There are a lot of ways this marvelous language of ours, English, doesn't make sense.
我们奇妙的语言，英语，有很多方面说不清。
For example, most of the time when we talk about more than one of something, we put an S on the end.
比如，大多数时候，当我们讨论不只一个东西时，单词要加后缀S。
One cat, two cats. But then, there's that handful of words where things work differently.
一只猫是one cat，两只猫就是two cats。但是，还有一些单词复数形式不同。
Alone you have a man; if he has company, then you've got men, or probably better for him, women too.
你一个人是a man；如果你和别人一起，就是men，或者更好一点，也有women。
Although if there were only one of them, it would be a woman.
如果只有一个女人，那就是a woman。
Or if there's more than one goose, they're geese, but why not lots of mooses, meese?
或者如果有多于一只鹅(one goose)，它们就是geese，但为什么没有mooses，meese呢？
Or if you have two feet, then why don't you read two beek instead of books.
你有两只脚（two feet），但是为什么你不会读two beek而是two books（两本书）呢？
The fact is that if you were speaking English before about a thousand years ago,
事实上，如果你是在约一千年前讲英语，
beek is exactly what you would have said for more than one book.
你确实会这样说，书的复数就是beek。
If Modern English is strange, Old English needed therapy.
如果觉得现代英语奇怪，那古代英语就需要治疗了。
Believe it or not, English used to be an even harder language to learn than it is today.
不管你信不信，英语曾经是比现在难得多的语言。
Twenty-five hundred years ago, English and German were the same language.
两千五百年前，英语和德语是同一种语言。
They drifted apart slowly, little by little becoming more and more different.
后来它们慢慢有了分别，一点一点地变得越来越不同。
That meant that in early English, just like in German, inanimate objects had gender.
这意味着早期的英语，就像德语一样，客观事物都分性别。
A fork, gafol, was a woman; a spoon, laefel, was a man; and the table they were on, bord, was neither, also called neuter.
一个叉子，gafol，是女性；一个勺子，laefel，是男性；而桌子，bord，不男不女，也叫做neuter（中性）。
Go figure! Being able to use words meant not just knowing their meaning but what gender they were, too.
想象一下！要使用这些词的话，不仅知道它们的意义，还能知道它们的性别。
And while today there are only about a dozen plurals that don't make sense, like men and geese,
现如今的英语中只有一部分词的复数没有规则可言，例如人（men），还有鹅（geese），
in Old English, it was perfectly normal for countless plurals to be like that.
古代英语中，复数没有规则很正常，这样的词还多到数不完。
You think it's odd that more than one goose is geese?
你认为多于一只鹅（one goose）叫geese很奇怪？
Well, imagine if more than one goat was a bunch of gat, or if more than one oak tree was a field of ack.
那么，想想如果不只一只山羊（one goat）是一群gat，或者不只一棵橡树（one oak tree）是一片ack。
To be able to talk about any of these,
要探讨这些，
you just had to know the exact word for their plural rather than just adding the handy S on the end.
你需要知道这些单词确切的复数形式，而不是只加个方便的后缀S。
And it wasn't always an S at the end either.
而且复数后缀也不只是S。
In merry Old English, they could add other sounds to the end.
在丰富的古代英语里，他们可以在后缀加上其他东西。
Just like more than one child is children, more than one lamb was lambru,
就像儿童（child）的复数是children，羔羊（lamb）的复数是lambru，
you fried up your eggru, and people talked not about breads, but breadru.
你煎你的eggru（鸡蛋），人们不说breads，而是breadru（面包）。

Sometimes it was like sheep is today -- where, to make a plural, you don't do anything.
有时就像现在用的sheep（绵羊）--单复数形式一样。
One sheep, two sheep. In Old English, one house, two house.
一只羊（one sheep），两只羊（two sheep）。在古代英语里，one house（一栋房子），two house（两栋房子）。
And just like today, we have oxen instead of oxes.
就像现在，我们有oxen而不是oxes（公牛）。
Old English people had toungen instead of tongues, namen instead of names,
古代英语里，人们有toungen而不是tongues（舌头），namen而不是names（名字），
and if things stayed the way they were, today we would have eyen instead of eyes.
如果一切都保持原样，我们现在就是有eyen而不是eyes（眼睛）。
So, why didn't things stay the way they were? In a word, Vikings.
那么，为什么我们不像古人那样说呢？简言之，维京人。
In the 8th century, Scandinavian marauders started taking over much of England.
在8世纪，的侵略者开始占领英格兰大片领土。
They didn't speak English, they spoke Norse.
他们不讲英语，讲斯堪的维亚语（Norse）。
Plus, they were grown-ups, and grown-ups aren't as good at learning languages as children.
再加上，他们已经是成人，成人不像儿童那么擅长学习语言。
After the age of roughly 15, it's almost impossible to learn a new language without an accent and without slipping up here
大约过了15岁后，学习一种新的语言而没有口音，还完全不犯错，这几乎是不可能的了，
and there as we all know from what language classes are like.
正如我们从语言课上所了解的一样。
The Vikings were no different, so they had a way of smoothing away the harder parts of how English worked.
维京人也一样，于是他们找到一种办法克服英语中较难的部分。
Part of that was those crazy plurals.
其中就有这些烦人的复数。
Imagine running up against a language with eggru and gat on the one hand,
想象一下，突然遇到一种语言，有eggru，有gat，
and then with other words, all you have to do is add 's' and get days and stones.
并且，还有其他词的复数，只需要加后缀“s”，就有days（天），stones（石头）。
Wouldn't it make things easier to just use the 's' for everything?
那么对每个词的复数加“s”岂不是变得容易很多？
That's how the Vikings felt too.
维京人也这么觉得。
And there were so many of them, and they married so many of the English women,
而且维京人的人数很多，他们和很多英国女人结了婚，
that pretty soon, if you grew up in England, you heard streamlined English as much as the real kind.
于是短时间内，在英国长大的人，他们听到改良式英语的机会和正统英语一样多。
After a while nobody remembered the real kind any more.
再一段时间之后，就没有人记得正统英语了。
Nobody remembered that once you said doora instead of doors and handa instead of hands.
没有人记得门的复数曾经是doora，而不是doors，很多双手是handa而不是hands。
Plurals made a lot more sense now,
现在的复数形式比以前容易解释的多，
except for a few hold-outs like children and teeth that get used so much that it was hard to break the habit.
除了少部分的词，像children（儿童），teeth（牙齿），人们已经习惯这样用，难以改变这些习惯用法。
The lesson is that English makes a lot more sense than you think.
这告诉我们，英语比你认为的更容易理解。
Thank the ancestors of people in Copenhagen and Oslo for the fact that today we don't ask for a handful of pea-night instead of peanuts.
感谢哥本哈根人和奥斯陆人的祖先，我们今天想吃花生不需要说pea-night，只要说peanuts可以了。
Although, wouldn't it be fun, if for just a week or two, we could?
即便如此，但哪怕只说一两周，难道不会很有趣吗，是吧？