TED：全球20亿人正在拼命学英语，他们这样做真的对吗？（附视频&演讲稿）
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全世界60%以上的广播节目是用英语播送的,75%以上的邮件是用英文书写的；全世界每年出版的报刊杂志中，50%以上用英语排版；全世界的科学论文，60%以上是用英语发表的；全世界大约有2.75亿个以英语为内容的网站；全世界有多少人学英语？答案是：20亿。
而且，当下国际一流大学都在逐步提高入学的英语成绩门槛，而且英语学习一直是大多数非英语国家的教学重点，为的是能让学生“与国际接轨”。但是，资深英语教师Patricia Ryan女士在TEDx迪拜演讲中却提出了截然相反的观点。她认为这些大学都过分强调了英语的重要性，以至于“英语”竟成为了阻碍人才交流的障碍。
I know what you're thinking. You think I've lost my way, and somebody's going to come on the stage in a minute and guide me gently back to my seat. I get that all the time in Dubai. "Here on holiday are you, dear?" "Come to visit the children? How long are you staying?"
我知道你们在想什么。你们想我迷路了，有人马上会上台把我领回到我的座位。在迪拜老是有人这样问我。“亲爱的，来度假啊？”“来看孩子们吗？呆多久啊？”
Well actually, I hope for a while longer yet. I have been living and teaching in the Gulf for over 30 years.And in that time, I have seen a lot of changes. Now that statistic is quite shocking. And I want to talk to you today about language loss and the globalization of English.
事实上，我希望我还能多在这儿呆几年呢。我在海湾地区已经生活和教书有30多年了。(掌声)在这期间，我目睹了很多变化。那些统计数据是令人非常吃惊的。而我今天要跟你们讲的是关于语种的消失和英语的全球化。
I want to tell you about my friend who was teaching English to adults in Abu Dhabi. And one fine day, she decided to take them into the garden to teach them some nature vocabulary.
我想告诉你们，我的一个朋友她在阿布扎比教成年人英语。一天，她决定带他们去花园去教他们一些大自然用语。
But it was she who ended up learning all the Arabic words for the local plants, as well as their uses -- medicinal uses,cosmetics,cooking, herbal. How did those students get all that knowledge? Of course, from their grandparents and even their great-grandparents. It's not necessary to tell you how important it is to be able to communicate across generations.
但是结果她反而学了所有当地植被的阿拉伯名称和它们的用途--药用的，化妆用的，食用的，草药。那些学生是怎样得到这些知识的呢？当然是从他们的祖父母那里甚至是他们的曾祖父母那里。本来我没有必要告诉你们能够跨代交流是多么重要。
But sadly, today, languages are dying at an unprecedented rate. A language dies every 14 days. Now, at the same time,English is the undisputed global language. Could there be a connection? Well I don't know. But I do know that I've seen a lot of changes. When I first came out to the Gulf, I came to Kuwait in the days when it was still a hard ship post. Actually, not that long ago. That is a little bit too early.
但是，令人惋惜的是，今天很多语种正在以空前的速度消失着。每14天就有一种语言消失。而同时，现在英语又无可争辩地成为全球性语言。这两者间有联系吗？我不知道。但是我知道我已目睹了很多变化。当我初到海湾时，我到了科威特，那个时候那儿还算是一个艰苦地区。其实也就是没多久以前。这幅图还更早一点。
But nevertheless, I was recruited by the British Council, along with about 25 other teachers. And we were the first non-Muslims to teach in the state schools therein Kuwait. We were brought to teach English because the government wanted to modernize the country and to empower the citizens through education.And of course, the U.K. benefited from some of that lovely oil wealth.
不去管它，我被英国文化协会招聘到这里同时招来的还有其他25个老师。我们是最早在科威特公立学校教书的非穆斯林。我们被请来教英语因为政府想要发展国家现代化让公民通过学习提高自己。当然，英国也因此收益于那些让人喜爱的石油财富。
Okay. Now this is the major change that I've seen -- how teaching English has morphed from being a mutually beneficial practice to becoming a massive international business that it is today. No longer just a foreign language on the school curriculum, and no longer the sole domain of mother England, it has become a bandwagon for every English-speaking nation on earth.
