从出生到7岁是学习一门外语的最佳时期，你是否错过这一阶段？
新的研究揭示为什么儿童的大脑学习双语非常容易，科学家们希望发现的最终结论能帮助我们很轻松地学习一种新语言。
“我们认为孩子们的特殊能力非常适用于这种学习情形，一些原理对成年人在学习过程中同样重要，”华盛顿大学的博士帕特丽夏库赫，她是国际组的一员正在尝试在教学中去运用这些课程。
每个语言有着自己独特的语音，科学家们知道婴儿从出生就有分辨语音的能力，但是这种能力在1岁左右会讲话之前被弱化。
库赫举了个例子：日本人不能分清英语字母“L”和“R”的发音——他们把“Rake” 和“Lake”发一样的音。她的小组证实一个7个月的日本宝宝和7个月的美国宝宝具同样清晰发音的能力，但是11个月的日本宝宝却丧失了这种发音能力。
随着时间的推移——如何来测试一个婴儿对声音的感觉？让婴儿的眼睛随着声音去寻找声源，把一个玩具在她的身边制造特定的声音，她会马上听到并寻找对她而言既熟悉又陌生的声音，脑电波扫描图没有记录如何铭记语言的过程。
库赫提出，掌握你的优势语言阻碍你学习第二语言，减少使用你最熟悉的语言，让大脑屏蔽声音显然是不合适的。
“你认为所建立脑体系结构非常适合日本人，英国人或法国人，”其实只需是本国语言，库赫解释，或者你是个幸运的婴儿，生活在两种语言环境中并接收着来自这种两种语言的信息。
生活在双语环境中的婴儿有着显而易见的能力——比起仅学一种语言的婴儿，他们能够用双语来表达自己，总体来说，会双语的婴儿和学习一种语言的婴儿在一岁左右开始讲话并在1岁半能说50个单词。
意大利研究学者奇怪为什么婴儿如此早获得这种能力，并在这个月报导在科学期刊上，双语像是能使脑细胞更加活跃。
研究员对44个12个月的婴儿进行测试，让他们去辨认三个音节模式并非一个完整的单词，只是为了测试对声音的学习，毫无疑问，随着声音寻找声源的双语婴儿在同一时间能学两种类型的发音模式——象lo-ba-lo或 lo-lo-ba，但是学单一语言的婴儿仅能学会一种，这些结论由意大利国际学校艾格尼丝科威科斯最新研究得出的。
7岁之前容易掌握第二语言，青春期之后这种能力明显逐渐下降。
“我们看婴儿脑电波示意图显示比青春期后具有更多的新脑电波圈并可塑性非常强，”库赫说。对一个成年人来说，“它是一个完全不同的过程，你不能以同样的方式去学，也不可能学得像母语一样好。”
不久来自实用语言学中心的调查，它是一个非盈利组织专门研究语言方面的问题，展示美国小学近10年来减少了外语教育，1997年只有四分之一的公立小学教外语，但是去年15%小学声明外语可通过网络中心学习。
我们可以为失去最佳学习外语的儿童做什么？婴儿需要针对个人的交互作用让新语言的渗透到大脑——TV或CD并不能代替，因此研究员们做了技术改善让成人也能够很容易学外语，使之更具普遍性和充分利用脑部的语言功能。
是否还记得日本人分不清“L”和”R”的发音？库赫和科学家们在东京电机大学和明尼苏达大学合作开发了计算机语言程序：用接近“妈妈的声音”来发音，父母亲使用缓慢而有节奏的声音对宝宝说话。
日本大学生们12人一组聆听“Ls” 和“Rs”的发音，并观看模仿电脑中虚拟讲师的口型如何用英语发音一个单词，大脑扫描器——一个像干发器装备的脑磁描计，脑磁描技法——测量每一毫秒的活动显示学生们可以很好的分辨非本土语言的英语发音，同时学生们的发音也非常准确，研究小组把报告发布在Neurolmage期刊上。
“这是我们第一次初步粗略地尝试但是颇有收获，”库赫说道。
但是她希望父母亲们根据生物学自然规律并早些开发孩子们的第二语言的能力，如果你会说第二种语言，那么就在家经常说给孩子们听，只要你的孩子能经常听到第二语言，哪怕是来自游玩的伙伴或保育员。
“你会非常吃惊地发现，”库赫说。“他们像海绵一样吸收着来自第二语言的信息。”
原文：Unraveling how children become bilingual so easily
WASHINGTON – The best time to learn a foreign language: Between birth and age 7. Missed that window?
