I USED to joke that I spoke French like a 3-year-old. Until I met a French 3-year-old and couldn’t hold up my end of the conversation. This was after a year of intense study, including at least two hours a day with Rosetta Stone, Fluenz and other self-instruction software, Meetup groups, an intensive weekend class and a steady diet of French movies, television and radio, followed by what I’d hoped would be the coup de grâce: two weeks of immersion at one of the top language schools in France.
我曾经开玩笑说，我讲的法语像是三岁小孩。直到有一天我遇到了一个三岁的法国小孩，可是在对话时我却接不上茬。在那以前，我已经经历了一年的密集学习，包括每天花两小时用Rosetta Stone、Fluenz等自学软件学习，参加Meetup的互助小组，周末参加强化班，长期观看和收听法语的电影、电视、广播。之后我又在法国最好的语言学校里泡了两个星期，我本以为这会是“制胜一击”(coup de grâce)。
“French resistance” took on an entirely new meaning as my brain repelled every strategy I employed. Yet my failure was in fact quite unremarkable. Advertising claims notwithstanding, few adults who tackle a foreign language achieve anything resembling proficiency. In the end, though, it turns out that spending a year not learning French may have been the best thing I could’ve done for my 57-year-old brain.
我的大脑排斥了我运用过的所有策略，于是“法兰西抵抗”对我有了全新的意义。而实际上我的挫折相当平常，尽管有各种各样的广告宣传，但极少有成年人能参透一门外语，达到接近娴熟的程度。到头来，我虽然花了一年时间也没学会法语，那却可能是我对已经57岁的大脑所做的最好的事。
In the last few years, unable to hold a list of just four grocery items in my head, I’d begun to fret a bit over my literal state of mind. So to reassure myself that nothing was amiss, just before tackling French I took a cognitive assessment called CNS Vital Signs, recommended by a psychologist friend. The results were anything but reassuring: I scored below average for my age group in nearly all of the categories, notably landing in the bottom 10th percentile on the composite memory test and in the lowest 5 percent on the visual memory test.
在那之前的几年里，我脑袋里常常连只有四件物品的杂货购物单都存不下，于是我开始真真切切地有些担心自己头脑的状态。所以，为了宽慰自己什么都没有出差错，我在研习法语之前，遵从一位心理学家朋友的建议，做了一种名叫计算机化神经认知评估(CNS Vital Signs)的测验。结果完全无法让我宽慰：我在所有科目中的成绩，都低于我所在的年龄分组的平均值，尤其值得关注的是，综合记忆测验的成绩跌倒了最后10%，视觉记忆测验成绩跌到了最后5%。
This, obviously, did not bode well for my nascent language project, but I forged ahead. To be sure, learning a foreign language is a daunting task for any adult. How can something that a toddler accomplishes before learning to tie his shoes be so difficult for grown-ups?
这对我刚刚开始的语言计划，显然并不是什么好兆头，但我还是坚定地前进了。当然，学习外语对于任何一个成年人都是艰巨任务。那为什么幼童们在系鞋带都还没学会的时候就能做到的事情，对成年人来说就如此困难呢？
Psycholinguists are divided on the answer, but they agree on several points. For starters, a 2-year-old’s brain has a substantial neurological advantage, with 50 percent more synapses — the connections between neurons — than an adult brain, way more than it needs. This excess, which is an insurance policy against early trauma, is also crucial to childhood language acquisition, as is the plasticity, or adaptability, of the young brain.
心理语言学家给出的答案充满分歧，但是对几种观点存在共识。首先，两岁孩子的大脑，在神经系统上有显著的优势，在神经元之间进行连接的突触，比成年人的大脑多50%，远远超出了大脑需要的数量。这种盈余的作用是提供保障，以防儿童早期遭遇创伤，不过它对儿时的语言习得也很关键。同样关键的还有年轻人大脑的可塑性，或者说适应性。
Once the “critical period” — the roughly six years of life during which the brain is wired for learning language — is over, the ability to acquire a first language is lost, as your brain frees up room for the other skills you’ll need as you mature, such as the ability to kill a wild boar, or learn math, or operate your iPad.
一旦“关键时期”结束，也就是生命中的头六年，大脑适合学习语言的时期结束，习得第一语言的能力就丧失了，大脑会腾出空间学习你成长过程中需要的其他技能，如杀野猪、学数学、用iPad。
Another advantage a toddler holds is his very lack of experience. After speaking our native language for decades, we adults can’t help but hear the second language through the filter of the first. And this filter doesn’t take decades to develop. Researchers have found that newborn Japanese babies can distinguish between the English “L” and “R” sounds, but if not exposed to Western languages, they begin to lose that ability — not by the age of 6 or even 3 — but by eight months.
