在10至12岁之前开始学习语言，比较好

In 2017 I made a public vow to start learning Spanish. I kept my promise: I started. But I have since stopped. It is not that the language is difficult. For an English speaker with another romance language, Spanish feels accessible. It was just that I knew it would take years to reach a competent level. Also, the words and grammatical constructions didn’t seem to be sticking the way they once did.

2017年，我公开发誓要开始学习西班牙语。我遵守了承诺：我的确开始学了。但开始以后我就停了。这倒不是因为西班牙语很难。对于一个掌握另一种罗曼语的说英语人士而言，西班牙语感觉是可以学的。只是我知道要达到合格的水平需要很多年的时间。而且单词和语法结构不像以前那样固定了。

Over the years, I have studied other languages. I started learning French in my thirties. But now that I qualify for free transport in London, am I too old to master another language?

这些年来，我一直在学习其他语言。我三十多岁时开始学法语。但现在，以我的年龄，我能在伦敦免费乘坐交通工具，我是不是老到不能掌握另一门语言了?

Years of research have established that the best time to start learning a language is in childhood. We have all noticed that while immigrant parents, however fluent they become, retain their accents and make mistakes, their children learn to talk like natives.

多年的研究表明，开始学习一门语言的最佳时期是儿童时期。我们都注意到，不管移民父母的语言变得多么流利，他们仍然有口音并且会犯错，但是他们的孩子学着像当地人一样说话。

When does this facility end? At puberty, has been the long-held view. But last year, a study by three US-based academics, including the renowned linguist Steven Pinker, found that the ability to learn another language to a high standard lasted longer than that.

这种天赋什么时候结束呢?人们长期以来一直认为是青春期阶段。但是去年，包括著名语言学家史蒂文•平克(Steven Pinker)在内的三位驻美国学者进行的一项研究发现，学习另一门语言并达到高水平的能力，实际上能持续存在更久。

Their tool was a short online English language quiz which, by the time the study closed, had been completed by 669,498 native and non-native English speakers — the biggest cohortin any language-learning study, the researchers said.

研究人员表示，他们用的工具是一个简短的在线英语语言测试。研究结束时，共有66万9498位以英语为母语和以其他语言为母语的人完成了测试，这是所有语言学习研究中参加人数最多的一次。

I can see why so many people did the test. It is fun; you can still do it online. It asks your age, gender and educational level and tests your mastery of passive voice, definite and indefinite articles and relative pronouns. It poses multiple choice questions about the most appropriate words in a sentence (“Bill poured/filled/drained/dripped the cup with wine.”)

我能明白有这么多人参加这个测试的原因。它很有趣;你在网上就能完成。它会询问你的年龄、性别和受教育水平，测试你对被动语态、定冠词和不定冠词，以及关系代词的掌握程度。它会就填入一个句子中最合适的单词出多项选择题(如“Bill pour/filled/drained/dripped the cup with wine”)。

The researchers were looking for the characteristic mistakes that native speakers of different languages make when they are speaking English. They matched these against their native languages and how long they had been learning English.

研究人员当时在寻找以不同语言为母语的人说英语时所犯的典型错误，将这些数据与他们的母语以及学习英语的时间进行对比。

I can’t vouchfor the accuracy of the results. I grew up in South Africa and have spent most of my adult life in England, with sojourns in the US and Greece. At the end of the test the algorithm guessed that my English dialect was Scottish. I tried again, attempting to be stricter about my usual usage. The test guessed I was a native English-speaking Singaporean.

我不能保证这些结果的准确性。我在南非长大，成年后的大部分时光在英格兰度过，曾旅居美国和希腊。在测试的最后，该算法猜测我的英语方言是苏格兰语。我又试了一次，试着更严格地对待我的日常习惯用语。算法猜测我是一个母语是英语的新加坡人。

Whatever. After crunching the hundreds of thousands of answers, the researchers tried to evaluate when children’s natural facility ended and the typical adult struggle with language began — “the critical period”.

无论如何。分析了数十万个答案后，研究人员试图计算儿童的自然天赋结束和成年人学习语言开始遭遇困难的一般性时间——“关键时期”。

The researchers pointed out that there was little agreement on why children found it easier to learn languages than adults. Some believed that children’s facility came from “superior neural plasticity”; others because there was less interference from children’s still-developing native tongues or because they had a greater willingness to experiment and make mistakes.

研究人员指出，对于为什么儿童学习语言比成人更容易，几乎没有达成多少共识。一些人认为儿童的天赋来自于“优越的神经可塑性”;另一些人则认为因为儿童的母语还在发展中，因此母语造成的干扰较少，或者是因为他们更愿意尝试和犯错。

Whatever the reasons, the US researchers concluded from their tests that children’s advantages in language learning continued well beyond puberty — until they were 17.4 years old, almost “the cruxof adulthood”. Adding to the evidence that puberty did not mark the transition was that girls’ language learning ability did not decline before boys’ did, in spite of girls generally reaching puberty earlier.

不管原因是什么，美国研究人员从他们的测试中得出结论，儿童在语言学习方面的优势在青春期之后依然存在——直到他们17.4岁，这几乎是“成年的关键时期”。其他表明青春期并非标志着这种转变的证据是，女孩的语言学习能力并没有先于男孩下降，即使女孩通常更早进入青春期。

Why did 17-18 years old mark the turning point? It could be cultural, the researchers said. This age “marks the transition to the workforce or to professional education, which may diminish opportunities to learn”. Or it may “reflect late-emerging neural maturation processes that compromise the circuitry responsible for successful learning acquisition”. All the same, those who started well before 17 did better. Those who started before 10-12 years old did best, although starting at 10-12 was fine.

为什么17至18岁标志着转折点呢?研究人员表示，这可能是文化原因。这个年龄“标志着向职场或职业教育转变，这可能会减少学习的机会”。或者它可能“反映出较晚出现的神经成熟过程，该过程会损害负责成功习得的神经回路”。尽管如此，那些在17岁之前开始学习语言的人做得更好。在10至12岁之前开始学习语言的人做得最好，不过10至12岁开始学习也不错。

Those who have learnt languages might note some problems with the study. It examines grammatical attainment which, while vital, doesn’t always match speaking skills.

学过语言的人可能会注意到这项研究的一些问题。测试考察的是语法素养，虽然语法素养很重要，但它并不总是与口语技能相匹配。

But the lesson is the common sense one: start your children on their language learning before, or at least during, their teenage years. As for my problems, the researchers’ graphs indicate that after that late-adolescent slowdown, the ability to learn languages remains consistent beyond 60. Do I just need to put in the work or, like memory and the ability to stay out all night, can you just not do at near-pensionable age what you could in your twenties and thirties?

但研究得出了一个常识性的教训：让你的孩子在十几岁之前，或至少在十几岁期间开始学习语言。至于我的问题，研究人员的图表显示，在青春期后期学习能力放缓后，学习语言的能力将保持稳定，直至60岁以后。我是否只需要开始投入到学习中?或者，就像记忆力和彻夜不归的能力一样，在接近领取养老金的年龄，你是否就是无法做你在二三十岁可以做的事情?