These days, French has lost status because the United Nations has five official languages, not just one: English, French, Spanish, Russian, and Chinese.

近些年，法语逐渐失去自己的地位，因为联合国有五种官方语言，而非仅仅一种，即:英语，法语，西班牙语，俄语和汉语。

The individual most responsible for bringing English and French together (and one of the greatest writer in English literature) was a customs official who lived in the late fourteenth century named Geoffrey Chaucer,

对促进英语和法语相融合最有贡献的人叫做杰弗雷·乔叟，他生活在14世纪晚期，当时任海关官员，也是英国文学界最伟大的作家之一。

whose Canterbury Tales is one of the most extraordinary works in English, practically created, or at least made acceptable, a new language, which was a combination of the more elegant French and the cruder but more powerful Germanic elements.

他所著的《坎特伯雷故事集》是英国最杰出的文学作品之一，该作品创造了，或者说使世人接受了一种新的语言，这种语言由更加优雅的法语和虽然粗糙但是强劲有力的日耳曼语的音节组成。

Since Chaucer's time the two languages have been woven closer and closer together, forming the single language that we now know as English.

从乔叟时代开始，这两种语言越来越紧密结合，最后就形成了今天的英语。

However, even today, vestiges of the differences survive, for words of French or Latin origin still tend to occur more frequently in formal written English than in spoken English.

然而，即使在今天，细小的差异仍然存在，比如来自法语和拉丁语词源的词汇在英语正式书面语中会比口语中更常使用。

This naturally means that, for Spanish speakers, it is often easier to understand written English than spoken English.

这意味着，对于讲西班牙语的人来说，英语书面语会比口语更加容易理解。

You can find evidence of this in this paragraph. Go through it and underline the words which are similar to words in Spanish.

你能在下面这段话中找到证据。快速阅读这段话并在与西班牙语词汇相似的词下面划线。

It is virtually certain that these will be words of Latin (or Greek) or French derivation, and probably they were brought to England by William the Conqueror and his men long ago.

几乎可以断定，这些词汇派生于是拉丁(或希腊语)，它们可能是很久之前由征服者威廉和他的手下带到英格兰的。