The language I'm speaking right now is on its way to becoming the world's universal language, for better or for worse. Let's face it, it's the language of the internet, it's the language of finance, it's the language of air traffic control, of popular music, diplomacy -- English is everywhere.
我宜家用嘅語言 就來成爲世界通用語言 無論係好定壞 我哋要面對呢個事實 互聯網用英文 金融交易用英文 空中交通管制用英文 流行音樂用英文 外交亦係用英文 英文無處不在
Now, Mandarin Chinese is spoken by more people, but more Chinese people are learning English than English speakers are learning Chinese. Last I heard, there are two dozen universities in China right now teaching all in English. English is taking over.
宜家,愈來愈多人用普通話交流 但係同時,學英文嘅華人 多過於學中文嘅外籍人士 我聽講過 喺中國有 24 間大學 用英文教學 英文正在成爲主流
And in addition to that, it's been predicted that at the end of the century almost all of the languages that exist now -- there are about 6,000 -- will no longer be spoken. There will only be some hundreds left. And on top of that, it's at the point where instant translation of live speech is not only possible, but it gets better every year.
仲有 有人預測喺呢個世紀尾 幾乎所有現存嘅語言 大概 6000 種 唔會俾用來做語言交流 通用嘅語言會剩番幾百種 仲有 直播演講嘅即時翻譯唔只會成爲現實 仲會越來越好
The reason I'm reciting those things to you is because I can tell that we're getting to the point where a question is going to start being asked, which is: Why should we learn foreign languages -- other than if English happens to be foreign to one? Why bother to learn another one when it's getting to the point where almost everybody in the world will be able to communicate in one?
我背咗咁多書 係因爲我知道,我哋已經到咗 一個要問問題嘅點 問題就係,母語係英文嘅人 點解仲要學其他語言? 全世界都可以用 同一種語言交流 點解仲要再學一種語言?
I think there are a lot of reasons, but I first want to address the one that you're probably most likely to have heard of, because actually it's more dangerous than you might think. And that is the idea that a language channels your thoughts, that the vocabulary and the grammar of different languages gives everybody a different kind of acid trip, so to speak. That is a marvelously enticing idea, but it's kind of fraught.
我相信有好多種原因 第一個原因 可能亦係大家最經常聽到嗰个 因為事實危險過想象好多 換句話講 語言影響人嘅思維方式 唔同語言有唔同嘅詞彙同文法 令到人類擁有唔同嘅思維過程 就係咁 呢係個好有趣嘅觀點 雖然有些小誤導人
So it's not that it's untrue completely. So for example, in French and Spanish the word for table is, for some reason, marked as feminine. So, "la table," "la mesa," you just have to deal with it. It has been shown that if you are a speaker of one of those languages and you happen to be asked how you would imagine a table talking, then much more often than could possibly be an accident, a French or a Spanish speaker says that the table would talk with a high and feminine voice. So if you're French or Spanish, to you, a table is kind of a girl, as opposed to if you are an English speaker.
呢個觀點唔係全錯 譬如喺法文同西班牙文 個「枱」字係陰性 「la table,la mesa」 (法,西)我哋唯有記住 有實驗表明 如果你嘅母語係法文或者西班牙文 如果有人叫你 想象下張枱識講嘢會點講 好多時 講法文或者西班牙文嘅人 會話張枱用女聲 既係,法國或西班牙人會當張枱係女仔 如果你講英文,你會當枱係男仔
It's hard not to love data like that, and many people will tell you that that means that there's a worldview that you have if you speak one of those languages. But you have to watch out, because imagine if somebody put us under the microscope, the us being those of us who speak English natively. What is the worldview from English?
呢啲數據真係好好玩 可能會有人話 如果你識外語,你就會有一種國際視角 不過一定要注意 如果將母語係英語嘅人 作爲樣品觀察嘅話 英文包括嘅國際視角又係乜
So for example, let's take an English speaker. Up on the screen, that is Bono. He speaks English. I presume he has a worldview. Now, that is Donald Trump. In his way, he speaks English as well.
講幾個例子 屏幕上嘅人叫 Bono 佢用慣英文 我假設佢有國際視角 而呢個人係 Donald Trump 佢喺度用佢嘅方式 講英文
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
And here is Ms. Kardashian, and she is an English speaker, too. So here are three speakers of the English language. What worldview do those three people have in common? What worldview is shaped through the English language that unites them? It's a highly fraught concept. And so gradual consensus is becoming that language can shape thought, but it tends to be in rather darling, obscure psychological flutters. It's not a matter of giving you a different pair of glasses on the world.