好。这是我看见过的主要变化--英语教学是怎样演变的使它从一个互惠的交流方式变成如今的一个规模巨大的国际交流。它不再只是学校课程的一门外语课。也不再是英国特有。对地球上每个说英语的国家而言说英语已成为潮流。
And why not? After all, the best education -- according to the latest World University Rankings -- is to be found in the universities of the U.K. and the U.S. So everybody wants to have an English education, naturally. But if you're not a native speaker, you have to pass a test.
为什么不呢？毕竟，最好的教育--根据最新的世界大学排名--最好的大学总是在英国或者美国。自然每个人都想得到英语教育。如果你的母语不是英语的话，你要通过一个考试。
Now can it be right to reject a student on linguistic ability alone? Perhaps you have a computer scientist who's a genius. Would he need the same language as a lawyer, for example? Well, I don't think so. We English teachers reject them all the time. We put a stop sign, and we stop them in their tracks. They can't pursue their dream any longer, 'til they get English.
那么仅仅根据学生的语言能力就拒绝一个学生的做法合适吗？也许你们中一个计算机科学家是一个天才。那例如，他需要有和律师一样的语言能力吗？我并不这么认为。我们做英语老师的总是否定他们。我们放置一个禁止通行的标志，我们在他们的发展轨道上挡住了他们。他们不能继续追寻他们的梦想，除非他们掌握了英语。
Now let me put it this way: if I met a monolingual Dutch speaker who had the cure for cancer, would I stop him from entering my British University? I don't think so. But indeed, that is exactly what we do. We English teachers are the gatekeepers. And you have to satisfy us first that your English is good enough. Now it can be dangerous to give too much power to a narrow segment of society. Maybe the barrier would be too universal.
现在我这么说吧，如果我遇到一个只会说荷兰语的人他能治愈癌症，我会阻止他进入英国大学吗？我想不可能。但是事实上，我们正是这样做的。我们英语老师是把关的。你得先令我们满意你的英语要足够好。这就可能很危险把很多权力交给了社会的一个窄小的团体。可能这个造成的障碍影响面就太广了。
Okay. "But," I hear you say," what about the research? It's all in English." So the books are in English, the journals are done in English, but that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It feeds the English requirement. And so it goes on. I ask you, what happened to translation?
好吧。“但是”我听见你们说，“那科研呢？它们都是用的英语。”书是英语的，研究刊物是英语的，但是这是一个自我实现的假定。它正好符合需要英语的条件。于是它就继续这样发展下去。那我问你，翻译还需要吗？
If you think about the Islamic Golden Age, there was lots of translation then. They translated from Latin and Greek into Arabic, into Persian, and then it was translated on into the Germanic languages of Europe and the Romance languages. And so light shone upon the Dark Ages of Europe. Now don't get me wrong; I am not against teaching English, all you English teachers out there.
如果你想想伊斯兰的黄金时代，当时有很多翻译。他们把拉丁文和希腊语翻译成阿拉伯语和波斯语，然后又翻译成欧洲的日耳曼语和罗曼语。于是欧洲黑暗的时代被点亮了。不要误会；我不是反对教英语，或是你们在座的所有英语老师。
I love it that we have a global language. We need one today more than ever. But I am against using it as a barrier. Do we really want to end up with 600 languages and the main one being English, or Chinese? We need more than that. Where do we draw the line? This system equates intelligence with a knowledge of English, which is quite arbitrary.
我热爱我们有一种全球性语言。我们今天比过去任何时候都需要它。但是我反对用它设立障碍。我们真的只想留下600种语言而主要语言只是英语和中文吗？我们需要更多，我们在哪里划这条界线呢？这个体制把智能和英语能力划等号这是非常武断的。
And I want to remind you that the giants upon whose shoulders today's intelligentsia stand did not have to have English,they didn't have to pass an English test. Case in point, Einstein. He,by the way, was considered remedial at school because he was, in fact, dyslexic.But fortunately for the world, he did not have to pass an English test.
