When you learn a foreign language, all four skills (listening, reading, speaking, writing) are equally important. To what extent do you agree or disagree？

中文思路：

问题：四项技能对于一门语言的学习都是同等重要的吗？回答：不是的 让步：对于一些特定人群是同等重要的 - 如外语专业学生 - 可以对未来的语言深入研究和应用带来极大帮助 - 或者对于一些留学生而言 - 掌握好四门技能 - 可以帮助他们更好的在国外生活和学习

理由1: 研究表明对于一门外语的运用更多是在阅读和写作方面 - 需要阅读很多外文文献 - 用外语编辑报告 - 大部分学生没有机会与外国人沟通交流 - 所以口语和听力相对而言不太重要

理由2: 做国际贸易的商务人士 - 普遍只需要简单直接的写作表达运用在商务邮件和报道当中 - 相反 - 与外国客户面对面沟通或者线上会议更需要流畅的口语表达能力和极强的听力能力

Nowadays, individuals are frequently exposed to various types of language learning at an early age to chase the pace of globalization. It is argued by many linguists that the primary skills of a language including listening, reading, speaking, and writing are equally important to every language learner. However, I disagree with this viewpoint.

Admittedly, learning four skills equally is essential to certain people. Firstly, for those students who major in a particular foreign language, mastering all these skills is beneficial to their later further researches on this language and applying language skills in many aspects better. Besides, for those students who plan to further education abroad, they must pick up all four skills to better live and study in a foreign country.

However, there is evidence to suggest that a foreign language is more applied in reading and writing for ordinary college students since they need to read numerous foreign references and articles as well as write reports in foreign languages. In fact, most students are not given opportunities to communicate with foreigners, and therefore speaking and listening skills are relatively insignificant.

Moreover, for those businessmen who are doing international trade, it is a common trend that they only need simple and direct writing expressions in business emails and reports. By contrast, fluent oral expressions and strong listening ability are much more necessary for modern businessmen when they face-to-face communicate with foreign clients or hold online meetings and training with colleagues and employees from other countries.

In conclusion, while the balance of four key skills of language learning is important, it is unwise to force every single one to know all these well as different skills meet different people's demands. As long as the language skill helps to some extent, people will benefit from it.

来源：https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/346490394仅学习用途