atic. You will also see that this has nothing at all to do with learning fixed-phrase idioms by heart.
你做不到这点，也没有这个必要。这么说你可能会很高兴。费尽心思死记英语习语表简直是浪费时间。即使你做到了，它们对你的英语学习也无济于事。什么是习语呢?当人们被问起有关习语的例子时，他们总是引用一些固定短语，例如：It’s raining cats and dogs, the pot calling the kettle black, to add insult to injury，等等。如果你对此感兴趣，你可以查一些专门词典，如The Longman Dictionary of English Idioms(1979年第一版)。即使你背下了这本词典，你的英语也不见得长进多大。这本词典是在你听到不能理解的习语时供你查找用的。你现在的任务不是学习这些习语，而是掌握地道的英语，这与学习习语是完全不同的事。这就是说，所说的英语听起来要尽可能像以英语为母语的人所说的那样，而不是在不断翻译汉语。因此，要想学好地道的英语，你就应当记住英语是一种词序语言：即它的基本结构是主语+动词+宾语+方式+地点+时间。如果偏离了这种格式，那么你所说的英语就不是那么地道了，甚至有点儿像“舶来品”。例如，如果你把“我的英语说得很好”说成I speak well English，而不是I speak English well，那么你就违背了英语的一个最基本的规则。另一点值得我们注意的是：在英语中短语动词比普通的动词用得更普遍。当某人敲门时，我们更倾向于说Come in!，而不说Enter!我们倾向说Put out the fire/Put the fire out，而不说Extinguish the fire.短语动词通常有习语的用法，也有按字面意义上理解的用法：Put the cat out 就是字面用法(=把它放在房屋外);Put the fire out是一个习语用法(=使熄灭)。你必须掌握这些短语动词，因为在文中你会经常遇见它们。在我所著的Essential English Grammar的最后，我列举了15条最基本的英语语法规则。掌握了这些就可以使你的英语听起来更地道。你也会发现这与死记固定的英语习语毫不相关。
200. Some people in Western countries used to say that we Chinese are very serious people, and do not have much sense of humour. Do you agree? Do you think that the Western humour is quite different from the Chinese one?
一些西方国家的人士过去经常说我们中国人太严肃，缺乏幽默感。您同意这个说法吗?您认为西方式幽默与中国式幽默有很大的区别吗?
I do not subscribe to any idea of human stereotypes. As human beings, we share human characteristics universally. We all experience love, fear, hope, anger, etc. —yes, and we all laugh. The only differences between us are the ways we have been conditioned by the cultures we grew up in. This means that all human beings have the capacity to laugh, but they don’t necessarily all find exactly the same things funny. Humour is often the result of a clash between an idea or a situation and a culturally-defined expectation of what is correct or normal. Insofar as we have different value systems or ideas of normality, we have different ideas of what is funny. What we consider to be funny is the product of our cultural conditioning. Your question is actually two questions, so let me answer them one at a time: 1) No, I don’t agree that the Chinese don’t have a sense of humour. 2) Sometimes a ‘Western’ and a Chinese sense of humour will converge (we are all human) and sometimes a ‘Western’ and a Chinese sense of humour will diverge (we live in different societies).
我不敢苟同这种人的成见。作为人，我们拥有人类的共性。我们都有爱情、恐惧、希望、愤怒，等等——当然还有欢笑。惟一的区别就是我们分别在两种不同的文化氛围中生活，并且受其熏陶。这就是说，我们都有笑的本能，但不见得我们对同样的事都觉得可笑。幽默通常是一种理念或特定的场景与一种以文化取向为标准的正确与否的冲突的结果。因为我们有不同的价值观念，所以对某事物是否有趣也有不同的看法。我们认为有趣的事物是我们自己特定的文化所决定的。你所问的其实是两个问题，我分别解答它们：1)我不同意中国人没有幽默感的说法。2)有时，西方的幽默与中国的幽默可以相吻合（因为我们都是人），有时，西方的幽默与中国的幽默会有不同(因为我们生活在不同的社会中)。
201. How to differentiate formal from informal English?
如何辨别正式英语与非正式英语呢?
Formal English is generally written. We use it in business letters, when we’re writing reports, in public notices, etc. Informal English is generally spoken. We use it in conversation between friends, when we’re writing to a friend using a ‘spoken style’ and when we’re generally trying to be friendly. In An A-Z of English Grammar and Usage Geoffrey Leech quotes two examples:
An announcement is heard on radio:
Formal: ‘The police are attempting to discover the location of the missing vehicle.’
Informal: ‘What did it say?’ —‘It said they’re trying to find out where the car’s gone.’
Formal style often uses elaborate combinations of verbs and nouns deriving from Latin and Greek:
Our environmental awareness and protectiveness towards nature have increased.
Informal style is correct and standard, but avoids complex sentences, multi-syllable verbs and a ‘high-sounding’ tone: More than ever, we know we’ve got to look after nature.
正式英语通常是书面语，一般用在商业信函中或正式的报告、公开告示中等。非正式英语通常是口语体的，我们在与朋友交谈中用它，给朋友写信也用这种“口语体”，以显得亲切、自然。在An A-Z of English Grammar and Usage一书中，杰弗里•利奇引用了两个例子：
收音机上播放的通告：
正式体：The police are attempting to discover the location of the missing vehicle.
非正式体：What did it say?—It said they’re trying to find out where the car’s gone.
正式体通常使用来源于拉丁语、希腊语名词和动词的复杂搭配：Our environmental awareness and protectiveness towards nature have increased.
非正式体也是正确的、标准的，但它避免使用复合句、多音节动词和“高调”：
More than ever, we know we’ve got to look after nature.
202. What is the best way for Chinese students to learn English?
对中国学生来说，学习英语的最佳方式是什么?
I wish I could give you a simple, personalised formula, but I can’t. The best way for Chinese students to learn English is exactly the same as the best way all other students in the world learn English. Be clear about the following:
Learning a language is about acquiring skills, not acquiring knowledge.
To learn a foreign language, we need to master four primary skills:
—Understanding
—Speaking
—Reading
—Writing
Each of these primary skills consists of sub-skills: for example, listen and respond, listen and assimilate, listen and take notes, listen and translate simultaneously from one language into another. The development of the listening skill is fundamental and provides the basis for the acquisition of all other skills.
To master aural/oral skills (= understanding and speaking), we have to be able to:
—Understand
—Answer
—Ask
—Say
We then have to deploy these four activities in three main areas of discourse:
—Transactions (= doing business in a foreign language, like changing money in a bank or ordering food at a restaurant)
—Interaction (= the non-contentious exchange of information)
—Argument (= the exchange of ideas, sometimes contentious)
We can set out similar objectives for the reading skill and for the writing skill. But whatever culture we set out from (Chinese, Mexican or Ethiopian), the objectives will remain the same. Of course, there are phonological and grammatical problems which particularly affect speak