我想提醒你而当代知识分子所站立在那些“巨人肩膀”上的伟人，他们也并不都具有英语能力，他们不需要通过英语考试。爱因斯坦就是个典型。其实，他在学校的时候是个需要补课的学生因为他诵读有困难。但是也是这世界的幸运，他不必通过英语考试。
Because they didn't start until 1964 with TOEFL, the American test of English. Now it's exploded. There are lots and lots of tests of English. And millions and millions of students take these tests every year. Now you might think, you and me, "Those fees aren't bad, they're okay," but they are prohibitive to so many millions of poor people. So immediately, we're rejecting them.
因为1964年托福考试还没设立，这是一种美式英语测试。现在已经泛滥了各种各样的英语测试。每年成千上万的学生参加这样的考试。你会觉得，你和我都这么认为这些考试价格还是合理的，但是数百万穷人却望而却步。所以一开始我们就把他们挡在了外面。
It brings to mind a headline I saw recently:"Education: The Great Divide." Now I get it, I understand why people would want to focus on English. They want to give their children the best chance in life. And to do that, they need a Western education. Because, of course, the best jobs go to people out of the Western Universities, that I put on earlier. It's a circular thing.
这让我想到我最近看见的一条新闻：“教育：大鸿沟。”现在我明白了，为什么人们都关注英语。他们希望给予他们的孩子最好的人生机遇。而要达到这个目的，他们需要西方教育。因为，显然，最好的工作都让西方大学的毕业生拿走了，就跟我之前说的一样。这是个循环。
Okay. Let me tell you a story about two scientists, two English scientists. They were doing an experiment to do with genetics and the forelimbs and the hind limbs of animals. But they couldn't get the results they wanted.
是吧。让我们告诉你们两个科学家的故事有关两个英国科学家。他们在做一个实验跟遗传学有关以及研究动物的前后肢，但是他们无法得到他们想得到的结果。
They really didn't know what to do, until along came a German scientist who realized that they were using two words for forelimb and hind limb, whereas genetics does not differentiate and neither does German. So bingo, problem solved. If you can't think a thought, you are stuck. But if another language can think that thought, then, by cooperating, we can achieve and learn so much more.
他们有点束手无策，直到一个德国科学家参与后他发现他们在研究前肢和后肢时用的是两个词，而遗传学上并不区分两者德语也不区分。所以瞧儿，问题解决了。如果你想不通就卡住了。但是用另外一种语言就可以想通，那么，通过合作我们可以教学相长，受益颇多。
My daughter came to England from Kuwait. She had studied science and mathematics in Arabic. It's an Arabic-medium school. She had to translate it into English at her grammar school. And she was the best in the class at those subjects. Which tells us that when students come to us from abroad, we may not be giving them enough credit for what they know,and they know it in their own language. When a language dies, we don't know what we lose with that language.
我的女儿从科威特回到英国。她已经用阿拉伯语学了科学和数学。那是在一所阿拉伯中校。在文法学院学习时，她要把所学的内容翻译成英语。在她们班上，她的这些科目是最好的。这告诉我们当学生从海外来就读也许我们没有给他们足够的认可对于那些他们已经懂得的知识而言因为他们已经通过他们的语言掌握了这些知识。当语言消失，我们不知道我们还失去了什么。
This is -- I don't know if you saw it on CNN recently -- they gave the Heroes Award to a young Kenyan shepherd boy who couldn't study at night in his village, like all the village children, because the kerosene lamp, it had smoke and it damaged his eyes. And anyway, there was never enough kerosene, because what does a dollar a day buy for you? So he invented a cost-free solar lamp.
我不知道你们是否看最近的CNN--他们颁发了一枚英雄奖给一个年轻的肯尼亚牧童，在他所住的村庄里，他和其他在村里的孩子一样无法在夜晚读书，因为煤油灯烟会弄伤他的眼睛。而且，他也没有足够的煤油他们每天只有一美元的收入，能买什么呢？所以他发明了不需要花钱的太阳能灯。
And now the children in his village get the same grades at school as the children who have electricity at home. When he received his award, he said these lovely words: "The children can lead Africa from what it is today, a dark continent, to a light continent." A simple idea, but it could have such far-reaching consequences.
