双语学习改变脑结构 给脑健身

I’D BEEN BACK from studying abroad in Mexico City for a couple of days when I asked my dad, “Can I use the lavadora?”

从墨西哥留学回国已经有些日子了，一次我问父亲：“我能用下洗衣机（西班牙语为‘lavadora’）吗？”

“The what?” He didn’t speak Spanish. I knew that, of course. I didn’t even really speak Spanish. I had barely been able to hold a conversation for most of the six months I had just spent in Mexico. So why when I needed to do laundry, the only word that came into my head was in Spanish?

“用什么？”当然我知道父亲并不会说西班牙语。但我甚至都没怎么讲西班牙语。在墨西哥待的6个月里，大部分时候我几乎都不能够正常交流。所以为什么当我要洗衣服的时候脑袋里出现的第一个词是西班牙语呢？

Something…came or comes into my head 表示的是，“不假思索，脱口而出”

类似的常用表达还有：

A) 以‘off the top of my head’, 开头，后加完整句子

Eg: Off the top of my head, I’d say travelling is a great way to wind down.

B) The first / one…that springs to mind is (that)…

Eg: The first benefit that springs to mind is that swimming can help us keep fit and stay in shape.

C) The first / one…that pops into my head is (that)…

Eg: One reason that pops into my head is that young people feel much easier to land a well-paid job（一份薪水待遇还不错的工作） in the city than in the countryside.

“You know, the…umm…the thing that washes your clothes?”What is happening to me? I thought. How could I be forgetting English? I thought I was great at English!

“你知道的，嗯~~~就是那个洗衣服的东西？”我当时在想我是怎么了？我怎么能忘了英语呢？我认为我英语挺棒的！

Be great at something, 解释为: ‘to do something very well, or much better than most people.’

A) It equals to ‘excel at/in’

Eg: Rick has always excelled at foreign languages.

B) Out of this world …用来表示“某事某物非常棒”

Eg: What I like the most about Italian cuisine is the pizza, especially Margherita Pizza. It’s truly out of this world.

“You mean the washing machine?”

“你是说洗衣机吗？”

“Yes, that!” I said, relieved to recognize a noun I had known and used for over 20 years. This momentary aphasia freaked me out when it first happened. But in the almost 10 years since this conversation—during which time I moved back to Mexico City as a grad student and then as a journalist—I’ve gotten used to it. I forget some English word or another at least once a day. I’m fluent in Spanish now, and I’m proud of that. But has speaking a second language somehow made me less fluent in my native language?

“对，就是那个！”我说，终于为找到一个我认识并使用了20多年的词感到松了口气。第一次出现这种短暂性失语症的时候吓坏我了。但是这段对话之后的10年时间里（期间我回到墨西哥读研究生然后做了记者）我已经习惯了（这种短暂性失语症）。我每天至少一次会忘记这些或那些英语单词。我现在说西班牙语很流利，我很为之骄傲。但一直说第二语言会让我的母语更蹩脚吗？

Freak somebody out, 解释为‘ to make somebody very anxious, upset or afraid.’

A) Eg: the whole idea freaked me out. (Verb)

B) Freak 还可以做名词哦，表示 ‘somebody who is extremely interested in a particular subject so that other people think that they are strange or unusual.’ Like a computer freak, a fitness freak or a control freak.

SYN: weirdo

Judith Kroll thinks so. She’s a psychologist who studies bilingualism and its cognitive consequences at Pennsylvania State University. “A bilingual’s two languages sometimes converge, but often they compete,” she said this weekend during a presentation at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Washington, DC. When I speak Spanish, it’s not an effortless cognitive switch. My brain needs to actively choose Spanish every time I say a word or construct a sentence. Even after years and years of speaking Spanish every day, I can often feel that work happening. It’s tiring, and switching to English can be a relief.

朱迪思·克罗尔是这么认为的。她是宾夕法尼亚州立大学一位研究双语教育及其认知影响的心理学家。周末她在华盛顿举行的美国科学促进协会会议上发表演讲称：“双语学习者学习的两种语言有时会交叉，但大多数情况下它们会相互竞争”。当我讲西班牙语时，这并不是一个毫不费力的认知转换。每次我说一个单词或是组建一个句子时我的大脑都需要主动转换成西班牙语模式。即使年复一年每天都说着西班牙语，我还是经常能感到（脑袋中）这种运作。其过程让人累觉不爱，而转换成英语模式则让人甚感轻松。

But when I do, my brain is still doing all the same work, Kroll said. It’s just that now I’m choosing English instead of Spanish. Spanish is always there in my brain, forcing me to do a little extra work to find the English words, even though I’ve known them far longer than their Spanish equivalents. “Especially in immersive environments, it’s harder to grab hold of the native language,”Kroll said. “You might have a moment of panic.”

但是就算当我转换成英语模式时，我的大脑还是在做同样的运动，克罗尔如是说。现在的情况只是我选择的是英语而不是西班牙语。西班牙语一直在我的脑海中强迫我额外发力找到对应的英语单词，尽管我已经知道那些词要比对应的西班牙语词汇长得多。克罗尔说：“尤其实在融入该语言环境的情况下，更难‘留住’母语。”“你可能会有一段时间感到惊慌。”

Grab hold of 解释为“控制（抓住）”

Grab 就是‘take hold of something or somebody’、“抓住or拿点什么…”

美语中常见grab some sleep, grab a cup of coffee, grab a bite to eat or grab a slice, 甚至grab a shower，有点类似于take 和 get 的含义，用法广泛！

But if you really want to learn that second language, you can’t shy away from that panic. You should lean into it. “The native language may take a hit during second language learning,” Kroll said. “But that may be a crucial processes in learning to regulate language.”Preliminary results from her own lab suggest that “learners who are better able to take that hit to their native language and suffer those early consequences may be better able to learn the second language,”she said.

但是如果你真的想学习那门外语，你不能躲避那种惊慌。你应该“深入虎穴”。克罗尔称：“在学习第二语言过程中母语可能会受到影响。”“但那可能是学习调节语言的一个关键过程。”克罗尔称从她自己实验室得出的初步结果显示，“更能承受对母语的这种影响并受这种早期结果影响的学习者更能学好第二门语言。”

Shy away from = avoid, stay away from

Lean into it “扑身而入to enjoy it!”

So, we’d better not shy away from speaking English; instead, we should lean into it. ↖(^ω^)↗