外语学习:学语言别怕出洋相

　　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。

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