现在他们村里的孩子们都能在学习上取得一样的好成绩跟那些家里有电的孩子一样。(掌声)当他得到这个奖励时，他说了这些可爱的话：“儿童可以带领今天的非洲从一个黑暗的大陆走向一个光明的大陆。”一个简单的想法但是其影响是深远的。
People who have no light, whether it's physical or metaphorical, cannot pass our exams, and we can never know what they know. Let us not keep them and ourselves in the dark. Let us celebrate diversity. Mind your language. Use it to spread great ideas.
无论是实际生活中还是社会意义上不能享受光明的人都无法通过我们的测试，我们也无法了解他们拥有的知识。我们不能让他们和我们自己都身处于黑暗里。让我们一起为多元化欢呼。重视你的语言。用它来传播优秀的思想。
Thank you very much.
非常谢谢。
有一位西方名人曾经说过，除非你掌握了俩门以上的语言，否则你永远无法真正理解一门语言。 或许这也是许多父母希望自己或者孩子学习好英文的缘由。
那么「 孩子几岁开始学英语比较好」，这是很多爸爸妈妈们比较敏感和关心的一个话题。关于语言学习，有一个很著名的理论，叫“关键期假设”。
这是神经生理学家Penfield和Roberts从大脑可塑性的角度提出的，提出十岁以前，是学习语言的最佳年龄。
他认为人的大脑从二岁开始边化，在边化完成前，人是用全脑来学习语言，约在11-19岁左右，大脑会完成边化，从此，语言学习主要由左边大脑负责。人脑「边化」后的语言学习不如全脑学习时期来得好。因此，语言学习最好在大脑完成边化之前，这也就是所谓的“语言学习关键期”。
除了“关键期假设”理论外，今天再给大家介绍另外一位美国华盛顿大学认知与大脑科学研究所副主任、言语听觉学教授帕特里夏·库尔（Patricia Kuhl），在TED的上的演讲，以科学家的角度证明了，婴儿是完全有可能同时习得两门语言的！
https://v.qq.com/txp/iframe/player.html?width=500&height=375&auto=0&vid=b050932gw9k
孩子几岁学英语效果最好？
上下滑动，查看双语演讲稿
I want you to take a look at this baby. What you're drawn to are her eyes and the skin you love to touch.
我想让大家看看这个婴儿。吸引大家关注的是她的眼睛，以及让人忍不住摸摸的皮肤。
But today I'm going to talk to you about something you can't see -- what's going on up in that little brain of hers. The modern tools of neuroscience are demonstrating to us that what's going on up there is nothing short of rocket science. And what we're learning is going to shed some light on what the romantic writers and poets described as the "celestial openness" of the child's mind.
但今天我要讲些你看不到的东西，在她的小脑袋瓜里的东西。当代神经科学的研究工具展示出我们对婴儿脑袋里的东西知之甚少。我们要知道的，是让浪漫作家和诗人产生灵感，并称之为孩子心智的 “非凡的通慧”。
What we see here is a mother in India, and she's speaking Koro, which is a newly discovered language. And she's talking to her baby. What this mother -- and the 800 people who speak Koro in the world -- understands [is] that, to preserve this language, they need to speak it to the babies.
大家这儿看到的是印度的一位母亲，她讲克罗语，这是一种新发现的语言。她对她的孩子说这种语言。这位母亲和世界上说克罗语的800人明白要保留这种语言，他们必须对婴儿说这种语言。
And therein lies a critical puzzle. Why is it that you can't preserve a language by speaking to you and I, to the adults? Well, it's got to do with your brain. What we see here is that language has a critical period for learning. The way to read this slide is to look at your age on the horizontal axis.