呢個係 Kardashian 女士 佢都講英文 所以我哋有三個講英文嘅樣本 佢哋嘅國際視野有咩相似 英文又點樣影響佢哋嘅國際觀念 呢係講法好誤導人 慢慢形成嘅共識係語言影響思維方式 呢個係一個好模糊嘅共識 唔係俾你多副眼鏡睇世界咁簡單
Now, if that's the case, then why learn languages? If it isn't going to change the way you think, what would the other reasons be? There are some. One of them is that if you want to imbibe a culture, if you want to drink it in, if you want to become part of it, then whether or not the language channels the culture -- and that seems doubtful -- if you want to imbibe the culture, you have to control to some degree the language that the culture happens to be conducted in. There's no other way.
所以喺呢種情況下 點解要學語言 如果學習言唔會改變思維方式 又有乜其他原因呢 原因有以下幾個 一、你想要瞭解一個新文化 要瞭解通透,就要成爲佢嘅一部分 語言對文化有冇影響 亦冇一個明確嘅答案 如果你想瞭解一個文化 你就要喺某種程度上 瞭解呢種文化形成嘅語言因素 除此之外,冇他法
There's an interesting illustration of this. I have to go slightly obscure, but really you should seek it out. There's a movie by the Canadian film director Denys Arcand -- read out in English on the page, "Dennis Ar-cand," if you want to look him up. He did a film called "Jesus of Montreal." And many of the characters are vibrant, funny, passionate, interesting French-Canadian, French-speaking women. There's one scene closest to the end, where they have to take a friend to an Anglophone hospital. In the hospital, they have to speak English. Now, they speak English but it's not their native language, they'd rather not speak English. And they speak it more slowly, they have accents, they're not idiomatic. Suddenly these characters that you've fallen in love with become husks of themselves, they're shadows of themselves.
有一個好有趣嘅實例 有啲偏門,但你真係要睇下 加拿大導演 Denys Arcand 嘅一部電影 英文係「Dennis Ar-cand」 如果你想上網搜索 佢有部作品叫「蒙特利爾嘅耶穌」 其中有好多角色 都係好有趣嘅法裔加拿大人 同講法文嘅女人 喺電影結尾之前有一幕 主角要帶朋友去個英文醫院 所以喺醫院入邊 一定要講英文 但係英文唔係佢哋嘅母語 所以佢哋好唔想講英文 唯有好慢咁講英文 佢哋有好重嘅口音,用詞好唔通順 突然間, 呢啲你好中意嘅人物嘅形象大打折扣
To go into a culture and to only ever process people through that kind of skrim curtain is to never truly get the culture. And so to the extent that hundreds of languages will be left, one reason to learn them is because they are tickets to being able to participate in the culture of the people who speak them, just by virtue of the fact that it is their code. So that's one reason.
真係進入一個文化 凈係只透過層厚紗去觀察 係冇辦法真正瞭解一個文化 所以喺本世紀末,得番幾百種語言個時 其中一個去學習語言嘅原因係 學語言提供咗 一個 參與到原生語言環境中嘅機會 畢竟語言係一個羣體嘅符號 呢個係第一個原因
Second reason: it's been shown that if you speak two languages, dementia is less likely to set in, and that you are probably a better multitasker. And these are factors that set in early, and so that ought to give you some sense of when to give junior or juniorette lessons in another language. Bilingualism is healthy.
第二個原因 研究表明 如果可以講兩種語言嘅人 唔容易得老年癡呆 而且項目管理能力會好叻 呢類早期嘅影響因素 令我哋可以 畀大學生一個大致嘅概念 就係熟悉兩種語言有益健康
And then, third -- languages are just an awful lot of fun. Much more fun than we're often told. So for example, Arabic: "kataba," he wrote, "yaktubu," he writes, she writes. "Uktub," write, in the imperative. What do those things have in common? All those things have in common the consonants sitting in the middle like pillars. They stay still, and the vowels dance around the consonants. Who wouldn't want to roll that around in their mouths? You can get that from Hebrew, you can get that from Ethiopia's main language, Amharic. That's fun.
第三個原因 語言本身係十分之有趣 比我哋平時瞭解到嘅更加有趣,譬如 阿拉伯文嘅「kataba」係「他寫」 「yaktubu」係「他寫」、「她寫」 「Uktub」係「寫,命令式」 佢哋有乜相同之處 佢哋嘅共同點 就係作為中流砥柱嘅輔音 輔音唔會變 元音就圍住輔音跳舞 咁好玩,係人都想練習下啲發音啦 希伯來文,同衣索比亞嘅主要語言 阿姆哈拉文,都有相似嘅例子 真係好有趣
Or languages have different word orders. Learning how to speak with different word order is like driving on the different side of a street if you go to certain country, or the feeling that you get when you put Witch Hazel around your eyes and you feel the tingle. A language can do that to you.
