重燃人們快速閱讀的興趣
Reading these days is often a few minutes on the phone in the grocery-store line, not an hour curled up with a book on the couch. This quick-hit reading is sparking a renewed interest in the art of speed reading.
在當下，閱讀常常就是在超市排隊時拿着手機看上幾分鐘，而不是蜷在沙發上拿着一本書讀上一個小時。這種快餐式閱讀重新引起了人們對速讀藝術的興趣。
People read more than ever on mobile devices and usually in 10-minute bursts, according to research by e-reading subscription services. To tap into this, there's a revival in traditional speed-reading classes as well as new apps that promise to make reading on a small screen easier.
據電子書訂閱服務機構數據，如今人們在移動設備上讀書的頻率比以往任何時候都高，每次通常是讀上10分鐘。爲了利用這一點，傳統速讀課程正在復興，旨在使小屏幕閱讀更加便利的新應用軟件也在不斷涌現。
(How fast do you read? Time yourself and try speed-reading tips in an interactive.)
（你的閱讀速度有多快？測測你的速度，並嘗試一下互動圖裏的速讀竅門。）
When Brett Kirby, age 33, reads the news in the morning, he doesn't grab a newspaper or browse a website. He picks up his phone and has his articles flashed to him, one word at a time, 650 words a minute.
早上讀新聞的時候，33歲的佈雷特·柯比(Brett Kirby)不看報紙也不看網站。他拿着手機，讓文章在眼前一個詞一次、一分鐘650個詞地閃現。
Mr. Kirby, a research fellow in medicine at Duke University, is a beta-tester for Spritz, a mobile app that claims to help people read faster without the bother of classes.
柯比是杜克大學(Duke University)的藥學研究員，他這樣做是在爲手機應用“Spritz”進行β測試。這款應用聲稱有助於人們不去上速讀課就能夠提高閱讀速度。
Promises of blazing through 'War and Peace' have been around since the Evelyn Wood speed-reading classes of the 1960s, and demand for in-person classes is growing, says Paul Nowak, founder of Iris Reading LLC, a Chicago-based company that hosts similar courses. Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics, based in Mission, Kan., still offers workshops, DVDs and other resources, though it is smaller than its heyday. (Calls to its offices weren't returned.)
芝加哥速讀課程公司Iris Reading LLC的創始人保羅·諾瓦克(Paul Nowak)說，從20世紀60年代伊夫琳·伍德(Evelyn Wood)開辦速讀課以來，就一直有人允諾可以讓人們迅速讀完《戰爭與和平》(War and Peace)，對於當面授課課程的需求也在增長。堪薩斯州米遜市(Mission)的“伊夫琳·伍德閱讀動態公司”(Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics)仍然在提供速讀培訓班、DVD和其他資源，不過趕不上它全盛時期的規模了。（打給該公司辦公室的電話沒有得到回覆。）
Spritz Technology Inc. co-founder and CEO Frank Waldman says using the app is a more modern way of reading. The company's goal isn't to help undergraduates cram for exams, he says, but to change how people keep up with mobile news. 'You wouldn't really want to read classic lit or Shakespeare on [Spritz],' he says. 'We want to work on focused reading on the go.' Samsung Group's new Galaxy S5 phone and Gear 2 smartwatch come with the Spritz app preloaded.
Spritz Technology Inc.的聯合創始人兼CEO弗蘭克·瓦爾德曼(Frank Waldman)說，利用應用軟件是一種更加現代的閱讀方式。他說，公司的目標不是幫助本科生突擊備考，而是改變人們隨時閱讀手機新聞的方式。他說：“你不會真的想拿Spritz來閱讀古典文學或莎士比亞。我們是想解決移動過程中集中精力閱讀的問題。”三星集團(Samsung Group)的新手機Galaxy S5和智能手錶Gear 2預裝了Spritz應用。
The average college graduate reads about 250 words a minute, says Michael Masson, professor of psychology at the University of Victoria in Canada. A 7-year-old reads about 80 words a minute, while a sixth-grader reads about 185 words a minute. People who use Velocity, a $2.99 iPhone and iPad app that launched in September tend to go with its default speed of 300 words a minute, says the app's co-creator Matthew Bischoff. But 400 and 500 words a minute are also popular presets.
SpritzSpritz應用旨在幫助人們提高閱讀速度。這款應用按照用戶選擇的速度向他們閃現文字。加拿大維多利亞大學(University of Victoria)心理學教授邁克爾·梅森(Michael Masson)說，大學畢業生平均每分鐘閱讀250個詞左右，七歲兒童每分鐘讀80個詞左右，六年級學生每分鐘閱讀185個詞左右。iPhone及iPad應用“Velocity”（2013年9月份發佈，2.99美元）聯合開發者馬修·比肖夫(Matthew Bischoff)說，使用這款應用的人往往採用其每分鐘300詞的默認速度，但也有很多人預設爲每分鐘400詞到500詞。
Spritz says its studies show people who were reading 250 words a minute sped up to reading 400 words a minute after using Spritz for 20 minutes with no loss in comprehension.
Spritz說，其研究顯示，在使用該應用20分鐘之後，每分鐘閱讀250詞的人速度提高到了每分鐘400詞，同時理解程度沒有降低。
Can you really boost your reading speed so much so quickly? Going from 250 to 400 isn't beyond the realm of possibility, says Dr. Masson. But in general, comprehension gets worse the faster people read, he says.
