On the Relationship between the Different Aspects of Foreign Language 
Ability—
Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing, and Translating

As we all know, we should pay attention to cultivating our listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating abilities in the process of learning a foreign language. These five abilities are the important forms of language communication, as well as the important means for people to understand the world, acquire knowledge, develop intelligence and communicate emotions. Linguists have concluded that listening and speaking belongs to oral forms while reading, writing and translating are written ones in the sense of linguistic form. And each one has close relationship with one another.

If the communicative ability of a person is compared to a building, then listening, speaking, reading，writing and translating are the several important pillars supporting it. In the process of language learning, listening is an important means to absorb and consolidate language knowledge and develop the abilities of speaking, reading, writing and translating. Listening is the ability to recognize and understand what another person is saying. In human communication, listening is the most basic form, the ability to understand and absorb oral information. Listening is a process of passively receiving information. Of these five skills, listening is generally considered the most difficult language skill to master. Speaking is also important in communication skills. Spoken language is an oral form compared to written language. Speaking, as a language output, is developed on the basis of listening, For an English learner, only with sufficient language accumulation can the act of speaking occur. Speaking proves one's understanding and mastery of the language. It is known to all that reading is an important part of English study and also an important aspect for students to use English. Reading is an important means of language input, which can improve one's vocabulary, cultivate one's language sense and exercise one's ability to understand English. A person can master a language only if he reads widely. Writing is also an important form of language output. Only through the above three processes of listening, speaking and reading can a person have the ability to write. Writing, as a kind of normative language output, can effectively improve one's language ability and by this, one can know his weaknesses such as word spelling, grammar or writing format. In a word, writing is the last step of building a house. Through the previous practice and mastery of the four basic language skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, translating, as an activity of transforming one language into another, has greatly reflected one's language ability. Through translating, one's language ability will also be greatly improved. Therefore, translating can not only promote the above four skills, but also be a good reflection to one's language capacity.

All in all, listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating are closely related to each other. They are all necessary skills for learning a language. In the process of language learning, each has different focuses, but the ultimate goal lies in the same one, which is to promote one's mastery of foreign languages. As language learners, we should recognize and master the requirements of these five skills to help improve our foreign language.

文章以“论外语能力的不同方面——听、说、读、写、译的关系”为题，分为三段展开论述。第一段提出话题：说和读是口语形式，读、写和译是文字形式，彼此侧重点不同，但互相联系。第二段分别对语言学习的听、说、读、写、译五个方面展开介绍，阐释各自的特点以及与彼此的关系。最后一段对全文进行总结，照应首段，表示认清这五种技能的关系，从而帮助我们提高自己的外语水平。