唔同語言有唔同嘅文字順序 學識唔同嘅文字順序 就好似喺唔同國家開車用左右舵咁 好似金缕梅入眼一樣 你會感受到微震 語言有相似嘅效果
So for example, "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back," a book that I'm sure we all often return to, like "Moby Dick." One phrase in it is, "Do you know where I found him? Do you know where he was? He was eating cake in the tub, Yes he was!" Fine. Now, if you learn that in Mandarin Chinese, then you have to master, "You can know, I did where him find? He was tub inside gorging cake, No mistake gorging chewing!" That just feels good. Imagine being able to do that for years and years at a time.
譬如話 《戴高帽子的猫又來了》 我相信大家都經常回顧呢本書 又譬如話《白鯨記》 有句話: 「你知唔知我喺邊度搵到佢?」 「你知唔知佢喺邊度?」 「佢食緊蛋糕係水缸入邊啊」 「真係啊!」 如果你用普通話講 嘅順序就會係 「你能想到我在哪裏把他找到的嗎?」 「他在水缸裏面吃蛋糕」 「沒有錯,真是在吃蛋糕!」 呢種感覺真係好好 想像一下你年年月月都識做呢件事
Or, have you ever learned any Cambodian? Me either, but if I did, I would get to roll around in my mouth not some baker's dozen of vowels like English has, but a good 30 different vowels scooching and oozing around in the Cambodian mouth like bees in a hive. That is what a language can get you.
又或者,你哋有冇人學過柬埔寨文 我都冇學過,不過如果我學過 我就會學到好多元音 唔止英文嘅十零個咁可憐 有成 30 幾個咁多 喺你嘴裡邊 好似蜜蜂喺巢裡邊,橫衝直撞 呢個就係語言可以做乜
And more to the point, we live in an era when it's never been easier to teach yourself another language. It used to be that you had to go to a classroom, and there would be some diligent teacher -- some genius teacher in there -- but that person was only in there at certain times and you had to go then, and then was not most times. You had to go to class. If you didn't have that, you had something called a record. I cut my teeth on those. There was only so much data on a record, or a cassette, or even that antique object known as a CD. Other than that you had books that didn't work, that's just the way it was.
更重要嘅係 我哋生喺一個 可以容易自學其他語言嘅時代 喺以前,你要去課室 課室會有勤力嘅老師 亦都有天才老師 但係,佢哋唔喺成日喺度 仲去搵佢哋時 佢哋又未必有時間畀你 你唯有去上堂 你如果冇機會去上堂 你就要跟住錄音碟 我就係用錄音磁帶開始學嘅 錄音碟或者叫錄音磁帶 又或者係最經典嘅 CD 入邊內容有限 有時你手頭有書,但係本書唔好 以前就係咁嘞
Today you can lay down -- lie on your living room floor, sipping bourbon, and teach yourself any language that you want to with wonderful sets such as Rosetta Stone. I highly recommend the lesser known Glossika as well. You can do it any time, therefore you can do it more and better. You can give yourself your morning pleasures in various languages. I take some "Dilbert" in various languages every single morning; it can increase your skills. Couldn't have done it 20 years ago when the idea of having any language you wanted in your pocket, coming from your phone, would have sounded like science fiction to very sophisticated people.
但係家下,你可以癱喺沙發度 或者癱喺客廳個個地下 飲下酒 學你想學嘅語言 宜家有非常好嘅工具 譬如 Rosetta Stone 我個人推介比較小衆嘅 Glossika 幾時學都得 所以你就有機會學得更多更好 你可以朝早學語言 我會喺每個早晨用唔同語言 睇「呆伯特(Dilbert)」動畫 來提高我嘅語言能力 喺廿年前就冇咁方便 一個人可以隨身 譬如話,個袋入邊 手機入邊有學語言嘅資料 喺以前會係天方夜譚
So I highly recommend that you teach yourself languages other than the one that I'm speaking, because there's never been a better time to do it. It's an awful lot of fun. It won't change your mind, but it will most certainly blow your mind.
所以,我強烈建議 你學幾個新語言 因爲宜家係個好好嘅機會 真係會好好玩 佢未必會改變你嘅諗法 但係一定會顛覆你嘅思維
Thank you very much.
多謝大家
(Applause)
(掌聲)