如何加速外语学习？

　　学习一门语言，许多人难以掌握课本单词表里成百上千的词汇，教育专家称这一阶段为机械性学习（死记硬背），即逐个记单词，单词的释义会刻印在脑中，然而即便你记住了单词含义却不能真正理解。

　　The goal of learning a language is to understand words and what a person is trying to say. This stage of learning that the ideal language learner should aspire² to is called application. Application suggests that you can comprehend and correlate acquired knowledge with new material, draw conclusions, and synthesize information independently.

　　学习语言的目的是理解单词含义并听懂他人的谈话。学习者所渴望达到的这一阶段被称为语言运用，即表明了学习者能够领会并将已学知识和新知识结合起来学习，得出结论并自主地综合所学知识。

　　Toapply this to language learning, we need to show that languages can be correlated. If you look at the linguistic³ map below, you can seethe⁴ gradations of Romance languages throughout Europe. Ibero-Romance languages (in green), such as Portuguese⁵ and Spanish, have certain characteristics that distinguish them from other Romance languages.However, Catalan, spoken in northeastern Spain, is a Gallo-Romance language. It shares many features with Spanish, as well as withOccitan (a language spoken in southwestern France near the Spanish border) and French. Here, we see green fade into the blue areas inFrance, signifying the correlation⁶ between languages in that region.We also see this in the languages themselves.

　　为使语言学习适用此运用程序，就需要表明语言之间的关联性。下方的语言图可以观察到遍布欧洲的罗曼语的渐变过程。

　　伊比利亚罗曼语（绿色区域），像葡萄牙和西班牙两国因其独有的特点不同于其他罗曼语言。然而，西班牙东北部的加泰罗尼亚语言属于高卢罗曼语，并且与西班牙语和奥克西坦语（靠近西班牙边界的法国西南地区的语言）共享许多特点。接下来我们会发现法国的绿色区域渐变成蓝色，说明此区域语言之间的关联性，语言本身也能体现这一点。

　　InSpanish, the word for “language” is la lengua, in Catalan it's lallengua, and in French, it's la langue. Ignoring the fact that they sound alike (we will soon see that it is not a reliable guide), even more curious is that all three also happen to mean “tongue”. And to top it off, they're all feminine nouns! So, with these clues in mind, we can reasonably conclude that these words are cognates, or words of common origin and similar meaning.

　　“language”西班牙语译为“lalengua”，加泰罗尼亚语为“lallengua”，法语则是lalangue。除了发音听起来十分相似之外（很快你就会发现这并非是靠谱解释），更惊讶的是，它们恰巧都意为“语言”，此外它们都是阴性名词。根据这些提示就不难推断出它们是同源词并有着相似意思。

　　So you may be wondering, “What does this all mean?” Well, it's the key to accelerating your learning! You may not realize it, but when you start learning a language, your brain instantly tries to link it to ideas and concepts you already know in order to store it more easily. The first mistake that some people make is assuming that they have to start completely from scratch in order to learn a new language. However, this cheats you out of an incredibly easy way to learn! Your brain recognizes that two words may mean the same thing,but they are from different languages. This separates the two words in your long-term storage, especially if they sound different. I myself used my knowledge of Spanish to expedite my Italian learning,and this helped immensely in remembering all of the vocabulary.

　　也许你会思考“这些单词到底是什么意思？”这个问题会有助于促进语言的学习。让你意想不到的是，一旦学习新语言，大脑会立刻通过已学知识联系并快速储存起来。通常大家学习新语言时会误解为必须完全从头开始。其实不然，学习语言有更简便的方法！大脑辨析出两个词汇尽管意思相同却并非同种语言。尤其当它们不是相同发音时，此方法会将你长期记忆的两个单词区分开。以前我借助通晓西班牙语的机会，学习意大利语并不感觉吃力，并且对于掌握词汇也是有很大帮助的。

　　In my guides to Italian, Portuguese, and Catalan, which can be down loaded here, I make frequent mention of parallels between Spanish, Italian,French, and other languages to help accelerate learning. This is very helpful in the analytical⁷ part of my teaching method. By helping⁸ my students correlate things they already know, the information is retained long-term. This in turn makes language learning easier and more fun. Learning a language should not be a drag, nor should it been less trudging⁹ through vocabulary lists.

　　我会对学员进行辅导意大利语，葡萄牙语和加泰罗尼亚语，可在此下载。我经常提及到西班牙语，意大利语，法语及其他语种之间的相似点，以此来加快学习速度，对我的教学方法中解析部分很有帮助。对于学生们已知晓的内容我会帮助他们找到关联性，而这部分内容也会持续很久。由于这种学习方法，会让你学起来更简单，更有趣。学习语言不该让人觉得乏味无聊，也并非是艰难、无止境地借助词汇表学习。

　　If you know Portuguese and you're learning Italian, exploit it. Not only are words similar, but structures are also often very similar among languages. For example, in Portuguese, the imperfect subjunctive ofthe verb ser looks incredibly similar to that of the Italian verbessere. Take the phrase, “As if it were a dream” for example.Como se fosse um sonho (Portuguese) and Come se fosse un sogno(Italian) sound nearly identical.

　　如果你通晓葡萄牙语，恰巧又在学意大利语，把握这个机会吧。这两种语言不仅有相似的单词，语言结构也非常相似。比如，葡萄牙语里不完全虚拟语气动词ser与意大利语的动词essere极其相似。将短语“Asif it were a dream”举例，葡萄牙语译为Comose fosse um sonho，意大利语为Comese fosse un sogno，两句听起来几乎完全相同。

　　I know you might be thinking that if you try to correlate words all the time and find cognates, you'll start mixing up languages altogether.But there are a couple of things that you can do to avoid this.First, as mentioned before, your brain instantly recognizes the similarities as well as the differences between languages. All that's left for you to do is to practice the vocabulary in context. Second is the importance of practicing languages at different times. The temporal separation helps your brain process the languages distinctively¹⁰ and keep them from mixing with each other. For example,study Italian at night and study Spanish during the daytime.

　　一旦长时间地寻找关联词，也许你担心自己会混淆不同语言，以下有几点可以帮助你避免步入误区。首先，之前写的内容提到过大脑会很快识别出语言之间的相似性及不同点，而你的任务就是练习不同语境中词汇的含义。其次，在不同期间练习语言是关键，不妨暂时将所学语言分开练习，达到有针对性学习不同语言的目的，以防混淆。比如说，你可以在晚上学习意大利语，白天学习西班牙语。

　　I hope that this was helpful in providing a strategy for learning foreign languages! Remember: many languages are related, so you should take advantage of any links that your target language has to the one(s) you already know.

　　我希望以上内容对大家学习外语起到一定作用！请记住：许多语言都是相互关联的，因此对于所学语言要充分利用任何相关性。

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