When you are learning English, you find it not clever to put an English sentence, word for word, into your own language. Take the sentence “ How do you do?” as an example. If you look up each word in the dictionary, one at a time, what is your translation? It must be a wrong sentence in your own language.

 

　　Languages do not just have different sounds, they are different in many ways. It’s important to master(掌握) the rules(规则) for word order in the study of English, too. If the speaker puts words in a wrong order, the listener can’t understand the speaker’s sentence easily. Sometimes when the order of words in an English sentence is changed, the meaning of the sentence changes, But sometimes the order is changed, the meaning of the sentence doesn’t change. Let’s see the difference between the two pairs of sentences.

 

　　“She only likes apples.”

 

　　“Only she likes apples.”

 

　　“I have seen the film already.”

 

　　“I have already seen the film.”

 

　　When you are learning English, you must do your best to get the spirit(精神实质) of the language and use it as the English speaker does.

 

　　1. From the passage we know that _______when we are learning English.

 

　　A. we shouldn’t put every word into our own language

 

　　B. we should look up every word in the dictionary

 

　　C. we need to put every word into our own language

 

　　D. we must read word by word

 

　　2. The writer thinks it is _______ in learning English.

 

　　A. difficult to understand different sounds

 

　　B. possible to remember the word order

 

　　C. important to master the rules in different ways

 

　　D. easy to master the rules for word order

 

　　3. We can learn from the passage that ________.

 

　　A. the meaning of an English sentence always changes with the order of the words

 

　　B. The order of words can never change the meaning of an English sentence

 

　　C. sometimes different order of words has a different meaning

 

　　D. if the order of words is different, the meaning of the sentence must be different

 

　　4. “She only likes apples.” ________.

 

　　A. is the same as “Only she likes apples.”

 

　　B. is different from “Only she likes apples.”

 

　　C. means “She likes fruit except apples.”

 

　　D. means “She doesn’t like apples.”

 

　　5. Which is the best title (标题) for this passage?

 

　　A. Different Orders, Different Meanings

 

　　B. How to Speak English

 

　　C. How to Put English into Our Own Language

 

　　D. How to Learn English

 

　　【答案及解析】

 

　　1. A. 从整篇文章我们知道，在学习英语翻译句子时，我们不能逐字逐词译成母语，这样做是不明智的，结果是译成错误的句子。

 

　　2. B. 从文章中的第二段的这一句中It’s important to master the rules for word order in the study of English, too. 可知B项为正确答案。

 

　　3. C. 从文章所举的两组例子和原句Sometimes when the order of words in an English sentence is changed, the meaning of the sentence changes. 说明了作者的这一观点：有时，不同的词序会有不同的意思。

 

　　4. B. She only likes apples. only在这句中修饰动词likes，意为“她只喜欢苹果，而不喜欢吃其它水果”。Only she likes apples. only在此句中修饰主语she，意为“只有她喜欢苹果，而其他人就不一定喜欢吃苹果了。”所以正确答案是B。

 

　　5. D. 从整篇文章可以看出其大意是“怎样学习英语?”，把它作为标题应该是最佳的。