在这里有个关键的问题。为什么要是对你和我，成年人说一种新语言却不能保留它？这是和你的大脑有关。这儿我们看到有个学习语言的关键期。读懂这幅图的方法是看你在横轴上的年龄。
And you'll see on the vertical your skill at acquiring a second language. Babies and children are geniuses until they turn seven, and then there's a systematic decline. After puberty, we fall off the map. No scientists dispute this curve, but laboratories all over the world are trying to figure out why it works this way
你再对应看纵轴上，你悉得第二外语的能力。婴儿和孩子是语言天才，直到7岁然后语言系统会呈下降趋势。青春期后，如图我们语言能力衰退。科学家们确信这曲线图的情况，但是全世界的实验室 都试图查明这到底是怎么回事。
Work in my lab is focused on the first critical period in development -- and that is the period in which babies try to master which sounds are used in their language. We think, by studying how the sounds are learned, we'll have a model for the rest of language, and perhaps for critical periods that may exist in childhood for social, emotional and cognitive development.
在我实验室的工作主要是研究第一个关键期。这个时期是关于婴儿试着掌握他们语言中的声音。我们认为通过研究这些被婴儿学会的声音，我们会给学习其他语言一个模式， 或许关键期也出现在孩童期，也为了研究社会，情感和认知发展。
So we've been studying the babies using a technique that we're using all over the world and the sounds of all languages. The baby sits on a parent's lap, and we train them to turn their heads when a sound changes -- like from "ah" to "ee." If they do so at the appropriate time, the black box lights up and a panda bear pounds a drum. A six-monther adores the task.
我们一直研究婴儿使用的技巧，也是全世界使用的语言技巧和所有语言的声音技巧。婴儿坐在父母的膝上，我们训练他们，当听到一个声音 从“ah”到 “ee” 他们就转头。如果他们一听到就转头，黑盒子就会亮、会出现一只敲鼓的熊猫。六个月大的婴儿喜欢这个测试。
What have we learned? Well, babies all over the world are what I like to describe as "citizens of the world." They can discriminate all the sounds of all languages, no matter what country we're testing and what language we're using, and that's remarkable because you and I can't do that.
我们从中了解到什么呢？全世界的婴儿 就如我所述的是世界公民；他们能区分所有语言的所有声音，不管测试在哪一国，用哪种语言。令人惊讶的是你我却做不到这点。
We're culture-bound listeners. We can discriminate the sounds of our own language, but not those of foreign languages. So the question arises: when do those citizens of the world turn into the language-bound listeners that we are?
我们是受制于文化局限的听众。我们只能区分我们自己语言的声音，但分不清外语的那些声音。所以问题随之产生，这些小小世界公民在什么时候变成受制于文化局限的听众？
And the answer: before their first birthdays. What you see here is performance on that head-turn task for babies tested in Tokyo and the United States, here in Seattle, as they listened to "ra" and "la" -- sounds important to English, but not to Japanese. So at six to eight months the babies are totally equivalent. Two months later something incredible occurs. The babies in the United States are getting a lot better, babies in Japan are getting a lot worse, but both of those groups of babies are preparing for exactly the language that they are going to learn.
答案是：一岁之前这里看到的是扭转头测试效果，用来测试日本东京和美国西雅图的婴儿，让他们听ra和la的发音，这两个发音在英文里很重要，在日语里却没有。对于6到8个月的婴儿，他们的测试结果完全相似。2个月之后便产生明显变化，在美国的婴儿掌握这些发音比较好，在日本的婴儿却差很多，但是这两组的婴儿均蓄势待发地要学习语言。
So the question is: what's happening during this critical two-month period? This is the critical period for sound development, but what's going on up there? So there are two things going on. The first is that the babies are listening intently to us, and they're taking statistics as they listen to us talk -- they're taking statistics. So listen to two mothers speaking motherese -- the universal language we use when we talk to kids -- first in English and then in Japanese.
问题在于，在这个2个月的关键期发生了什么？在声音开发的这关键期到底发生什么了？ 主要是两件事。第一婴儿不断地专心听我们说话，并且做统计他们统计这些声音。听听2位母亲说的亲情用语，这是我们对孩子说的通用语言妈妈语，首先是英语，然后是日语。
(Video) English Mother: Ah, I love your big blue eyes -- so pretty and nice.
