小酌不仅怡情，还能让你的外语说得更流利

Take a quick tipple and you could find yourself speaking a second tongue more naturally, according to new research.

一项新的研究显示，一杯酒下肚以后，你的外语会说得更加流利。

The foreign language skills of participants in the study were found to be improved after a drink of alcohol, which suggests the way booze can put us at ease outweighs the negative effects on our brain – at least for the first drink, anyway.

研究发现，实验对象在喝下酒精饮料后，外语能力得到提高，这表明酒精令人身心放松的程度超过其对大脑产生的负面影响——至少喝完第一杯酒以后是这样的。

The international team of researchers is warning against reading too much into their experiment, but it could reveal some interesting insights into the anxiety associated with speaking another language, and how alcohol can help us overcome it.

这支国际化的研究团队提醒人们，不要对他们的实验做过分解读。不过，在讲外语时大脑的焦虑程度、以及酒精如何帮助我们克服这些情绪的问题上，该研究还是提供了一些有趣的洞见。

"Our study shows that acute alcohol consumption may have beneficial effects on the pronunciation of a foreign language in people who recently learned that language," says one of the team, Inge Kersbergen from the University of Liverpool in the UK.

英国利物浦大学的英奇•克斯伯根博士是该研究团队的成员，他表示：“我们的研究表明，快速喝下酒精饮料(俗语一口闷)可能对初学外语的人在发音上有所帮助。”

The study involved 50 native German speakers studying Dutch at a Dutch university, who had recently learned to speak, read, and write in the new language.

这项研究招募了50名在荷兰大学学习荷兰语的德国人，他们都是最近才学习荷兰语的听说读写的。

Based on random selections, participants were either given alcohol or water as a control beverage. The amount of alcohol varied based on body size, but was the equivalent of just under a pint (460 millilitres) of 5 percent beer for a 70kg male.

研究人员随机发给实验对象酒精饮料或作为对照实验的水。酒精饮料的量根据个人体型而异，相当于一名体重70公斤的男性要喝下460毫升酒精浓度为5％的啤酒。

They then chatted to a researcher for five minutes, before an audio recording was assessed by two native Dutch speakers who weren't told whether alcohol had been consumed or not. The participants were also asked to rate their own Dutch language skills over the course of the chat.

随后，他们与一名研究人员进行五分钟的闲聊，谈话录音交由两位荷兰人评估，评委不清楚录音中的学生是否喝了啤酒。研究人员还要求参与者对聊天过程中自己的荷兰语水平做出评价。

While the alcohol didn't affect how the students rated themselves, those people who had been given the alcoholic drink were given better ratings by the observers, especially for their pronunciation.

虽然酒精没有影响学生的自我评价，但评委却认为，喝过啤酒的实验者的荷兰语更好，尤其是发音更标准。

So what's going on? We know that alcohol has a detrimental effect on our brain's executive functioning, including our memory, our attention, and our inhibitions. A lot of these functions are important for speaking a non-native language.

所以究竟发生了什么？我们知道酒精会对大脑的执行能力产生负面影响，比如我们的记忆力、注意力和控制力。而这其中有很多功能对于讲外语来说十分重要。

At the same time, we know that booze also improves confidence and reduces social anxiety, which is also helpful when you're trying to talk in another tongue, especially if you've only just learned it.

同时，我们知道，酒精还可以提升饮酒者的自信，缓解社交焦虑。当你试着讲另外一种语言时，这也是有帮助的，特别是如果你只是初学者的话。

"One possible mechanism could be the anxiety-reducing effect of alcohol," says one of the researchers, Jessica Werthmann from Maastricht University in the Netherlands. "But more research is needed to test this."

来自荷兰马斯特里赫特大学的研究人员杰西卡•威尔斯曼称：“这其中的原理可能是酒精降低了饮酒者的焦虑感。但我们需要进行更多研究来证实这一点。”

With only 50 people involved in the research, we should be wary of making too many generalizations on this study alone, but it's an interesting pointer towards how a little bit of drink could grease the wheels as far as talking in a foreign language is concerned.

由于这项研究的样本只有50个，我们注意不要就此得出普遍性的结论；但是用外语交流前，喝点酒可以让我们外语讲得更加流利，这确实是一个有趣的发现。

"It is important to point out that participants in this study consumed a low dose of alcohol," adds one of the team. "Higher levels of alcohol consumption might not have beneficial effects on the pronunciation of a foreign language."

一位研究人员称，“需要指出的是，实验对象摄入的酒精剂量很低，酒精摄入量增加可能不会对饮酒者的外语发音产生有益影响。”

In other words, this effect probably doesn't get better if you just keep on drinking – eventually no one will be able to understand you at all.

换句话说，如果你饮酒过量，这种作用可能就会消失，因为没人能听懂喝醉后口齿不清地胡言乱语。

The research has been published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

该研究结果已发表在《精神病理学杂志》上。