一个大一新生的烦恼:
I’m gearing up for my freshman year of college, and I’m trying to decide which language to study. I’d like to pick the language that will be most practical. If you had to pick just one, which would you recommend?
-Freshman
亲爱的艾米莉,
我正在为我的大一生活做准备,并且我在试着选定要学习的语言。我想选一门最实用的语言。如果你要选一门语言来学习的话,你会推荐哪种语言呢?
经济学家Emily Oster的回答:
As someone who took six years of Latin, I am not sure I am the best source for information on what language will be practical, but I’ll give it a try.
作为一个学习了6年拉丁语的人,我不确定自己是否是提供实用语言信息的最佳人选,不过我会试试看。
First, let me say I don’t think you are thinking about this quite the right way. You asked me about what language would be most practical. This suggests you’re thinking about only one side of the choice: the benefit side. Making the optimal choice requires thinking about both benefits and costs. In this case, I’d argue there may be very different costs to acquiring proficiency in different languages. It is a lot harder for most English-speakers to learn Japanese than to learn Spanish.
首先,我得说我认为你考虑问题的方式不对。你问我什么语言最实用,这说明你只考虑了这项选择的一个方面:有益的一面。做出最佳选择需要考虑收益和成本两个方面。在这种情况下,我得说,要熟练掌握不同的语言可能会有不同的代价。对多数讲英语的人而言,学日语就比学西班牙语要困难地多。
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