The secrets of learning a new language | Lýdia Machová | TED · TED
Lýdia Machová分享了语言学习的四个原则，帮助你轻松掌握新语言。适合练习听说与学习方法。
I love learning foreign languages.
我喜欢学习外语。
In fact, I love it so much that I like to learn a new language every two years,
事实上，我非常喜欢这样做，以至于我每隔两年就会学习一门新语言。
currently working on my eighth one.
目前正在创作我的第八部作品。
When people find that out about me, they always ask me, "How do you do that?
当人们了解到我的这些情况时，他们总会问我：“你是怎么做到的？
What's your secret?"
你的秘密是什么？
And to be honest, for many years, my answer would be, "I don't know.
说实话，多年来我的回答一直都是：“我不知道。
I simply love learning languages."
我真的很喜欢学习语言。
But people were never happy with that answer.
但人们对这个答案从来都不满意。
They wanted to know why they are spending years trying to learn even one language, never achieving fluency,
他们想知道：为什么自己要花费多年时间去学习一门语言，却始终无法达到流利的程度？
and here I come, learning one language after another.
看，我又来了，正在一门又一门地学习语言。
They wanted to know the secret of polyglots, people who speak a lot of languages.
他们想知道那些能说多种语言的人（即多语言者）的秘诀。
And that made me wonder, too, how do actually other polyglots do it?
这也让我开始思考：其他多语言者究竟是如何做到这一点的呢？
What do we have in common?
我们有什么共同点？
And what is it that enables us to learn languages so much faster than other people?
那么，究竟是什么让我们能够比其他人更快地学习语言呢？
I decided to meet other people like me and find that out.
我决定去结识一些和我情况相似的人，从而弄清楚真相。
The best place to meet a lot of polyglots is an event where hundreds of language lovers meet in one place to practice their languages.
结识众多多语言者的最佳场所，是那些汇聚了数百名语言爱好者的活动——在这些活动中，大家可以聚在一起练习各自的语言。
There are several such polyglot events organized all around the world,
世界各地都组织了许多这样的多语言交流活动。
and so I decided to go there and ask polyglots about the methods that they use.
于是我决定去那里，向那些能说多种语言的人请教他们使用的方法。
And so I met Benny from Ireland, who told me that his method is to start speaking from day one.
就这样，我遇到了来自爱尔兰的本尼。他告诉我，他的方法是从第一天开始就直接开口说话（即不进行任何语言学习前的准备阶段，而是直接开始使用目标语言进行交流）。
He learns a few phrases from a travel phrasebook and goes to meet native speakers and starts having conversations with them right away.
他从一本旅游短语手册中学习了一些常用的表达，然后去结识当地人，并立刻开始与他们交谈。
He doesn't mind making even 200 mistakes a day, because that's how he learns, based on the feedback.
他并不介意每天犯200个错误，因为正是通过这些错误以及所得到的反馈，他才能不断学习进步。
And the best thing is, he doesn't even need to travel a lot today,
最棒的是，如今他甚至不需要经常出差。
because you can easily have conversations with native speakers from the comfort of your living room, using websites.
因为你可以借助各种网站，在自己舒适的客厅里轻松地与母语者进行交流。
I also met Lucas from Brazil who had a really interesting method to learn Russian.
我还遇到了来自巴西的卢卡斯，他有一种非常有趣的学习俄语的方法。
He simply added a hundred random Russian speakers on Skype as friends,
他只是简单地在 Skype 上将一百名随机选择的俄罗斯语使用者添加为自己的好友而已。
and then he opened a chat window with one of them and wrote "Hi" in Russian.
然后他打开了与其中一个人的聊天窗口，并用俄语写了“嗨”。
And the person replied, "Hi, how are you?"
那个人回答说：“嗨，你最近怎么样？
Lucas copied this and put it into a text window with another person, and the person replied, "I'm fine,
卢卡斯将这段内容复制到一个文本聊天窗口中，并与另一个人进行了交流。那个人回复道：“我很好。
thank you, and how are you?"
谢谢您，您最近怎么样？
Lucas copied this back to the first person, and in this way, he had two strangers have a conversation with each other without knowing about it.
卢卡斯将这段对话改写成了第一人称的形式，这样一来，两个原本互不相识的人就在不知不觉中进行了交流。
And soon he would start typing himself, because he had so many of these conversations that he figured out how the Russian conversation usually starts.
很快，他就能自己开始输入对话内容了——因为他进行了大量的这类对话，从而掌握了俄罗斯人通常如何开始对话的模式。
What an ingenious method, right?
这确实是一种非常巧妙的方法，对吧？
And then I met polyglots who always start by imitating sounds of the language,
后来我遇到了一些通晓多种语言的人，他们总是从模仿这些语言的发音开始学习。
and others who always learn the 500 most frequent words of the language, and yet others who always start by reading about the grammar.
还有一些人总是去学习该语言中最常用的 500 个单词；另一些人则总是从学习语法开始。
If I asked a hundred different polyglots, I heard a hundred different approaches to learning languages.
如果我问一百位会说多种语言的人，他们会告诉我一百种不同的学习语言的方法。
Everybody seems to have a unique way they learn a language, and yet we all come to the same result of speaking several languages fluently.
每个人似乎都有自己独特的语言学习方式，但最终我们都能流利地说多种语言。
And as I was listening to these polyglots telling me about their methods, it suddenly dawned on me:
当我听着这些通晓多种语言的人向我讲述他们的学习方法时，我突然恍然大悟：
the one thing we all have in common is that we simply found ways to enjoy the language-learning process.
我们所有人共同的一点就是：我们都找到了让自己享受语言学习过程的方法。
All of these polyglots were talking about language learning as if it was great fun.
所有这些通晓多种语言的人在谈论语言学习时，都表现得好像这是一件非常有趣的事情一样。
You should have seen their faces when they were showing me their colorful grammar charts and their carefully handmade flash cards,
你真该看看他们当时的表情——当他们向我展示那些色彩鲜艳的语法图表以及他们精心制作的学习卡片时，他们的脸上充满了自豪和喜悦。