TED演讲:学习新语言的四个理由(6)
So for example, “The Cat in the Hat Comes Back,” a book that I’m sure we all often return to, like “Moby Dick.”
例如，《戴帽子的猫回来了》，这本书我相信很多人还经常读，又如《白鲸记》。
One phrase in it is, “Do you know where I found him?
里面有句台词是，“你知道在哪儿找到他的么？
Do you know where he was? He was eating cake in the tub, Yes he was!”
你知道他在哪里么？他在浴缸里吃蛋糕，对，没错！”
Fine. Now, if you learn that in Mandarin Chinese, then you have to master,
现在，在中文中，那么你需要这么说，
“You can know, I did where him find? He was tub inside gorging cake, No mistake gorging chewing!”
“你知道是否你，我哪里他找到？他在浴缸里吃蛋糕，没错误虎咽狼吞！”
That just feels good. Imagine being able to do that for years and years at a time.
感觉棒极了。想象在未来能够做到这样。
Or, have you ever learned any Cambodian?
或者你们学过柬埔寨语吗？
Me either, but if I did, I would get to roll around in my mouth not some baker’s dozen of vowels like English has
我也没有，不过要是我学过，那么我嘴里发出的元音要远多于英语中的13个元音，
but a good 30 different vowels scooching and oozing around in the Cambodian mouth like bees in a hive.
而是整整30个不同的元音，在柬埔寨人的嘴里热烈的翻腾着，就像蜂巢里的蜜蜂一样。
That is what a language can get you.
这是语言能够带给你的。
And more to the point, we live in an era when it’s never been easier to teach yourself another language.
更进一步，我们现在的时代，要自学一门语言比过去容易很多。
It used to be that you had to go to a classroom,
过去你要学习外语，就需要去上课，
and there would be some diligent teacher — some genius teacher in there
或许会遇到勤勉的老师以及一些睿智的老师，
but that person was only in there at certain times and you had to go then, and then was not most times.
但是那个人只在特定的时间出现，你需要去按时上课，除此之外就没有机会了。
You had to go to class. If you didn’t have that, you had something called a record. I cut my teeth on those.
你只能去课堂。如果你没法听课，你能拿到录音带。我小时候就是这么学的。
There was only so much data on a record, or a cassette, or even that antique object known as a CD.
录音上就那么多信息，磁带也是这样，或者是已过时的光盘。
Other than that you had books that didn’t work, that’s just the way it was.
除此之外你有用处不大的书，学外语就是这样。
英语正迅速成为世界通用语言，同步翻译技术也在逐年提高。那么为什么还要学习一门外语呢？美国哥伦比亚大学教授、语言学家约翰·麦克沃特分享了学习一门不熟悉的语言的四个好处。