學外語吧 爲了你的大腦永遠年輕

I USED to joke that I spoke French like a 3-year-old. Until I met a French 3-year-old and couldn’t hold up my end of the conversation. This was after a year of intense study, including at least two hours a day with Rosetta Stone, Fluenz and other self-instruction software, Meetup groups, an intensive weekend class and a steady diet of French movies, television and radio, followed by what I’d hoped would be the coup de grâce: two weeks of immersion at one of the top language schools in France.

我曾經開玩笑說，我講的法語像是三歲小孩。直到有一天我遇到了一個三歲的法國小孩，可是在對話時我卻接不上茬。在那以前，我已經經歷了一年的密集學習，包括每天花兩小時用Rosetta Stone、Fluenz等自學軟件學習，參加Meetup的互助小組，週末參加強化班，長期觀看和收聽法語的電影、電視、廣播。之後我又在法國最好的語言學校裏泡了兩個星期，我本以爲這會是“制勝一擊”(coup de grâce)。

“French resistance” took on an entirely new meaning as my brain repelled every strategy I employed. Yet my failure was in fact quite unremarkable. Advertising claims notwithstanding, few adults who tackle a foreign language achieve anything resembling proficiency. In the end, though, it turns out that spending a year not learning French may have been the best thing I could’ve done for my 57-year-old brain.

我的大腦排斥了我運用過的所有策略，於是“法蘭西抵抗”對我有了全新的意義。而實際上我的挫折相當平常，儘管有各種各樣的廣告宣傳，但極少有成年人能參透一門外語，達到接近嫺熟的程度。到頭來，我雖然花了一年時間也沒學會法語，那卻可能是我對已經57歲的大腦所做的最好的事。

In the last few years, unable to hold a list of just four grocery items in my head, I’d begun to fret a bit over my literal state of mind. So to reassure myself that nothing was amiss, just before tackling French I took a cognitive assessment called CNS Vital Signs, recommended by a psychologist friend. The results were anything but reassuring: I scored below average for my age group in nearly all of the categories, notably landing in the bottom 10th percentile on the composite memory test and in the lowest 5 percent on the visual memory test.

在那之前的幾年裏，我腦袋裏常常連只有四件物品的雜貨購物單都存不下，於是我開始真真切切地有些擔心自己頭腦的狀態。所以，爲了寬慰自己什麼都沒有出差錯，我在研習法語之前，遵從一位心理學家朋友的建議，做了一種名叫計算機化神經認知評估(CNS Vital Signs)的測驗。結果完全無法讓我寬慰：我在所有科目中的成績，都低於我所在的年齡分組的平均值，尤其值得關注的是，綜合記憶測驗的成績跌倒了最後10%，視覺記憶測驗成績跌到了最後5%。

This, obviously, did not bode well for my nascent language project, but I forged ahead. To be sure, learning a foreign language is a daunting task for any adult. How can something that a toddler accomplishes before learning to tie his shoes be so difficult for grown-ups?

這對我剛剛開始的語言計劃，顯然並不是什麼好兆頭，但我還是堅定地前進了。當然，學習外語對於任何一個成年人都是艱鉅任務。那爲什麼幼童們在繫鞋帶都還沒學會的時候就能做到的事情，對成年人來說就如此困難呢？

Psycholinguists are divided on the answer, but they agree on several points. For starters, a 2-year-old’s brain has a substantial neurological advantage, with 50 percent more synapses — the connections between neurons — than an adult brain, way more than it needs. This excess, which is an insurance policy against early trauma, is also crucial to childhood language acquisition, as is the plasticity, or adaptability, of the young brain.

心理語言學家給出的答案充滿分歧，但是對幾種觀點存在共識。首先，兩歲孩子的大腦，在神經系統上有顯著的優勢，在神經元之間進行連接的突觸，比成年人的大腦多50%，遠遠超出了大腦需要的數量。這種盈餘的作用是提供保障，以防兒童早期遭遇創傷，不過它對兒時的語言習得也很關鍵。同樣關鍵的還有年輕人大腦的可塑性，或者說適應性。

Once the “critical period” — the roughly six years of life during which the brain is wired for learning language — is over, the ability to acquire a first language is lost, as your brain frees up room for the other skills you’ll need as you mature, such as the ability to kill a wild boar, or learn math, or operate your iPad.

一旦“關鍵時期”結束，也就是生命中的頭六年，大腦適合學習語言的時期結束，習得第一語言的能力就喪失了，大腦會騰出空間學習你成長過程中需要的其他技能，如殺野豬、學數學、用iPad。

Another advantage a toddler holds is his very lack of experience. After speaking our native language for decades, we adults can’t help but hear the second language through the filter of the first. And this filter doesn’t take decades to develop. Researchers have found that newborn Japanese babies can distinguish between the English “L” and “R” sounds, but if not exposed to Western languages, they begin to lose that ability — not by the age of 6 or even 3 — but by eight months.

