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第一单元 如何成为一个成功的语言学习者

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How can you learn a foreign language well? According to the author of this text, you might need to think in a new way, a process almost like going back to childhood again…

如何学好一门外语？根据这篇文章的作者，你也许需要用一种新的方式去思考，这一过程几乎像是再次回到童年。。。

Learning to Think All Over Again

学会重新思考

When you were a child, you didn’t know what a tree was at first. Somebody had to tell you. Probably your parents took you outside, pointed to a tree and said, ”Tree!” You had to learn to associate the sound of the word “ Tree” with the big green leafy thing you saw in front of you.

当你还是个孩子的时候，起初你并不知道树是什么，得有人告诉你。也许你的父母带你到外面，指着一棵树说，“树！”你得学会将“树”这个词的音跟你眼前那个高大的绿色的长满叶子的东西联系起来。

That’s what you must learn to do again when you are learning a foreign language. You need to learn to associate sounds with objects, and to think in a new way. Only this time, since you are grown up, you will be able to understand what needs to be done much faster. You’ll know why somebody is pointing to a tree and saying a strange word. You may even have to relearn it many times before you finally actually learn it.

这是你在学习外语是必须再次学会做的事。你得学会将声音和事物联系起来，用一种新的方式思考。只是这一次，因为你已经长大，所以能够更快地去理解需要做的事。你会知道为什么有人指着一棵树，说着奇怪的单词。但是你仍然得学习那个新单词。说不定还得重复学习多遍才能最终真正的掌握它。

There is an important idea here. In America our name for that big green leafy thing is ”tree”, but in Germany the name for that thing is “Baum”. In Arab countries the name is “shajra”. And in China they say ”shu”. These various words are not themselves “trees”. They are just some of the many hundreds of different sounds used in the world to represent that great big green leafy thing.

这里有一个重要的概念。在美国我们称那个高大的绿色的长满叶子的东西为tree，但是在德国那东西叫Baum。在阿拉伯国家，它的名字是shajra。在中国，我们称它为shu。这些各式各样的词本身并不是树。它们只是世界各地用来代表那个高大的绿色的长满叶子的东西的几百种声音中的几个。

To learn a foreign language you must get away from the idea of translating words. Translating takes too much time and mental energy. You will never learn to really speak and understand a foreign language if you have to translate in your mind. Instead, learn to associate the new sound directly with the image in your mind. So when we hear the

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sound ”Baum” or ”shajra” or ”shu”, we don’t want to think, ”Hmmmm. Baum means tree, which means that great big green leafy thing.”

要学习外语，你必须摆脱逐词翻译的想法。翻译会消耗太多的时间和脑力。如果你字字都得翻译，那你永远也学不会真正地说和理解一门外语。相反，你得学会将新的声音和头脑中的形象直接联系起来。这样当我们听见Baum， shajra，或shu等音时，就不会去想“嗯，Baum的意思是树，树指的是哪个高大的绿色的长满叶子的东西。”

Don’t think that the challenge of new thinking will be limited only to the area of new words it is going to go much deeper than that. Let’s use an analogy: you can build a house using materials of very different sizes and shapes. English uses one set of building blocks, but other languages will use different-shaped building blocks that take some creativity to put together at first . Where we use two blocks, they may use three smaller ones—or maybe one large one.

别以为学习用新的方式思考的挑战仅限于新词：它涵盖的范围要广得多。让我们打一个比方，你能用不同大小和形状的材料造一栋房子。英语使用一套构成要素，但其他语言可能使用不同的构成要素，起初还得用一些创造力才能将它们拼起来。我们使用两个构成要素，而别人也许使用三个较小的——也可能是一个大的。

Here an example of an English sentence: We have to buy a few books before going home. When translating into almost any foreign language, you will not take each English word and substitute a foreign word for it .You will instead be substituting groups of words or ideas from one language to the other. How each language will choose to group the ideas depends on the language. In French or Spanish, for example, we have to buy is broken down into three words: we/have to /buy .In Turkish, however, the Turks are to reduce all these four words to only one.

以一个英语句子为例：We have to buy a few books before going home.不论将它翻译成哪种外语，你都不会取出每个单词然后逐个地用外语单词去替代。相反你会用成组的词语或者思想从一种语言替代成另外一种语言。至于每种语言如何选择词来表达某个概念，各种语言不尽相同。比如，在法语和西班牙语中，we have to buy被分成三个词：we /have to /buy.而在土耳其语中，土耳其人能将所有这四个词缩减成一个。

So learn to start thinking in terms of bundles of concepts or ideas that will be converted to new language and not single words. Try to think in a foreign language. This isn’t all that hard. You learn to think in the language simply by using the language over and over again, asking and answering simple questions until you feel comfortable with the practice. Then you add some new words, and a few more new situations, and practice using them together with all the words you learned in previous lessons. Bit by bit you build up skill.

