被统计出来。
But the picture is changing very rapidly in terms of influential languages.
但就有影响力的语言而言，情况正在迅速发生变化。
There’re certain large countries which’re about to emerge on the world stage and their economies are starting to influence the world balance of power.
有一些大国即将出现在世界舞台上，它们的经济正开始影响世界力量的平衡。