真的可以這麼快地提高閱讀速度嗎？梅森博士說，從250詞提高到400詞並非不可能。但他說，從總體上講，讀得越快，理解程度越低。
In a 1987 seminal study on speed reading, Dr. Masson tested the text comprehension of three groups: people reading at a normal speed (about 240 words a minute); people skimming at 600 words a minute; and people who had taken an Evelyn Wood course and read through the text at 700 words a minute. (The three groups read on a TV monitor.)
在1987年的一次開創性研究中，梅森博士測試了三組人的文字理解程度。一組以正常速度閱讀（約每分鐘240詞），一組以每鍾600詞略讀，還有一組曾經參加伊夫琳·伍德的課程，以每分鐘700詞的速度閱讀。（三組人都是在電視屏幕上閱讀。）
The skimmers and speed-readers did much worse at answering comprehension questions afterward, especially ones about specifics or technical material. 'One can have the impression of being able to immediately identify what those words are, but if they are going by at such a high rate, it's virtually impossible' to come away with coherent ideas from the text, Dr. Masson says.
略讀者和速讀者在事後回答測試理解程度的問題時成績差了很多，特別是那些有關規格或技術材料的問題。梅森博士說，“人們可以在印象中記得當時能夠馬上認出那些詞是什麼，但如果以這麼快的速度閱讀”，從文本中獲得條理分明的觀點“幾乎是不可能的”。Mobile speed-reading apps use 'rapid serial visual presentation,' or RSVP, in which words are flashed on the screen at a preset rate. The technology is based on the premise that a lot of reading time is wasted by moving our eyes back and forth.
手機速讀應用採用了“快速序列視覺呈現”(RSVP)技術，讓詞彙以預先設定的速率在屏幕上閃現。這項技術所依據的假定是，我們的很大一部分閱讀時間都浪費在目光的前後移動上面。
RSVP hurts comprehension because it doesn't let people look back at previous words, says Keith Rayner, a psychology professor at the University of California-San Diego. In a study he co-authored, 40 college students read passages at their natural pace and also while using a technology that didn't allow them to refer back. In the first trial, subjects had 75% comprehension accuracy. In the second trial, they had only 50% accuracy.
加州大學 地亞哥分校(University of California-San Diego)心理學教授基思·雷納(Keith Rayner)說，RSVP有損理解，因爲它不允許人們回顧前面的文字。在他跟別人合作的一次研究當中，40名大學生以自然速度閱讀段落，然後採用一項不允許他們往回看的技術閱讀。在第一次實驗中，實驗對象的理解準確率爲75%；第二次實驗當中，他們的準確率只有50%。
Last year, nearly two million people participated in Iris's in-person courses, compared with 417,000 in 2012 and 22,517 in 2007, when the company began.
去年接近200萬人參加了Iris公司的當面授課課程。2012年人數爲41.7萬，2007年（該公司成立的那一年）有22,517人蔘加。
The company teaches a three-step process involving 'preview' (look at headings and subheads for main ideas), 'overview' (read the first sentence of every paragraph') and 'read' (go from beginning to end, but only if the previous two steps have convinced you the article is worth reading).
這家公司傳授的方法分爲三個步驟，包括“預覽”（看標題和副題了解大意）、“概覽”（閱讀每個段落的第一句）、“閱讀”（從頭到尾地讀，但前提是前面兩步讓你相信這篇文章值得讀）。
None of this is possible using an RSVP app. In 2010, Iris launched its own free RSVP app, AccelaReader. 'People still have to read on the printed page or on a full screen, so people need to know how to read well in both situations,' Mr. Nowak says.
使用RSVP應用是無法實現這三個步驟的。2010年，Iris推出它自己的免費RSVP應用“AccelaReader”。諾瓦克說：“人們仍然需要在印刷頁面上閱讀或整屏閱讀，所以需要知道怎樣在兩種情況下都能讀好。”
San Francisco-based startup Plympton Inc. has a different solution for people reading in short bursts on their phone. In March, Plympton launched its first iPhone app, the $4.99-a-month Rooster subscription service. Rooster can send users a 15-minute chunk of a novel-selected every month by Rooster's team-each day. (The 15-minute chunk is calculated using an average speed of about 200 words a minute.) Upcoming selections include 'The Kreutzer Sonata' by Leo Tolstoy.
舊金山初創公司Plympton Inc.爲在手機上短時間閱讀的人們提供了一套不同的解決方案。今年3月，該公司推出它的第一款iPhone應用“Rooster”，月訂閱費4.99美元。Rooster可以每天向用戶發送一段15分鐘的小說文字，這些文字每月由Rooster的團隊挑選出來。（15分鐘是採用每分鐘約200詞的平均速度計算的。）即將發送的選段包括列夫·托爾斯泰(Leo Tolstoy)的《克魯採奏鳴曲》(The Kreutzer Sonata)。
Rooster's approach is designed to make the thought of starting a book more appealing, says Yael Goldstein Love, Rooster's editorial director and a novelist.
Rooster編輯總監、小說家亞埃爾·戈爾茨坦-洛夫(Yael Goldstein Love)說，Rooster的做法是爲了讓開始讀一本書的念頭更有吸引力。
Readers can choose to read on to the next installment if they've finished their 15-minute daily read. 'You can binge read,' Ms. Goldstein Love says. ' 'Binge read' sounds like a funny thing to say because that was how we read normally, but people no longer feel like they have time to read a 300-page thing.'
讀完了15分鐘的每日必讀內容之後，讀者可以選擇繼續閱讀下一個章節。戈爾茨坦-洛夫說：“你可以大篇幅閱讀。‘大篇幅閱讀’這個詞聽起來很好玩，因爲我們正常情況下就是那麼讀的，但如今人們不再覺得有時間讀一本300頁的長篇巨着了。”