（视频）说英语的妈妈：啊，我多爱你大大的蓝眼睛，这么漂亮，这么好看。
Japanese Mother: [Japanese]
说日语的妈妈：[日语]
Patricia Kuhl: During the production of speech, when babies listen, what they're doing is taking statistics on the language that they hear. And those distributions grow. And what we've learned is that babies are sensitive to the statistics, and the statistics of Japanese and English are very, very different. English has a lot of Rs and Ls. The distribution shows.
帕特里夏·库尔：在语言生成的期间，当婴儿聆听时，他们同时也在统计他们听到的语言。区分这些声音的能力在变强。我们了解到的是婴儿对统计很敏感，日语和英语的声音统计是非常，非常不同的。
And the distribution of Japanese is totally different, where we see a group of intermediate sounds, which is known as the Japanese "R." So babies absorb the statistics of the language and it changes their brains; it changes them from the citizens of the world to the culture-bound listeners that we are. But we as adults are no longer absorbing those statistics. We're governed by the representations in memory that were formed early in development.
英语有很多R和L音如分布图所示，日语的分布图则是完全不同的。我们在这儿看到一组中间音，它们是日语的R音。婴儿吸收语言的统计数据，这改变了他们的大脑；这就是把他们从世界公民，变成像我们一样受文化局限的听众。但我们成年人不再吸收这些统计。我们受我们早期形成的 记忆性语言的影响。
So what we're seeing here is changing our models of what the critical period is about. We're arguing from a mathematical standpoint that the learning of language material may slow down when our distributions stabilize. It's raising lots of questions about bilingual people. Bilinguals must keep two sets of statistics in mind at once and flip between them, one after the other, depending on who they're speaking to.
所以我们在这儿看到的关键期是如何改变我们的语言模式。我们从数学角度争论学习语言材料的能力会放慢下来，当我们语言分布的能力趋于稳定时， 这也引出很多关于双语者的问题。双语者在脑中同时必须记住2组统计，并能任意切换，决定于他们与谁交流。
So we asked ourselves, can the babies take statistics on a brand new language? And we tested this by exposing American babies who'd never heard a second language to Mandarin for the first time during the critical period. We knew that, when monolinguals were tested in Taipei and Seattle on the Mandarin sounds, they showed the same pattern.
那么我们自问，婴儿能不能统计一种全新的语言？我们测试了这个，通过给美国婴儿听他们从没听过的第二种语言，这是在关键期时他们第一次听到普通话。我们得知，当我们让台北和西雅图的单语者接触普通话声音，他们显示同样的模式。
Six to eight months, they're totally equivalent. Two months later, something incredible happens. But the Taiwanese babies are getting better, not the American babies. What we did was expose American babies during this period to Mandarin. It was like having Mandarin relatives come and visit for a month and move into your house and talk to the babies for 12 sessions. Here's what it looked like in the laboratory.
在6到8个月大时他们辨音能力几乎相同2个月之后，一些不可思议的事情发生了。但这次台湾婴儿表现好，而不是美国的婴儿。我们所做的是在这关键期让美国的婴儿多接触普通话。这就好像说普通话的亲戚来拜访了一个月，住到你家和婴儿上了12节普通话课。 在实验室它看起来就像这样。
(Video) Mandarin Speaker: [Mandarin]
（视频）普通话说者：[普通话]
PK: So what have we done to their little brains? (Laughter) We had to run a control group to make sure that just coming into the laboratory didn't improve your Mandarin skills. So a group of babies came in and listened to English. And we can see from the graph that exposure to English didn't improve their Mandarin.
所以我们对他们的小脑袋瓜都做了什么？（笑声） 我们还得有一个对照组确保来到实验室并不能提高普通话的水平。所以这组婴儿来这儿只听英语。我们从这图表看出，在英语条件下的婴儿没有提高他们的汉语。
But look at what happened to the babies exposed to Mandarin for 12 sessions. They were as good as the babies in Taiwan who'd been listening for 10-and-a-half months. What it demonstrated is that babies take statistics on a new language. Whatever you put in front of them, they'll take statistics on.
