VOA慢速英语2015 学语言—唱出来记得更牢

Brain Remembers Language Better If You Sing It 学语言—唱出来记得更牢

From VOA Learning English, this is the Health and Lifestyle report.

Have you ever found yourself in this situation: You hear a song you used to sing when you were a child – a bit of nostalgia¹ or “blast from the past,” as we say.

But it is not a distant childhood memory. The words come back to you as clearly as when you sang them all those years ago. Here is an example:

I had not heard this song in years. But when a deejay played it recently at a children’s birthday party, I sang it word for word.

“A noun’s a special kind of word. It’s any name you’ve ever heard. I find it quite interesting – a noun’s a person, place or thing.”

This is the Schoolhouse Rock song that taught me what nouns are and I never forgot it.

It seems there is a scientific reason for this.

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh studied the relationship between music and remembering a foreign language. They found that remembering words in a song was the best way to remember even one of the most difficult languages.

The Hungarian experiment

Here is what they did.

Researchers took 60 adults and randomly² split them into three groups of 20. Then they gave the groups three different types of “listen-and-repeat” learning conditions.

Researchers had one group simply speak the words. They had the second group speak the words to a rhythm, or beat. And they asked the third group to sing the words.

All three groups studied words from the Hungarian language for 15 minutes. Then they took part in a series of language tests to see what they remembered.

Why Hungarian, you ask? Researchers said they chose Hungarian because not many people know the language. It does not share any roots with Germanic or Romance languages, such as Italian or Spanish.

After the tests were over, the singers came out on top.

The people who learned these new Hungarian words by singing them showed a higher overall performance. They did the best in four out of five of the tests. They also performed two times better than those who simply learned the words by speaking them.

Dr. Katie Overy supervised the study at the university’s Reid School of Music. She says singing could lead to new ways to learning a foreign language. The brain, it seems, likes to remember things when they are contained in a catchy³, or memorable⁴, tune⁵.

Dr. Overy worked with Dr. Karen Ludke and Professor Fernanda Ferreira on this study. Their findings are published in the journal Memory and Cognition.  

Dr. Ludke said the findings could help those who struggle to learn foreign languages. On the University of Edinburgh’s website Dr. Ludke writes, “This study provides the first experimental evidence that a listen-and-repeat singing method can support foreign language learning, and opens the door for future research in this area.”

Language teachers know using music works

Language teachers already know the value of using music and singing.

A teacher at a Chinese language school in Washington, D.C. relies heavily on songs and chants to teach Chinese. Hua Zhu Ying teaches students who most likely have never spoken Chinese before coming to the school. Ms. Hua says she uses music all the time to teach children Chinese.

 “For example, for little kids usually we will use English songs but we are teaching them the Chinese lyrics⁶. So it’s easy for them to start because they know the music. They just need to translate into Chinese words. ” 

She adds that not only does it work, but it is fun for the kids.

“So, I think they are really having fun learning Chinese songs using English music. Sometimes, I think if I were taught English like that way maybe I would speak much better English than now.”

Words in This Story

nostalgic – adj. pleasure and sadness that is caused by remembering something from the past and wishing that you could experience it again

blast from the past - slang expression a memory from the past

deejay – n. short for disc jockey; a person who plays popular music at a party, nightclub, etc.: as a verb it means to work as a disc jockey

jog – v. “jog” people’s memory means to cause people to remember something

1 nostalgia   

n.怀乡病，留恋过去，怀旧

参考例句：

• He might be influenced by nostalgia for his happy youth.也许是对年轻时幸福时光的怀恋影响了他。
• I was filled with nostalgia by hearing my favourite old song.我听到这首喜爱的旧歌，心中充满了怀旧之情。

2 randomly   

adv.随便地，未加计划地

参考例句：

• Within the hot gas chamber, molecules are moving randomly in all directions. 在灼热的气体燃烧室内，分子在各个方向上作无规运动。 来自辞典例句
• Transformed cells are loosely attached, rounded and randomly oriented. 转化细胞则不大贴壁、圆缩并呈杂乱分布。 来自辞典例句

3 catchy   

adj.易记住的，诡诈的，易使人上当的

参考例句：

• We need a new slogan.The old one's not catchy enough.我们需要新的口号，旧的不够吸引人。
• The chorus is very catchy to say the least.副歌部分很容易上口。

4 memorable   

adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的

参考例句：

• This was indeed the most memorable day of my life.这的确是我一生中最值得怀念的日子。
• The veteran soldier has fought many memorable battles.这个老兵参加过许多难忘的战斗。

5 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

6 lyrics   

n.歌词

参考例句：

• music and lyrics by Rodgers and Hart 由罗杰斯和哈特作词作曲
• The book contains lyrics and guitar tablatures for over 100 songs. 这本书有100多首歌的歌词和吉他奏法谱。