学英语:中国女性优于男性,整体问题多多

THE English proficiency of Chinese women is much better than that of men, according to a study released in Shanghai yesterday.
昨天在上海公布的一项研究显示，中国女性的英语水平明显优于男性。

Chinese women scored three points higher than men in the English Proficiency Index released by EF Education, a language training company. Worldwide, women scored one point higher than men on average.
在英孚教育（一个语言培训公司）公布的英语水平指数测试中，中国女性的得分要比男性高3分。世界范围内，女性得分比男性平均高一分。

"This shows that Chinese women are more accustomed to the Chinese education mode," the report said. "Chinese women use their gift of language to gain success."
“这表明中国女性更习惯中国的教育模式，”报告表示。“中国女性用她们的语言天赋来获得成功。”

However, Chinese mainlanders' English proficiency ranked second to last in Asia, despite the great time and effort that many people invest in learning the language, the report said.
但是，尽管很多人投入了很多的时间和精力来学习语言，中国大陆人的英语水平在亚洲仍排名倒数第二，报告说。

China's mainland is ranked the 36th in the index of 54 countries and regions where English is not the native language. That's down from 29th last year. The Chinese mainland belongs to the low-proficiency tier and is ranked just above Thailand in Asia.
中国大陆在54个英语非母语的国家和地区的指数测试中排名第36位。这是去年从29位下降的名次。中国大陆属于低水平层次，排名仅高于亚洲的泰国。

This year's index has increased the weight of listening tests, while decreasing the importance of grammar and vocabulary exams, which partly caused the ranking change, researchers said.
今年的指数测试增加了听力测试的比重，同时减少了语法和词汇检测的重要性，这在一定程度上导致了排名的变化，研究人员说。

Moreover, test-oriented and rote-based learning methods often used in China hurt the language skills of Chinese students, education experts said.
此外，在中国以考试为目的和死记硬背的学习方式伤害了中国学生的语言技能，教育专家说。

The study compared test scores of more than 1.7 million adults in the 54 countries and regions.
该研究比较了54个国家和地区的超过170万的成年人的测试分数。

Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands have the best command of English, while Libya has the lowest English proficiency level.
瑞典、丹麦和荷兰英语掌握最好，而利比亚的英语水平最低。

European countries generally performed well. But Italy, Spain and Portugal, some of the countries at the heart of the euro zone crisis, are being dragged down by poor English, according to the report.
欧洲国家普遍表现良好。但意大利、西班牙和葡萄牙，一些处在欧元区危机中心的国家，被糟糕的英语拖累了，根据该报告。

Singapore is 12th, the best in Asia, followed by Malaysia and India. South Korea, at 21st, and Japan, at 22nd, performed disappointingly low despite their focus on education, the report said.
新加坡排名第12，在亚洲最好，其次是马来西亚和印度。韩国，排在21位，日本，排在22位，尽管他们关注教育但其表现还是令人失望的低，报告说。

Young workers aged between 25 to 35 years old are best at English on average around the world. But in Asia, high school graduates have the best command of English, the report said.
世界各地年龄在25到35岁的年轻工作者的平均英语水平最好。但在亚洲，高中毕业生掌握着最好的英语，报告说。

Europeans' English skills are still improving after they start work, while the English skills of many Chinese deteriorate in the workplace because they have fewer opportunities to practice the language, the study said.
欧洲人的英语技能他们开始工作后仍能不断提高，而许多中国人的英语技能在工作中恶化，因为他们练习英语的机会越来越少，这项研究说。

One in every four people frequently uses English at work on China's mainland while nearly 15 percent said they never use English, lower than the world average level, according to the study.
在中国大陆四分之一的人经常在工作中使用英语而近15%的人表示他们从未使用过英语，低于世界平均水平，根据这项研究。