学一门新语言能改变大脑，让你变得更聪明

LEARNING A NEW LANGUAGE MAKES YOU SMARTER

学一门新语言会让你变得更聪明

The Benefits of Bilingualism:

会两门语言的好处：

Outside of the obvious travel and social aspects of language learning, we also change our brain in numerous ways.

学习一门语言，它除了在旅游和社交这些方面有显而易见的好处以外，还在很多方面改变着我们的大脑。

Knowledge of more than one language has demonstrated in studies to improve attention, memory, and self-control.

研究表明，拥有多门语言的知识能够提高我们的注意力、记忆力以及自控力。

Ellen Bialystok of York University discovered that knowing two languages delayed dementia by 5 years.

约克大学的艾伦·比亚里斯托克发现：会2门语言，能使老年痴呆延缓5年到来。

And strangely, it seems that our personality is intimately linked to the language we speak. Our words are part of our identity.

而且，神奇的是，我们的人格似乎和我们讲的语言紧密地联系在一起。我们说的话，其实就是我们身份的一部分。

We all talk to ourselves, and studies have shown that in the event that someone loses their ability to speak, they also report feeling like they lack self-awareness.

我们每个人都会自言自语，而且有研究发现：一些丧失了说话能力的人会觉得自己缺少了自我意识。

They lose a part of who they are.

他们失去了自己的一部分。

Psychologists has also found that people behave differently depending on the language they’re speaking, and they may change the way we perceive the world.

心理学家还发现，人们的行为根据各自使用的语言而有所不同，这些语言很可能在影响着我们看世界的方式。

Tim Keeley believes that learning a language is to reinvent yourself. Each language becomes a new identity.

提姆·基立相信：学一门语言就是在改造你自己。每一门语言都会为我们创造一个新的人格。

When Keeley studied Chinese speakers learning Japanese, those that could empathize with others and see from new perspectives more easily were the ones that reached greater fluency.

基立曾经研究过学日语的中国人，其中那些达到更流利水平的人都能更好地和人进行情感交流，并能从新的角度看问题。

Learning more than one language will give you a greater range of self, allowing you to empathize more easily and adapt to situations more effectively.

学一门新的语言，能让你的“自我”拥有更大的变化空间，并能让你拥有更好的情感交流能力，还能让你更高效地适应新环境。

Yeah, this is why you really should learn a foreign language.

对，这就是为什么你真的应该学一门外语。

Learning a language is a powerful mental workout that uses every form of memory we have.

学习一门语言是一种很强大的思维训练，它会用上我们每一种形式的记忆力。

We need to form a vocabulary vast enough to express our messages.

我们需要积累足够大的词汇量才能表达自己的意思。

We also need the grammatical knowledge to put it all together.

我们还需要语法方面的知识来把他们串起来。

We need to use our muscles and motor control to wrap our tongue around the pronunciation.

我们需要动用自己的肌肉和运动控制能力来操纵舌头发声。

And we need to be able to do it fast, intuitively, without stopping to think about each translation.

而且我们还需要做到足够快、足够下意识，而不是在每一句翻译前都停下来想。

Fluency in any language requires a higher order understanding of it. Memorization will fall short, you can’t just accumulate words, you need to see the relationships and interactions between them.

想要流利地使用任何一门语言，你都需要对它有高阶的理解。死记硬背的东西很快就会忘掉，你不能仅仅去背单词，你需要看清他们之间的关联与互动。

Mastery requires both the possession of ready knowledge and the conceptual understanding of how to use it.

“精通”不光意味着记得已学的知识，还意味着从概念层面上知道怎么去运用他们。

As with many other higher forms of knowledge — such as music theory, a programming language, math or physics — it’s essential to see the whole system, to take a holistic view and understand intuitively how each piece works within it.

这就和很多其他的高阶知识一样——比如乐理、编程语言、数学和物理学——“看清整个系统”是至关重要的，有了这种宏观的视角，你才能从知觉层面直接感知各部分的运作机制。

Learning a language is not easy, but in a way that’s the point, you need to be patient and put in the effort to see the reward.

学一门语言并不容易，但从某一方面来讲，这正是它的好处，你需要有耐心并且愿意花精力，然后才能看到回报。

And it is a great reward.

而它的回报是非常可观的。