但看看上过12次普通话课的婴儿的身上都发生了什么。他们和那些曾听普通话有 10个半月大的台湾婴儿一样棒。这说明了婴儿对一种新语言也能做统计。不管你在他们面前说了什么，他们就会统计这语言。
But we wondered what role the human being played in this learning exercise. So we ran another group of babies in which the kids got the same dosage, the same 12 sessions, but over a television set and another group of babies who had just audio exposure and looked at a teddy bear on the screen. What did we do to their brains?
我们也好奇，在这一学习过程中人起了什么样的作用。所以我们设置了另一组婴儿让他们如法炮制地上12节课，但是在电视机前上课和另一组婴儿只是通过音频上课，看电视屏幕上的玩具熊。我们又对他们的脑袋瓜做什么了？
What you see here is the audio result -- no learning whatsoever -- and the video result -- no learning whatsoever. It takes a human being for babies to take their statistics. The social brain is controlling when the babies are taking their statistics.
我们这儿看到的是音频结果没有任何学习效果，视频结果 也是没有任何学习效果。只有人才能，帮助婴儿统计他们的声音数据。当婴儿在统计时社会大脑在控制着。
We want to get inside the brain and see this thing happening as babies are in front of televisions, as opposed to in front of human beings. Thankfully, we have a new machine, magnetoencephalography, that allows us to do this. It looks like a hair dryer from Mars. But it's completely safe, completely non-invasive and silent.
我们想了解大脑内部观察各种变化，探究电视前的婴儿和与人在一起的婴儿有何不同。多亏我们有了这台新机器，脑磁图显示机，它可以让我们做到这个。它看上去就像来自火星的吹风机。但它是完全安全的，完全对人无害，而且是静音的。
We're looking at millimeter accuracy with regard to spatial and millisecond accuracy using 306 SQUIDs -- these are Superconducting QUantum Interference Devices -- to pick up the magnetic fields that change as we do our thinking. We're the first in the world to record babies in an MEG machine while they are learning.
我们的要求是，在空间上精确到毫米、时间上精确到毫秒、使用306 SQUIDs即是超导量子干涉磁量仪用来检测我们大脑变化的磁场。我们是世界上第一个记录婴儿在脑磁图显示机下的学习的脑图。
So this is little Emma. She's a six-monther. And she's listening to various languages in the earphones that are in her ears. You can see, she can move around. We're tracking her head with little pellets in a cap, so she's free to move completely unconstrained.
所以这是小爱玛，她有6个月大。她正通过耳机聆听多种语言。大家可以看到，她可以移动。我们用她帽子上的小球，来记录她的脑图，所以她完全不受束缚地自由地移动。
It's a technical tour de force. What are we seeing? We're seeing the baby brain. As the baby hears a word in her language the auditory areas light up, and then subsequently areas surrounding it that we think are related to coherence, getting the brain coordinated with its different areas, and causality, one brain area causing another to activate.
这是一个技术上的杰作。我看到什么了？我们看到婴儿的大脑。当婴儿听到语言中的一个词大脑中听觉区域亮起来，然后在它周围的其它区域也亮起来。我们认为这是有关联贯性的，让大脑和其他不同脑区域相协调，一前一后， 一片脑区域激活另一片脑区域。
We are embarking on a grand and golden age of knowledge about child's brain development. We're going to be able to see a child's brain as they experience an emotion, as they learn to speak and read, as they solve a math problem, as they have an idea. And we're going to be able to invent brain-based interventions for children who have difficulty learning.
我们开启了一个开发儿童大脑知识的宏伟的黄金年代。我们能够观察他们的大脑，当儿童体验到感情，学着说和读，解决一个数学问题，或当他们有个想法的时候，我们也能为学习有障碍的孩童，发明基于脑的治疗方法。
Just as the poets and writers described, we're going to be able to see, I think, that wondrous openness, utter and complete openness, of the mind of a child. In investigating the child's brain, we're going to uncover deep truths about what it means to be human, and in the process, we may be able to help keep our own minds open to learning for our entire lives.