孩童具有的另一個優勢是沒有經驗。在講了十幾年母語之後，我們成年人在聽第二語言時，會不由自主地經過第一語言的過濾。而且這種“過濾”並不需要幾十年來發展，研究人員發現，日本的新生兒能夠辨別英語中“L”和“R”發音的區別，但是如果不接觸西方語言，他們的辨別能力就會喪失——並不是在6歲甚至3歲的時候喪失，而是在八個月大時就會喪失。

Adult language learners are, to borrow a phrase used by some psycholinguists, too smart for our own good. We process too much data at once, try to get everything right from the get-go and are self-conscious about our efforts. But toddlers instinctively grasp what’s important and are quite content to say, “Tommy hitted me,” as long as Tommy gets what’s coming to him.

用一些心理語言學家的話說，成年的語言學習者聰明反被聰明誤。我們會同時處理太多數據，試圖從一開始就正確掌握所有東西，而且對自己說的東西會感到難爲情。但孩童會本能地掌握要點，並不介意說，“湯米打了我（Tommy hitted me，此句有語法錯誤——譯註）。”只要湯米能得到懲罰就好。

All this means that we adults have to work our brains hard to learn a second language. But that may be all the more reason to try, for my failed French quest yielded an unexpected benefit. After a year of struggling with the language, I retook the cognitive assessment, and the results shocked me. My scores had skyrocketed, placing me above average in seven of 10 categories, and average in the other three. My verbal memory score leapt from the bottom half to the 88th — the 88th! — percentile and my visual memory test shot from the bottom 5th percentile to the 50th. Studying a language had been like drinking from a mental fountain of youth.

所有這些都意味着，成年人要想學習一門第二語言，就必須絞盡腦汁。但或許正因爲如此，我們更有理由嘗試，因爲我學習法語的失敗嘗試，產生了一個意想不到的收益。與法語搏鬥了一年之後，我又做了一遍那個認知測驗，結果讓我震驚。我的成績大幅提高了，10個科目中有七個超過了平均水平，其他三個科目則與平均成績持平。我的言語記憶力成績從不到50分提高到了88分，視覺記憶測驗則從5分提高到了50分。學習語言，彷彿是讓頭腦喝到了不老泉。

What might explain such an improvement?

那該怎麼解釋這種提高呢？

Last year researchers at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Northwestern University in Illinois hypothesized that language study should prove beneficial for older adults, noting that the cognitive tasks involved — including working memory, inductive reasoning, sound discrimination and task switching — map closely to the areas of the brain that are most associated with declines due to aging. In other words, the things that make second-language acquisition so maddening for grown-ups are the very things that may make the effort so beneficial.

去年，香港中文大學及伊利諾伊州西北大學(Northwestern University)的研究人員做出假設，語言學習應對老年人有益，並指出相關的認知任務——包括工作記憶、歸納推理、聲音辨別及任務轉換——與大腦的某些區域密切相關，而這些大腦區域是造成與年齡相關的衰退的最主要源頭。換句話說，出於某些原因，第二語言習得讓成人發狂，但也正是這些原因使語言學習益處良多。

The quest for a mental fountain of youth, pursued by baby boomers who fear that their bodies will outlive their brains, and who have deeper pockets than Juan Ponce de León, has created a billion-dollar industry. There is some evidence that brain exercise programs like Lumosity and Nintendo’s Brain Age can be beneficial, but if my admittedly unscientific experience is any indication, you might be better off studying a language instead. Not only is that a far more useful and enjoyable activity than an abstract brain game, but as a reward for your efforts, you can treat yourself to a trip abroad. Which is why I plan to spend the next year not learning Italian. Ciao!

嬰兒潮一代擔心身體壽命長於大腦壽命，他們擁有的財富超過了胡安·龐塞·德萊昂(Juan Ponce de León)的財富。他們對大腦不老泉的追求創造了一個價值10億美元的產業。有證據證明，Lumosity和任天堂(Nintendo)的Brain Age等腦力練習項目有益處。但假如我那並不科學的經歷在某種程度上是有道理的，你最好去學習一種語言。這不僅是一種比抽象腦力遊戲更有用、有趣的活動，而且還能爲你的努力帶來回報——你可以自己出國旅遊了。因此，我計劃明年去研習意大利語，哪怕還是學不會。Ciao！（ 再見！意大利語——編注）