外语学习:学语言别怕出洋相

 　　Miguel Bloombito has some travel advice for his 75,000-plus Twitter followers¹: “Los subwayo fare hikeros esta too mucho expensivo. Take tu helicoptero to worko insteado!”

　　恶搞纽约市长迈克尔·布隆伯格(Michael Bloomberg)的Twitter账户@ElBloombito，以“Miguel Bloombito”的名义给75000多名粉丝提供了一些出行建议：“Los subwayo fare hikeros esta too mucho expensivo. Take tu helicoptero to worko insteado!”（意：地铁票价涨得太厉害了，还是乘坐直升飞机上班吧！）

　　New Yorkers are having fun with their mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Spanish. The parody² @ElBloombito account is one example. But Mr Bloomberg, whose Spanish announcements during last year’s Hurricane Sandy brought his heavily accented attempts to a worldwide YouTube audience, is not giving up.

　　纽约人喜欢揶揄他们市长的西班牙语水平，这个恶搞的山寨账户便是一例。去年飓风桑迪(Hurricane Sandy)来袭时，布隆伯格那带着浓重口音的西班牙语公告通过YouTube传遍了全世界。但他没有放弃学习。

　　He got a D in French at school and dropped plans to major in university physics because so much of the literature was then in German, he told the New York Times recently.

　　近期，布隆伯格对《纽约时报》(New York Times)表示，他上学时的法语成绩为D，而在大学主修物理的计划也因当时多数文献系用德语写成而泡汤。

　　But he insisted he was getting better at his latest language. “I will not die until I can speak Spanish like a quasi-native,” he said.

　　但他坚持认为自己的西班牙语正在进步：“如果不把西班牙语练成准母语者的水平，我是不会死去的。”

　　Learning languages defeats less determined³ English-speakers, who reckon most business and travel conversations take place in English anyway. Even those who know that their customers would be impressed by an attempt to speak their language find it too daunting⁴.

　　学习外语会让意志不够坚定的英语母语者打退堂鼓，因为他们觉得，反正大多数商务对话和旅行交谈都是用英语进行的。即使有些人明白尝试说客户的语言能够讨好客户，但他们仍害怕学外语。

　　A few years ago, during a holiday in Spain, I put on a sample of a compact disc by Michel Thomas and immediately felt I had found something different.

　　几年前在西班牙度假时，我听了米歇尔·托马斯(Michel Thomas)的光盘样品，立刻感到耳目一新。

　　I wasn’t alone. Woody Allen, Bob Dylan, Emma Thompson and executives of top companies paid Thomas thousands of dollars for Spanish, French or German lessons.

　　我不是唯一的一个。伍迪·艾伦(Woody Allen)、鲍勃·迪伦(Bob Dylan)、艾玛·汤普森(Emma Thompson)和顶级公司的高管都曾花费数千美元，购买托马斯的西班牙语、法语或德语课程。

　　Thomas died in 2005, aged⁵ 90, but his audio lessons are available, along with CDs by other instructors⁷ teaching languages such as Mandarin⁸ and Russian using his methods.

　　托马斯2005年去世，享年90岁，但他的音频课程仍可以买到，此外还有其他教师使用他的方法教授汉语、俄语等语言的光盘。

　　Thomas led an extraordinary life. Born Moniek Kroskof to a Jewish textile manufacturing family in Lodz, Poland, he studied in Germany and, when the Nazis⁹ tightened¹⁰ their grip, escaped to France. He fought with the resistance, escaped near death several times and took several noms de guerre, ending with Michel Thomas.

　　托马斯的一生非同寻常。他原名莫涅克·克罗斯科夫(Moniek Kroskof)，出生于波兰罗兹一个从事纺织制造业的犹太家庭，后来在德国学习。当纳粹加强控制时，他逃往法国。他与法国抵抗运动并肩作战，几度与死神擦肩而过，多次改名换姓，最后化名米歇尔·托马斯。

　　As the allies advanced across France, he linked up with American forces, using his perfect German to act as an interrogator¹¹, and then washed up, stateless, in the US, where he set up his language-teaching business.