正如诗人和作家所描述的，我想我们能够看到一种奇妙的融通开放，一个孩子心智的完全开放。在对儿童大脑的研究中，我们会深刻揭示 ，这对人类来说意味着什么的事实， 在这一过程中，我们或许能帮助我们自身开放心智，在我们一生中不断地学习。
Thank you.
谢谢。
在这个视频里，库尔教授提到了几个有关婴幼儿语言学习的观点，值得特别强调：
孩子学语言有关键期吗？一定有！
Patricia Kuhl认为0-7岁是语言学习的关键期，7岁以前的宝宝完全有能力同时习得两种语言，7岁后语言学习的效率开始急剧下降。
在关键时期以前主要通过大量的语言输入和无意识的影响，最终演变成可以自如使用的语言。而关键时期以后的语言是主动学习的，比如我们学英语的过程就是通过背单词、记语法等等来进行有意识的学习。
7岁之后，语言学习的效率开始下降；等到17岁后，语言的学习效率变得很低，基本失去了第二语言学习的天赋。
孩子的语言能力，可能超乎想象
库尔教授的另一个研究发现，全世界的婴儿能区分所有语言的所有发音。比如，美国的婴儿，既能分辨出汉语的四个声调，也能分辨出韩语的元音辅音和收音，而美国的成年人听汉语和韩语，只能辨别自己母语中的不同的音。
对于婴儿来说，第8-10个月是他们语言发展的关键阶段。在这个阶段，婴儿会默默的专心听大人说话，并在大脑里对语言数据进行收集、统计与分析，建立语言数据库。
举个例子，两个发音，/ra/和/la/，英语里有，日语里没有。
日本宝宝只能在一岁之前，分辨出ra和la，过了一岁就不太行了，就是因为他们每天听的日语里没有这两个音。
也就是说，每个婴儿都有潜力掌握任意一种语言，之后如果只听一种语言，就错过了掌握其它语言的黄金时期。换句话说，1岁以下的婴儿接触的语言，将局限他日后的语言发展。
婴儿具有多语言同时学习的能力
给宝贝做英语启蒙时，很多爸妈担心：同时学习多种语言，我家娃孩子会不会搞混了，最后英语没学好，中文也说不利索？
Patricia Kuhl研究小组发现婴儿对语言的数据统计不仅限于单种语言，而是你对他说什么语言他就统计什么语言。
不列颠哥伦比亚大学（UBC）与巴黎第五大学的研究成果也表明，七个月大的婴儿已经能够分辨两种文法结构截然不同的语言，并开始这两种语言的学习。双语环境中的婴儿会根据音高（pitch）与发音时间长短（duration）来区分两种具有不同词序的语言。
小宝宝的大脑的运作比我们想象中的复杂许多，能自动区分、建立好几套语言系统，所以宝贝早早接触第二语言时，粑粑麻麻们可尽管放心。
人声的重要性
Patricia Kuhl实验室让两组婴儿在8-10个月里学习了普通话——但一组婴儿是在电视机前上课，另一组婴儿则通过音频。
令人惊讶的实验结果表明：面对电视、音频、文本的学习效果基本无效，只有真人交流才行，也就是说社会认知的脑区控制着婴儿的语言数据统计。这一点也恰好解释了为什么说低龄的孩子线下的小班课比线上的课吸收得会更快一些。而且如果孩子能够从小就能经常跟母语国家的人打交道，或者去到国外进行一定时间的游学，插班或交换学习，往往也是越小的孩子，语言进步就越明显，发音也会越加纯正～
那么，多语言并行会有负面影响吗？会不会对孩子造成语言混淆？
库尔教授认为，无论孩子是一种语言还是多种语言环境下成长，语言的数量本身既不增大也不减少他们出现语言障碍或者迟缓的概率。也就是说，多语言并行学习并不会导致小孩“说话晚”或者“语言混淆”。
婴幼儿具备成人无法复制的高效的多语言习得能力，过早英语启蒙不会造成孩子语言混乱，更不会影响汉语的学习，若在语言关键期内能获得足量的语言输入，每一个孩子都有可能成为双语/多语者，这种现象尤其是在欧洲越加明显哦，很多欧洲人士都是多语者。希望今天的TED演讲对您有启发哦～
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