‘It’s a pity.’ 跟 ‘It’s a shame.’ 的用法是一樣嗎？
有一天，學員在課堂上用到了 ‘It’s a pity.’ 來形容她在工作中所遇到的挫折。
並問到 ‘It’s a pity.’ 跟 ‘It’s a shame.’ 的用法是一樣嗎？
在大部份的句子中，兩種句型是可以互通的。
‘It’s a pity you can’t come to my birthday party.’ (好可惜…..)
‘It's a shame Tom couldn't make it to your party.’ (好可惜…..)
但在有些情境中，’It’s a shame.’ 有影射某人的行為較不恰當；
’It’s a pity.’ 相較下會用在表達同情的情況下使用。
It’s a pity. 可惜; 真遗憾; 可惜的
It’s a shame. 真遗憾; 真丢人; 令人惭愧;
舉個例子：
A: "Poor little Rachel. She had her heart set on being on that chorus team. It's a pity she didn't make it."
B: "Well, if you ask me, it's a shame the way they treated her at the tryouts. One out of tune and she was disqualified. They didn't even give the girl a second chance!"
在B句中，使用 ‘It’s a pity.’ 會比較不適當。
同樣的道理，再來看一個例句：
‘I think it's a shame that some foreign language teachers were able to graduate from college without ever having studied with a native speaker.'
你有感覺到那種 ‘不恰當’ 的意思了嗎?
原文轉載自 EBS部落格