　　随着盟军在法国所向披靡，他与美军取得联系，利用自己娴熟的德语审讯战俘。之后，他以无国籍人士的身份来到美国，发展起自己的语言教学业务。

　　The publication in 1999 of Michel Thomas: The Test of Courage, an admiring biography by Christopher Robbins, led one writer to question Thomas’s wartime account. It is impossible for an outsider to judge the doubts, which Robbins rejected in detail in an afterword to his paperback¹² edition, and which the US army answered by decorating Thomas for bravery.

　　1999年克里斯托弗·罗宾斯(Christopher Robbins)所著的那部充满仰慕之情的传记《米歇尔·托马斯：勇气的考验》(Michel Thomas: The Test of Courage)出版后，托马斯对战时经历的叙述引起了一位作家的质疑。外人无从验证质疑的真伪，但罗宾斯在平装本的后记中详细反驳了这些质疑，美国军方的回应则是向托马斯发放奖章，以表彰他的英勇。

　　But we can, as students, evaluate his language teaching.

　　但作为学生，我们可以评价他的语言教学之优劣。

　　He promises a lot. Don’t try to memorise¹³, he says. Don’t take notes or do any homework. Leave all the hard work to him. Whether teaching celebrities¹⁴ or inner-city students, Thomas insisted that failure to learn was the teacher’s fault.

　　他做出许多承诺。他说，不用背诵，不用做笔记，不用做作业。将所有的难题留给他就行。托马斯坚持认为，不论教的是名人大腕还是城里的穷学生，学不会是教师的错。

　　Actually, Thomas is a demanding instructor⁶. He works by building sentences with two students in his studio and you on your headphones. He says a sentence in English and then waits while you and one of the students translates into the language you are learning. He then provides the answer. One of the students is quick, the other a little dim, leaving you pleased to be better than the slow one, but struggling to keep up with the smart linguist¹⁵. There is no conjugating¹⁶ of verbs but the attention to grammar is detailed¹⁷. It is part of the process, seldom explicit¹⁸. Thomas is an engaging audio presence. The hours in his company are hypnotic, and hugely enjoyable. The sense of progress is gratifying. Within hours he has you compiling long, complex sentences in your new language. After 10 hours of his Spanish foundation course, I felt I was actually speaking.

　　事实上，托马斯是一位要求严格的教师。在授课中，他与两位学生在他的工作室中造句，你戴着耳机跟着他们练习。托马斯说出一句英文，然后等待你和其中一位学生将它翻译成所学的语言。最后他会说出答案。两位学生中一位聪敏，一位则有些“愚笨”，这样，你便会因为表现优于迟钝的学生而得意洋洋，但又很难跟上那位聪明的学生。课程对动词变位没有要求，但对语法的重视细致入微——这种重视虽然很少言明，但融入到整个学习过程之中。托马斯的音频教学富有感染力，他的课程引人入胜、充满乐趣。你也可以获得进步的满足感。短短几个小时内，你便能用所学习的语言造出复杂的长句。学习了他10个小时的西班牙语基础课程之后，我感觉自己已经能开口对话了。

　　I made a trip to Colombia – and found myself way behind Mr Bloomberg. It is not that Thomas is a bad teacher. In a lifetime of learning and trying to learn languages, I have never encountered a better one.

　　我去了一趟哥伦比亚，发现自己的水平与布隆伯格相去甚远。这并不是说托马斯是位糟糕的老师。我毕生一直在学习和尝试学习语言，尚未遇见比他更好的老师。

　　It is just that the notion that you can leave it all to the teacher is nonsense. Learning a language requires effort, memorising vocabulary, looking over the grammar, watching television, reading newspapers and talking to real people rather than just two hired participants. The learner has to take responsibility.

　　我只是想表达，将所有难题交给老师的理念是荒唐的。学习一门语言需要刻苦努力、背诵单词、查阅语法、看电视、读报纸、与现实生活中的人（而不是两位雇来的人）交谈。学习者必须肩负起责任。

　　Successful language acquirers do something else: they don’t worry about getting things wrong or making fools of themselves. In that sense, New York’s mayor is the perfect student.

