​Population, Overpopulation, Underpopulation

Population, Overpopulation, Underpopulation

人口，人口过剩，人口稀少

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　　By John Russell

　　25 January 2024

　　Imagine you want to talk about the people in your country or in the world. In other words, you want to talk about a population.

　　How might you do so?

　　In today's Everyday Grammar, we will explore the noun "population." You will learn important ideas about the term and how to use it in everyday situations.

　　Let's start with a visit to the dictionary.

　　Population vs. populate

　　If you look in a dictionary, you might wonder about two words that seem closely related. We have the noun "population" and the verb "populate."

　　Is it important to know about the verb "populate," you might ask?

　　Google Ngram Viewer permits us to examine words and phrases in thousands of books. We can get a good idea of how often individual words and structures are used.

　　When we examine the frequency of "population" and compare it to that of "populate," we reach a clear finding: the noun "population" is much more commonly used.

　　Another way to understand the idea is this: you are much more likely to hear "population" in everyday situations.

　　Countable noun

　　Population is a noun meaning the number of people, animals, or other living things of a kind in an area.

　　We commonly use "population" as a countable noun. In other words, you can add an –s to the end of "population" to get the plural form "populations."

　　So, you might hear or read the singular form "population," as in:

　　Experts expect the world's population to increase by a very small amount over the next year.

　　We use the singular form because we are talking about all the people who live in the world – one very large group!

　　How might we use the plural form? In this case, we might use other terms to clarify that we are talking about different groups. For example, you might read or hear something like this:

　　Elderly and overweight populations face greater risk from the illness.

　　In this case, we use the plural form "populations" because we are talking about all of the members of two separate groups – elderly people and overweight people.

　　Now that we have explored the noun "population," we should consider the word in terms of broader language situations.

　　Words before and after

　　How do we commonly use the word "population" in everyday speech?

　　Let's start by examining the most commonly used words that come before and after "population."

　　Since "population" is a noun, we might expect that determiners – words that tell us if a noun is general or specific – should be commonly used before it.

　　Google's Ngram Viewer tell us that the word "the" is the most commonly used word before "population."

　　So, you are very likely to hear or read something like this:

　　Experts said the population declined by 1 percent.

　　And what about the most commonly used word after the noun "population?"

　　We find that the short word "of" is the most common by far.

　　So, you are very likely to hear or read something like this:

　　The population of Japan is aging quickly.

　　Words connected to population

　　Over and under are two words that can be attached to population to form a new single word.

　　Overpopulation describes a situation in which there are too many people.

　　Underpopulation describes a situation in which there are too few people.

　　Importantly, we generally use "overpopulation" and "underpopulation" as noncount nouns. In other words, there is no plural form. We do not add an –s to the end of either word.

　　How might you expect these terms to appear in everyday situations? Here are two examples:

　　Experts predict overpopulation will result in food shortages.

　　Experts predict underpopulation will result in labor shortages.

　　Questions

　　In today's lesson, we explored a useful noun and how to use it in everyday situations.

　　We will close our lesson with a call to action. Please answer the following questions in an email to learningenglish@voanews.com

　　What is the population like in your country or city? Is the population increasing or decreasing?

　　In a future lesson, we can provide feedback on some of the writing that we receive.

　　I'm John Russell.

　　John Russell wrote this lesson for VOA Learning English.

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　　作者：约翰·罗素

　　日期：2024年1月25日

　　想象一下，你想谈论你的国家或世界上的人们。换句话说，你想谈论一个人口。

　　你可能会如何做呢？

　　在今天的日常语法中，我们将探讨名词"人口"。你将学习到关于这个词的重要概念，以及如何在日常情况下使用它。

　　让我们从查阅字典开始。

　　人口与居住

　　如果你查阅字典，你可能会对两个看似密切相关的词感到疑惑。我们有名词"人口"和动词"居住"。

　　你可能会问，了解动词"居住"是否重要？

　　Google Ngram Viewer允许我们在数千本书中检查单词和短语。我们可以很好地了解单词和结构的使用频率。

　　当我们检查"人口"的频率并将其与"居住"进行比较时，我们得出一个明确的发现：名词"人口"的使用频率要高得多。

　　另一种理解这个概念的方式是：你在日常情况下更有可能听到"人口"这个词。

　　可数名词

　　人口是一个名词，意思是某一地区的人、动物或其他生物的数量。

　　我们通常将"人口"作为一个可数名词。换句话说，你可以在"人口"的末尾加上-s，得到复数形式"人口群体"。

　　所以，你可能会听到或读到单数形式"人口"，如：

　　专家预计明年全球人口将微增。

　　我们使用单数形式是因为我们在谈论世界上所有的人 - 一个非常大的群体！

　　我们如何使用复数形式呢？在这种情况下，我们可能会使用其他术语来明确我们正在谈论不同的群体。例如，你可能会读到或听到这样的话：

　　老年人和超重人群面临更大的疾病风险。

　　在这种情况下，我们使用复数形式"人口群体"，因为我们在谈论两个独立群体的所有成员 - 老年人和超重人。

　　现在我们已经探讨了名词"人口"，我们应该考虑这个词在更广泛的语言情境中的用法。

　　前后的词

　　我们在日常语言中通常如何使用"人口"这个词？

　　让我们从检查最常用的在"人口"前后的词开始。

　　由于"人口"是一个名词，我们可能期望冠词 - 告诉我们一个名词是一般的还是特定的词 - 应该常常在它前面使用。

　　Google的Ngram Viewer告诉我们，"the"是在"人口"前最常用的词。

　　所以，你很可能会听到或读到这样的话：

　　专家们说，人口下降了1%。

　　那么在名词"人口"后最常用的词是什么呢？

　　我们发现，短词"of"是迄今为止最常见的。

　　所以，你很可能会听到或读到这样的话：

　　日本的人口正在快速老龄化。

　　与人口相关的词

　　过多和过少是两个可以与人口相连形成新单词的词。

　　过多人口描述的是人口过多的情况。

　　人口过少描述的是人口过少的情况。

　　重要的是，我们通常将"过多人口"和"人口过少"作为不可数名词使用。换句话说，没有复数形式。我们不会在这两个词的末尾加上-s。

　　你期望这些词在日常情况下如何出现呢？这里有两个例子：

　　专家预测过多人口将导致食品短缺。

　　专家预测人口过少将导致劳动力短缺。

　　问题

　　在今天的课程中，我们探讨了一个有用的名词以及如何在日常情况下使用它。

　　我们将以一个行动号召来结束我们的课程。请在一封发给learningenglish@voanews.com的电子邮件中回答以下问题：

　　你的国家或城市的人口情况如何？人口在增加还是在减少？

　　在未来的课程中，我们可以对收到的一些写作提供反馈。

　　我是约翰·罗素。

　　约翰·罗素为VOA学习英语写了这篇课文。

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　　这个故事中的词汇

　　dictionary – n. 一个按字母顺序列出单词的参考书

　　phrase – n. 一个词或一组词组成的具有单一语法功能的句法成分

　　specific – n. 限于特定的个体、情况、关系或效果