TED演讲之说什么 不要固执于英语(6)
My daughter came to England from Kuwait.
我的女儿从科威特回到英国。
She had studied science and mathematics in Arabic.
她已经用阿拉伯语学了科学和数学。
It’s an Arabic medium school.
那是在一所阿拉伯中校。
She had to translate it into English at her grammar school.
在文法学院学习时，她要把所学的内容翻译成英语。
And she was the best in the class at those subjects.
在她们班上，她的这些科目是最好的。
Which tells us that when students come to us from abroad,
这告诉我们，当学生从海外来就读
we may not be giving them enough credit for what they know, and they know it in their own language.
也许我们没有给他们足够的认可，对于那些他们已经懂得的知识而言，因为他们已经通过他们的语言掌握了这些知识。
When a language dies, we don’t know what we lose with that language.
当语言消失，我们不知道我们还失去了什么。
This is — I don’t know if you saw it on CNN recently —
我不知道你们是否看最近的CNN–
they gave the Heroes Award to a young Kenyan shepherd boy
他们颁发了一枚英雄奖给一个年轻的肯尼亚牧童，
who couldn’t study at night in his village, like all the village children,
在他所住的村庄里，他和其他在村里的孩子一样，无法在夜晚读书，
because the kerosene lamp, it had smoke and it damaged his eyes.
因为煤油灯烟会弄伤他的眼睛。
And anyway, there was never enough kerosene, because what does a dollar a day buy for you?
而且，他也没有足够的煤油，他们每天只有一美元的收入，能买什么呢？
So he invented a cost-free solar lamp.
所以他发明了不需要花钱的太阳能灯。
And now the children in his village get the same grades at school as the children who have electricity at home.
现在他们村里的孩子们都能在学习上取得一样的好成绩，跟那些家里有电的孩子一样。
When he received his award, he said these lovely words:
当他得到这个奖励时，他说了这些可爱的话：
“The children can lead Africa from what it is today, a dark continent, to a light continent.”
“儿童可以带领今天的非洲，从一个黑暗的大陆，走向一个光明的大陆。”
A simple idea, but it could have such far-reaching consequences.
一个简单的想法，但是其影响是深远的。
People who have no light, whether it’s physical or metaphorical,
无论是实际生活中还是社会意义上，不能享受光明的人
cannot pass our exams, and we can never know what they know.
都无法通过我们的测试，我们也无法了解他们拥有的知识。
Let us not keep them and ourselves in the dark.
我们不能让他们和我们自己都身处于黑暗里。
Let us celebrate diversity. Mind your language.
让我们一起为多元化欢呼。重视你的语言。
Use it to spread great ideas. Thank you very much.
用它来传播优秀的思想。非常谢谢。
演讲简介：
在TEDx迪拜,资深的英语教师帕特里夏·瑞安提出了一个发人深省的问题，这个独尊英语的世界是否会妨碍其他语言传播优秀的思想？例如，如果一定要爱因斯坦通过托福，这会造成怎样的结果呢？这段演讲热情地捍卫了翻译和分享思想的价值。