　　成功的语言习得者与众不同：他们不担心犯错误或出洋相。从这一点来看，纽约市长堪称模范学生。

1 followers   

追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件

参考例句：

• the followers of Mahatma Gandhi 圣雄甘地的拥护者
• The reformer soon gathered a band of followers round him. 改革者很快就获得一群追随者支持他。

2 parody   

n.打油诗文，诙谐的改编诗文，拙劣的模仿；v.拙劣模仿，作模仿诗文

参考例句：

• The parody was just a form of teasing.那个拙劣的模仿只是一种揶揄。
• North Korea looks like a grotesque parody of Mao's centrally controlled China,precisely the sort of system that Beijing has left behind.朝鲜看上去像是毛时代中央集权的中国的怪诞模仿，其体制恰恰是北京方面已经抛弃的。

3 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

4 daunting   

adj.使人畏缩的

参考例句：

• They were faced with the daunting task of restoring the house.他们面临着修复房子的艰巨任务。
• Starting a new job can be a daunting prospect.开始一项新工作有时会让人望而却步。

5 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

6 instructor   

n.指导者，教员，教练

参考例句：

• The college jumped him from instructor to full professor.大学突然把他从讲师提升为正教授。
• The skiing instructor was a tall,sunburnt man.滑雪教练是一个高高个子晒得黑黑的男子。

7 instructors   

指导者，教师( instructor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The instructors were slacking on the job. 教员们对工作松松垮垮。
• He was invited to sit on the rostrum as a representative of extramural instructors. 他以校外辅导员身份，被邀请到主席台上。

8 Mandarin   

n.中国官话，国语，满清官吏；adj.华丽辞藻的

参考例句：

• Just over one billion people speak Mandarin as their native tongue.大约有十亿以上的人口以华语为母语。
• Mandarin will be the new official language of the European Union.普通话会变成欧盟新的官方语言。

9 Nazis   

n.（德国的）纳粹党员( Nazi的名词复数 )；纳粹主义

参考例句：

• The Nazis worked them over with gun butts. 纳粹分子用枪托毒打他们。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The Nazis were responsible for the mass murder of Jews during World War Ⅱ. 纳粹必须为第二次世界大战中对犹太人的大屠杀负责。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 tightened   

收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧

参考例句：

• The rope holding the boat suddenly tightened and broke. 系船的绳子突然绷断了。
• His index finger tightened on the trigger but then relaxed again. 他的食指扣住扳机，然后又松开了。

11 interrogator   

n.讯问者；审问者；质问者；询问器

参考例句：

• No,I was not mad, but my interrogator was furious. 不，我没疯，只是质问我的人怒不可遏。 来自互联网
• Miss Fan lacked such an interrogator with whom she could whisper intimately. 范小姐就缺少这样一个切切私语的盘问者。 来自互联网

12 paperback   

n.平装本，简装本

参考例句：

• A paperback edition is now available at bookshops.平装本现在在书店可以买到。
• Many books that are out of print are reissued in paperback form.许多绝版的书籍又以平装本形式重新出现。

13 memorise   

vt.记住，熟记

参考例句：

• An actor must be able to memorise his lines.演员须善于熟记台词。
• I shall try to memorise all these phrases.我要熟记所有这些词组。

14 celebrities   

n.（尤指娱乐界的）名人( celebrity的名词复数 )；名流；名声；名誉

参考例句：

• He only invited A-list celebrities to his parties. 他只邀请头等名流参加他的聚会。
• a TV chat show full of B-list celebrities 由众多二流人物参加的电视访谈节目

15 linguist   

n.语言学家；精通数种外国语言者

参考例句：

• I used to be a linguist till I become a writer.过去我是个语言学家，后来成了作家。
• Professor Cui has a high reputation as a linguist.崔教授作为语言学家名声很高。

16 conjugating   

vt.使结合（conjugate的现在分词形式）

参考例句：

• Methods γ-Ty-Folate was synthesized by conjugating folic acid to tyrosine methyl ester through EDC and hydrolyzing. 方法　叶酸(Folate)与酪氨酸甲酯通过EDC连接 ，水解后生成叶酸酪氨酸复合物 (γ Ty Folate)。 来自互联网

17 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

18 explicit   

adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的

参考例句：

• She was quite explicit about why she left.她对自己离去的原因直言不讳。
• He avoids the explicit answer to us.他避免给我们明确的回答。