TED演讲：你存钱的能力跟你用的语言有关?(7)

 　　What are the characteristics we can control for? 我们能够控制那些特征？

　　Well I'm going to match families on country of birth and residence, 我考虑的匹配包括出生地和居住地，

　　the demographics -- what sex, their age -- their income level within their own country, 人口信息--性别、年龄--相对居住国的收入水平，

　　their educational achievement, a lot about their family structure. 受教育程度，以及家庭成员结构。

　　It turns out there are six different ways to be married in Europe. 我发现在欧洲就有六种不同的婚姻组合方式。

　　And most granularly, I break them down by religion 最精细的分类方法是按照宗教信仰进行分类

　　where there are 72 categories of religions in the world -- so an extreme level of granularity. 将全球分成了72个不同的宗教团体--非常精细的分类了。

　　There are 1.4 billion different ways that a family can find itself. 14亿家庭每个家庭都有独特性。

　　Now effectively everything I'm going to tell you from now on is only comparing these basically nearly identical families. 现在我要说的比较，都是在这些各个方面近似一致的家庭之间进行的。

　　It's getting as close as possible to the thought experiment of finding two families both of whom live in Brussels 让我们假设这个实验找到了布鲁塞尔的两个家庭，

　　who are identical on every single one of these dimensions, 在别的每个方面都很相似，

　　but one of whom speaks Flemish and one of whom speaks French; 但是一个家庭说佛兰芒语另一个家庭说法语；

　　or two families that live in a rural district in Nigeria, one of whom speaks Hausa and one of whom speaks Igbo. 或是两个住在尼日利亚农村的家庭，一个说豪萨语另一户说伊博语。

　　Now even after all of this granular level of control, do futureless language speakers seem to save more? 现在在这么精细的控制水平下，语言的时态特点是否还会影响到储蓄习惯？

　　Yes, futureless language speakers, even after this level of control, 是的，语言中没有区分将来时态的人，

　　are 30 percent more likely to report having saved in any given year. 在任何给定年份中储蓄的比例都要高30%。

　　Does this have cumulative¹ effects? 这种差异是否有累积效应？

　　Yes, by the time they retire, futureless language speakers, holding constant their income, 是的，当他们退休的时候，语言中没有区分将来时态的人，

　　are going to retire with 25 percent more in savings². 在收入稳定不变的情况下，要多25%的储蓄。

　　Can we push this data even further? 我们能够得到更多的结论么？

　　Yes, because I just told you, we actually collect a lot of health data as economists³. 正如我告诉你的，我们出于经济研究目的收集了很多的医疗健康数据。

1 cumulative   

adj.累积的，渐增的

参考例句：

• This drug has a cumulative effect.这种药有渐增的效力。
• The benefits from eating fish are cumulative.吃鱼的好处要长期才能显现。

2 savings   

n.存款，储蓄

参考例句：

• I can't afford the vacation,for it would eat up my savings.我度不起假，那样会把我的积蓄用光的。
• By this time he had used up all his savings.到这时，他的存款已全部用完。

3 economists   

n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The sudden rise in share prices has confounded economists. 股价的突然上涨使经济学家大惑不解。
• Foreign bankers and economists cautiously welcomed the minister's initiative. 外国银行家和经济学家对部长的倡议反应谨慎。 来自《简明英汉词典》