Question

Is learning a foreign language ever easy? Yes. If you are five and move to another country, you will quickly pick up the language. But what about for the rest of us who are no longer five, and need to be polite when traveling for business or for pleasure? I think that answer is also yes. Language learning can be easy if you don’t want or need to learn too much.

The key to successful language learning in my mind is not to set the goal too high. It is rather like running. Even if you run twice a week, you don’t necessarily want to be able to run a marathon (马拉松). You might just want to keep a level of fitness. I think the same can be true for language learning.

Let’s get back to the goal. If you decide to learn ten words in a foreign language before visiting the country, you know that you will be sure to do this. However, if you decide to talk to people with great fluency (流利), unless you are quite a talented person, you will probably fail and give up in half-way.

It is also far easier to start learning a foreign language than to finish. In other words, the better you are, the slower it can be to improve, because you will not be able to move further because of grammar, making sentences, learning less common words, etc. If you are only trying to learn a few foreign words and sentences, you will enjoy faster progress, have more fun, and won’t have to spend too much time.

The idea of learning only a few hundred words in a language, and then stopping, isn’t the usual way to language learning, but it can be a very meaningful and enjoyable activity.

1. In the writer’s opinion, it is easy for adults to learn English if _______.

A. they are especially talented people

B. they don’t want or need to learn too much

C. they have to spend a lot of time on it

D. they have a chance to go abroad

2. The writer believes that if you want to be good at a foreign language, you will probably _______.

A. forget your own goal

B. become a talented language learner

C. get tired of learning it

D. reach your learning goal

3. The best title of this passage would be _______.

A. Easy Language Learning

B. Hard Language Learning

C. Fluency in a Foreign Language

D. A way of Language Learning

Answer

1.B

2.C

3.A

【解析】

试题分析：对于五岁的孩子来说搬到另一个国家学习语言是很容易的。但对于不再是五岁孩子的大人们来说，如果我们不想学太多，语言学习可以是容易的。关键是不要定太高的目标。另外，开始学习一门外语比完成它容易得多。只学一种语言的几百个单词然后停下来，不是学习语言的通常的方法，但它是一个很有意义和有趣的活动。

1.

2.细节理解题。根据文章第三段最后一句话可知，如果你想很流利的同人们谈话，除非你是个非常聪明的人，否则你可能会失败或半途而废，所以选C。

3.主旨大意题。根据文章第一段第一句Is learning a foreign language ever easy?及接下来的阐述可知文章讲的是容易的英语学习。所以文章最合适的题目是A。

考点：教育类阅读。