如何精通多国语言 李光耀的5大学习心得

 　　新加坡前总理李光耀先生精通英语、马来语、普通话、客家话、日语等多门语言。他在Keeping My Mandarin¹ Alive: Lee Kuan Yew's Language Learning Experience（中文版书名：《学语致用：李光耀华语学习心得》）一书中介绍了自己学习语言的心得。

　　1. 英语再好，不练习都会退步

　　How many Mainland Chinese can learn English to the level that we can? A very small percentage. They are using Mandarin all the time, they will lose their English. I will give you an example. I used to meet the Taiwanese ministers, the older generation - all Harvard PhDs. In other words, they wrote their theses in English but worked in Taiwan in Mandarin. When I went to Taiwan, I spoke² to them in Mandarin, first two days (my Mandarin was) very stiff. At the end of the week, I was more fluent. They came here to meet people from our ministries³, first two days their English was halting, at the end of the week they became more fluent.

　　在大陆，有多少中国人的英语能和我们说的一样好？（李光耀受英语教育，以优异成绩从剑桥大学法学专业毕业。）非常少。他们每天都使用中文，英文水平就会降低。我举个例子。我见过台湾一些老一辈的部长们，都是哈佛的博士。他们的毕业论文是用英文写的，但在台湾工作时，他们使用中文。我去台湾的时候，我和他们说中文，开始的一两天，我的中文非常生硬。差不多一周后，我说的更流利了。当他们来新加坡和我们的部长会面时，最初一两天他们的英文说的磕磕巴巴，但差不多一个礼拜就流利多了。

　　2. 流利比词汇量更重要

　　Learn young, never mind the standard, capture the fluency⁴, capture the way you speak it, capture the grammar, never mind if your vocabulary is limited, you can expand it later on.

　　从小学起，别在意是否标准，努力说的流畅，学会表达方式，正确使用语法，不要在乎词汇量太少，以后会扩大的。

　　3. 多开口才能活学活用

　　You need to spend the time and effort. You must have the interest. At the end of the day, it must be a live language. Apart from watching it on the TV or reading the newspapers, you must meet people and talk. Then it is a live language.

　　你要花时间和精力。一定要有兴趣。归根结底，必须在生活中使用语言。除了看电视和读报，你必须和人们交谈。这才是活的语言。

　　4. 从小学语言记得更牢

　　Language is heard and spoken long before people learn to write and to read. The more frequently one uses a language, the easier it is to express one's thoughts in it. The younger one learns to speak a langugae, the more permanently⁵ it is remembered.

　　人们学会读写一种语言之前很久就会听说。一个人使用一种语言越频繁，就越容易用它来表达思想。学习语言的年纪越小，就越不会忘记。

　　5. 西学为体，中学为用

　　I may speak the English language better than I speak the Chinese language because I learnt English early in life. But I'll never be an Englishman in a thousand generations and I have not got the Western value system inside me; it's an Eastern value system with the western value system superimposed.

　　我的英文大概比中文好，因为我从小就学习英文。但无论再过多少年，我都不会是个英国人，我并没有接受西方价值观。我的价值观是带有西方色彩的东方价值观。

1 Mandarin   

n.中国官话，国语，满清官吏；adj.华丽辞藻的

参考例句：

• Just over one billion people speak Mandarin as their native tongue.大约有十亿以上的人口以华语为母语。
• Mandarin will be the new official language of the European Union.普通话会变成欧盟新的官方语言。

2 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

3 ministries   

（政府的）部( ministry的名词复数 )； 神职； 牧师职位； 神职任期

参考例句：

• Local authorities must refer everything to the central ministries. 地方管理机构应请示中央主管部门。
• The number of Ministries has been pared down by a third. 部委的数量已经减少了1/3。

4 fluency   

n.流畅，雄辩，善辩

参考例句：

• More practice will make you speak with greater fluency.多练习就可以使你的口语更流利。
• Some young children achieve great fluency in their reading.一些孩子小小年纪阅读已经非常流畅。

5 permanently   

adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地

参考例句：

• The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
• The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。