孩童具有的另一个优势是没有经验。在讲了十几年母语之后，我们成年人在听第二语言时，会不由自主地经过第一语言的过滤。而且这种“过滤”并不需要几十年来发展，研究人员发现，日本的新生儿能够辨别英语中“L”和“R”发音的区别，但是如果不接触西方语言，他们的辨别能力就会丧失——并不是在6岁甚至3岁的时候丧失，而是在八个月大时就会丧失。
Adult language learners are, to borrow a phrase used by some psycholinguists, too smart for our own good. We process too much data at once, try to get everything right from the get-go and are self-conscious about our efforts. But toddlers instinctively grasp what’s important and are quite content to say, “Tommy hitted me,” as long as Tommy gets what’s coming to him.
用一些心理语言学家的话说，成年的语言学习者聪明反被聪明误。我们会同时处理太多数据，试图从一开始就正确掌握所有东西，而且对自己说的东西会感到难为情。但孩童会本能地掌握要点，并不介意说，“汤米打了我（Tommy hitted me，此句有语法错误——译注）。”只要汤米能得到惩罚就好。
All this means that we adults have to work our brains hard to learn a second language. But that may be all the more reason to try, for my failed French quest yielded an unexpected benefit. After a year of struggling with the language, I retook the cognitive assessment, and the results shocked me. My scores had skyrocketed, placing me above average in seven of 10 categories, and average in the other three. My verbal memory score leapt from the bottom half to the 88th — the 88th! — percentile and my visual memory test shot from the bottom 5th percentile to the 50th. Studying a language had been like drinking from a mental fountain of youth.
所有这些都意味着，成年人要想学习一门第二语言，就必须绞尽脑汁。但或许正因为如此，我们更有理由尝试，因为我学习法语的失败尝试，产生了一个意想不到的收益。与法语搏斗了一年之后，我又做了一遍那个认知测验，结果让我震惊。我的成绩大幅提高了，10个科目中有七个超过了平均水平，其他三个科目则与平均成绩持平。我的言语记忆力成绩从不到50分提高到了88分，视觉记忆测验则从5分提高到了50分。学习语言，仿佛是让头脑喝到了不老泉。
What might explain such an improvement?
那该怎么解释这种提高呢？
Last year researchers at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Northwestern University in Illinois hypothesized that language study should prove beneficial for older adults, noting that the cognitive tasks involved — including working memory, inductive reasoning, sound discrimination and task switching — map closely to the areas of the brain that are most associated with declines due to aging. In other words, the things that make second-language acquisition so maddening for grown-ups are the very things that may make the effort so beneficial.
去年，香港中文大学及伊利诺伊州西北大学(Northwestern University)的研究人员做出假设，语言学习应对老年人有益，并指出相关的认知任务——包括工作记忆、归纳推理、声音辨别及任务转换——与大脑的某些区域密切相关，而这些大脑区域是造成与年龄相关的衰退的最主要源头。换句话说，出于某些原因，第二语言习得让成人发狂，但也正是这些原因使语言学习益处良多。
The quest for a mental fountain of youth, pursued by baby boomers who fear that their bodies will outlive their brains, and who have deeper pockets than Juan Ponce de León, has created a billion-dollar industry. There is some evidence that brain exercise programs like Lumosity and Nintendo’s Brain Age can be beneficial, but if my admittedly unscientific experience is any indication, you might be better off studying a language instead. Not only is that a far more useful and enjoyable activity than an abstract brain game, but as a reward for your efforts, you can treat yourself to a trip abroad. Which is why I plan to spend the next year not learning Italian. Ciao!
婴儿潮一代担心身体寿命长于大脑寿命，他们拥有的财富超过了胡安·庞塞·德莱昂(Juan Ponce de León)的财富。他们对大脑不老泉的追求创造了一个价值10亿美元的产业。有证据证明，Lumosity和任天堂(Nintendo)的Brain Age等脑力练习项目有益处。但假如我那并不科学的经历在某种程度上是有道理的，你最好去学习一种语言。这不仅是一种比抽象脑力游戏更有用、有趣的活动，而且还能为你的努力带来回报——你可以自己出国旅游了。因此，我计划明年去研习意大利语，哪怕还是学不会。Ciao！（ 再见！意大利语——编注）