所以学者开始以成组的词的概念或思想去思考，这些概念或思想能转换成新的语言而非单个词语。尝试用外语去思考。这并不那么难。要学会用哪种语言去思考，你只需一遍又一遍地使用它，问并回答简单的问题，直到你对这一过程感到得心应手为止。然后添加一些新的词汇和几个新的情景，练习用在以前课中学习的所有单词来使用它们。渐渐地，你就会掌握这项技能。

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Once you really get into the language, you’ll understand all this a good deal better. Somebody will be saying something quite fast and you’ll suddenly realize thatyou understood it all! It's a great moment. Really satisfying. You probably wouldn't be able to repeat the words, or even know how it was that you understood it all. But it's a sign that the language is starting to sink into your mind. You're beginning to understand without translating.

一旦你真正投入的学习这门语言，你就会更深刻的领会这一切。有人讲什么讲得很快，而你会突然意识到你都能听懂！那是一个美妙的时刻。真的让人心满意足。也许你还不能重复那些词，甚至还搞不清不是如何全听懂的。但这表明了那种语言已经开始渗入你的头脑中。你已经开始不需要翻译就能理解了。

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第二单元 父母

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The author sees a father and a son riding an airport shuttle train for fun, leading him to reflect on the upbringing of children today

作者看到一对父子以乘坐机场区间车为乐，由此使他反省了当代的孩子教育问题。

A father, a son and an answer

父亲、儿子和答案

Passing through the Atlanta airport one morning, I caught one of those trains that take travelers from the main terminal to their boarding gates. Free, the trains run back and forth all day long. Not many people consider them fun, but on this Saturday I heard laughter.

一天早晨经过去亚特兰大机场，我赶上一辆列车载着旅客从主航站楼抵达登机口。这类免费列车，每天长时间的来来往往，没有人觉得他有趣，但这个周六我却听到了笑声。

At the front of the first car – looking out the window at the track that lay ahead – were a man and his son. We had just stopped to let off passengers, and the doors wee closing again. “Here we go! Hold on to me tight!” the father said. The boy, about five years old, made sounds of pure delight. 在头节车厢的最前面，坐着一个男人和他的儿子。他们正透过窗户观赏着一直往前延伸的轨道。我们刚刚停下来让旅客下车，之后，车门再次关上了。“出发。拉紧我!”父亲说。儿子大约5岁吧，一路喜不自禁。

I know we’re supposed to avoid making racial distinctions these days, so I hope no one will mind if I mention that most people on the train were white, dressed for business trips or vacations – and that the father and son were black, dressed in clothes that were just about as inexpensive as you can buy.

我知道如今我们应该避免种族歧视，所以我希望我这样描述没人介意。车上坐的大部分是衣冠楚楚，或公差或度假的白人，只有这对父子是的黑人并穿着朴素简单。

“Look out there!” the father said to his son. “See that pilot? I bet he’s walking to his plane.” The son stretched his neck to look.

“快看!”父亲对儿子说：“看见那位飞行员了吗?我敢打赌他是去开飞机的。”儿子伸长脖子看。

As I got off, I remembered something I’d wanted to buy in the terminal. I was early for my flight, so I decided to go back.

下了车后我突然想起还得在主航站楼买点东西。离起飞时间还早，于是我决定再乘车回去。

I did, and just as I was about to reboard the train for my gate, I saw that the man and his son had returned too. I realized then that they hadn’t been heading for a flight, but had just bee riding the shuttle.

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正准备上车的时候，我看到那对父子也回来了。那时我意识到他们不是来乘飞机的，而是特意来坐区间列车的。

“You want to go home now?” the father asked/ “你想要回家了吗”父亲问道

“I want to ride some more!” “我还想再坐一会儿!”

“More?” the father said, pretending to be annoyed but clearly pleased. “You’re not tired?”

“再坐一会儿!”父亲假装很生气，单明显很高兴的说，“你还不累?”

“This is fun!” his son said. “真好玩!”儿子说。

“All right,” the father replied, and when a door opened we all got on. “好吧，”父亲说。车门开了，我们都上了车。

There are parents who can afford to send their children to Europe or Disneyland, and the children turn out rotten. There are parents who live in million-dollar houses and give their children cars and swimming pools, yet something goes wrong. Rich and poor, black and white, so much goes wrong so often.

我们很多父母有能力送孩子去欧洲，去迪斯尼乐园，可孩子还是堕落了。很多父母住豪华别墅，孩子有车有游泳池，可孩子还是学坏了。富人、穷人，黑人、白人，那么多人都轻易学坏了。

“Where are all these people going, Daddy?” the son asked. “爸爸，这些人去哪?”儿子问。

“All over the world,” came the reply. The other people in the air port were leaving for distant destinations or arriving at the ends of their journeys. The father and son, though, were just riding this shuttle together, making it exciting, sharing each other’s company.

“世界各地。”父亲回答。机场来来往往的人流或准备远行，或刚刚归来。这对父子却在乘坐区间列车，非常兴奋的享受着批次的陪伴。

So many troubles in this country – crime, the lack of purpose that seems to be taking over the lives of many young people, the lowering of educational standards, the increase in bad language, the disappearance of simple good manner. So many questions about what to do. Here was a father who cared about spending the day with his son and who had come up with this plan on a Saturday morning.

我们正面临许多问题：犯罪、越来越多的年轻人变得冷漠无情、文化水平下降、粗话大幅增加、起码的礼貌丧失，等等。我们有那么多的问题要处理。而这里。这位父亲却很在意花上一天陪伴儿子，并在这样一个星期六的早上，提出这个计划。

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