New research is showing just how children\'s brains can become bilingual so easily, findings that scientists hope eventually could help the rest of us learn a new language a bit easier.
\"We think the magic that kids apply to this learning situation, some of the principles, can be imported into learning programs for adults,\" says Dr. Patricia Kuhl of the University of Washington, who is part of an international team now trying to turn those lessons into more teachable technology.
Each language uses a unique set of sounds. Scientists now know babies are born with the ability to distinguish all of them, but that ability starts weakening even before they start talking, by the first birthday.
Kuhl offers an example: Japanese doesn\'t distinguish between the \"L\" and \"R\" sounds of English — \"rake\" and \"lake\" would sound the same. Her team proved that a 7-month-old in Tokyo and a 7-month-old in Seattle respond equally well to those different sounds. But by 11 months, the Japanese infant had lost a lot of that ability.
Time out — how do you test a baby? By tracking eye gaze. Make a fun toy appear on one side or the other whenever there\'s a particular sound. The baby quickly learns to look on that side whenever he or she hears a brand-new but similar sound. Noninvasive brain scans document how the brain is processing and imprinting language.
Mastering your dominant language gets in the way of learning a second, less familiar one, Kuhl\'s research suggests. The brain tunes out sounds that don\'t fit.
\"You\'re building a brain architecture that\'s a perfect fit for Japanese or English or French,\" whatever is native, Kuhl explains — or, if you\'re a lucky baby, a brain with two sets of neural circuits dedicated to two languages.
It\'s remarkable that babies being raised bilingual — by simply speaking to them in two languages — can learn both in the time it takes most babies to learn one. On average, monolingual and bilingual babies start talking around age 1 and can say about 50 words by 18 months.
Italian researchers wondered why there wasn\'t a delay, and reported this month in the journal Science that being bilingual seems to make the brain more flexible.
The researchers tested 44 12-month-olds to see how they recognized three-syllable patterns — nonsense words, just to test sound learning. Sure enough, gaze-tracking showed the bilingual babies learned two kinds of patterns at the same time — like lo-ba-lo or lo-lo-ba — while the one-language babies learned only one, concluded Agnes Melinda Kovacs of Italy\'s International School for Advanced Studies.
While new language learning is easiest by age 7, the ability markedly declines after puberty.
\"We\'re seeing the brain as more plastic and ready to create new circuits before than after puberty,\" Kuhl says. As an adult, \"it\'s a totally different process. You won\'t learn it in the same way. You won\'t become (as good as) a native speaker.\"
Yet a soon-to-be-released survey from the Center for Applied Linguistics, a nonprofit organization that researches language issues, shows U.S. elementary schools cut back on foreign language instruction over the last decade. About a quarter of public elementary schools were teaching foreign languages in 1997, but just 15 percent last year, say preliminary results posted on the center\'s Web site.
What might help people who missed their childhood window? Baby brains need personal interaction to soak in a new language — TV or CDs alone don\'t work. So researchers are improving the technology that adults tend to use for language learning, to make it more social and possibly tap brain circuitry that tots would use.
Recall that Japanese \"L\" and \"R\" difficulty? Kuhl and scientists at Tokyo Denki University and the University of Minnesota helped develop a computer language program that pictures people speaking in \"motherese,\" the slow exaggeration of sounds that parents use with babies.
Japanese college students who\'d had little exposure to spoken English underwent 12 sessions listening to exaggerated \"Ls\" and \"Rs\" while watching the computerized instructor\'s face pronounce English words. Brain scans — a hair dryer-looking device called MEG, for magnetoencephalography — that measure millisecond-by-millisecond activity showed the students could better distinguish between those alien English sounds. And they pronounced them better, too, the team reported in the journal NeuroImage.
\"It\'s our very first, preliminary crude attempt but the gains were phenomenal,\" says Kuhl.
But she\'d rather see parents follow biology and expose youngsters early. If you speak a second language, speak it at home. Or find a play group or caregiver where your child can hear another language regularly.
\"You\'ll be surprised,\" Kuhl says. \"They do seem to pick it up like sponges.\" |
