外語學習:學語言別怕出洋相

Miguel Bloombito has some travel advice for his 75,000-plus Twitter followers: “Los subwayo fare hikeros esta too mucho expensivo. Take tu helicoptero to worko insteado!”

惡搞紐約市長邁克爾·布隆伯格(Michael Bloomberg)的Twitter賬戶@ElBloombito，以“Miguel Bloombito”的名義給75000多名粉絲提供了一些出行建議：“Los subwayo fare hikeros esta too mucho expensivo. Take tu helicoptero to worko insteado!”（意：地鐵票價漲得太厲害了，還是乘坐直升飛機上班吧！）

New Yorkers are having fun with their mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Spanish. The parody @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.

紐約人喜歡揶揄他們市長的西班牙語水平，這個惡搞的山寨賬戶便是一例。去年颶風桑迪(Hurricane Sandy)來襲時，布隆伯格那帶着濃重口音的西班牙語公告通過YouTube傳遍了全世界。但他沒有放棄學習。

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，布隆伯格對《紐約時報》(New York Times)表示，他上學時的法語成績爲D，而在大學主修物理的計劃也因當時多數文獻系用德語寫成而泡湯。

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.

但他堅持認爲自己的西班牙語正在進步：“如果不把西班牙語練成準母語者的水平，我是不會死去的。”

Learning languages defeats less determined 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 daunting.

學習外語會讓意志不夠堅定的英語母語者打退堂鼓，因爲他們覺得，反正大多數商務對話和旅行交談都是用英語進行的。即使有些人明白嘗試說客戶的語言能夠討好客戶，但他們仍害怕學外語。

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.

幾年前在西班牙度假時，我聽了米歇爾·托馬斯(Michel Thomas)的光盤樣品，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.

我不是唯一的一個。伍迪·艾倫(Woody Allen)、鮑勃·迪倫(Bob Dylan)、艾瑪·湯普森(Emma Thompson)和頂級公司的高管都曾花費數千美元，購買托馬斯的西班牙語、法語或德語課程。

Thomas died in 2005, aged 90, but his audio lessons are available, along with CDs by other instructors teaching languages such as Mandarin and Russian using his methods.

托馬斯2005年去世，享年90歲，但他的音頻課程仍可以買到，此外還有其他教師使用他的方法教授漢語、俄語等語言的光盤。

Thomas led an extraordinary life. Born Moniek Kroskof to a Jewish textile manufacturing family in Lodz, Poland, he studied in Germany and, when the Nazis tightened 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.

托馬斯的一生非同尋常。他原名莫涅克·克羅斯科夫(Moniek Kroskof)，出生于波蘭羅茲一個從事紡織製造業的猶太家庭，後來在德國學習。當納粹加強控制時，他逃往法國。他與法國抵抗運動並肩作戰，幾度與死神擦肩而過，多次改名換姓，最後化名米歇爾·托馬斯。

As the allies advanced across France, he linked up with American forces, using his perfect German to act as an interrogator, and then washed up, stateless, in the US, where he set up his language-teaching business.

隨着盟軍在法國所向披靡，他與美軍取得聯繫，利用自己嫺熟的德語審訊戰俘。之後，他以無國籍人士的身份來到美國，發展起自己的語言教學業務。

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 paperback edition, and which the US army answered by decorating Thomas for bravery.

1999年克里斯托弗·羅賓斯(Christopher Robbins)所著的那部充滿仰慕之情的傳記《米歇爾·托馬斯：勇氣的考驗》(Michel Thomas: The Test of Courage)出版後，托馬斯對戰時經歷的敘述引起了一位作家的質疑。外人無從驗證質疑的真僞，但羅賓斯在平裝本的後記中詳細反駁了這些質疑，美國軍方的迴應則是向托馬斯發放獎章，以表彰他的英勇。

But we can, as students, evaluate his language teaching.

但作爲學生，我們可以評價他的語言教學之優劣。

He promises a lot. Don’t try to memorise, he says. Don’t take notes or do any homework. Leave all the hard work to him. Whether teaching celebrities or inner-city students, Thomas insisted that failure to learn was the teacher’s fault.

他做出許多承諾。他說，不用背誦，不用做筆記，不用做作業。將所有的難題留給他就行。托馬斯堅持認爲，不論教的是名人大腕還是城裏的窮學生，學不會是教師的錯。

Actually, Thomas is a demanding instructor. 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 linguist. There is no conjugating of verbs but the attention to grammar is detailed. It is part of the process, seldom explicit. 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.

事實上，托馬斯是一位要求嚴格的教師。在授課中，他與兩位學生在他的工作室中造句，你戴着耳機跟着他們練習。托馬斯說出一句英文，然後等待你和其中一位學生將它翻譯成所學的語言。最後他會說出答案。兩位學生中一位聰敏，一位則有些“愚笨”，這樣，你便會因爲表現優於遲鈍的學生而得意洋洋，但又很難跟上那位聰明的學生。課程對動詞變位沒有要求，但對語法的重視細緻入微——這種重視雖然很少言明，但融入到整個學習過程之中。托馬斯的音頻教學富有感染力，他的課程引人入勝、充滿樂趣。你也可以獲得進步的滿足感。短短几個小時內，你便能用所學習的語言造出複雜的長句。學習了他10個小時的西班牙語基礎課程之後，我感覺自己已經能開口對話了。

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.

我去了一趟哥倫比亞，發現自己的水平與布隆伯格相去甚遠。這並不是說托馬斯是位糟糕的老師。我畢生一直在學習和嘗試學習語言，尚未遇見比他更好的老師。

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.

我只是想表達，將所有難題交給老師的理念是荒唐的。學習一門語言需要刻苦努力、背誦單詞、查閱語法、看電視、讀報紙、與現實生活中的人（而不是兩位僱來的人）交談。學習者必須肩負起責任。

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.

成功的語言習得者與衆不同：他們不擔心犯錯誤或出洋相。從這一點來看，紐約市長堪稱模範學生。