How: there are five principles and seven actions.

怎么做呢？ 有5个原则和7个行动可以跟随。

There may be a few more but these are absolutely core.

可能有更多，但这些绝对是核心部分。

And before I get into those I just want to talk about two myths, dispel two myths.

进入这些点之前我想先说说两个神话并消除它们。

The first is that you need talent.

第一个是你需要有天赋。

Let me tell you about Zoe.

让我跟你们说说关于佐伊的事情。

Zoe came from Australia, went to Holland, was trying to learn Dutch, struggling a great deal and finally people were saying: ‘you're completely useless,' ‘you're not talented,' ‘give up,' ‘you're a waste of time' and she was very, very depressed.

佐伊是澳大利亚人，她去到荷兰并尝试学习荷兰语。她非常挣扎，最后人们跟她说，“没用的，”“你没有天赋，”“还是放弃吧，”“你根本就是在浪费时间。”她对此感到非常沮丧。

And then she came across these five principles, she moved to Brazil and she applied them and within six months she was fluent in Portuguese, so talent doesn't matter.

后来，她无意中发现了这5个原则，去了巴西，并把这些原则应用到她学习葡萄牙语中，6个月内，她可以说流利的葡萄牙语了。因此，天赋不重要。

People also think that immersion in a new country is the way to learn a language.

人们还认为学会一门外语最好的方式就是到说该门语言的国家去。

But look around Hong Kong, look at all the westerners who've been here for ten years, who don't speak a word of Chinese.

但是看看在香港已经呆了10年的西方人，还是一句中文也不会说。

Look at all the Chinese living in America, Britain, Australia, Canada who have been there ten, twenty years and they don't speak any English.

看看那些居住在美国、英国、澳大利亚、加拿大10年、20年的中国人，还是不会一句英文。

Immersion per se doesn't not work, why?

只呆在一个新的国家本身是没有用的。为什么？

Because a drowning man cannot learn to swim.

因为溺水的人是学不会游泳的。

When you don't speak a language you're like a baby and if you drop yourself into a context which is all adults talking about stuff over your head, you won't learn.

当你不能说那种语言，你就像一个婴儿，如果你进入一个环境，那里全部都是成年人在叽叽呱呱的说一些你完全听不明白的话，你还是学不会。

So, what are the five principles that you need to pay attention to;

那么，你需要注意的那5个原则是什么呢？

first: there are four words, attention, meaning, relevance and memory, and these interconnect in very important ways. Especially when you're talking about learning.

首先，有四个词，注意力、含义、关联和记忆， 而这些在很多非常重要的方面是相互连接的，特别在你谈论学习的时候。

Come with me on a journey through a forest.

请跟随我来一趟森林之旅。

You go on a walk through a forest and you see something like this.

你穿越森林，然后你看到一个像这样的东西。

Little marks on a tree, maybe you pay attention, maybe you don't.

你可能注意到了树上的这些小标记，可能你没有注意它们。

You go another fifty metres and you see this.

然后你继续向前走50米，你看到了这个。

You should be paying attention.

你应该要注意了。

Another fifty metres, if you haven't been paying attention, you see this.

再50米，如果你还没注意的话，你会看到这个。

And at this point, you're paying attention.

当看到这个的时候，你就会注意了。

And you've just learned that this is important, it's relevant because it means this, and anything that is related, any information related to your survival is stuff that you're going to pay attention to and therefore you're going to remember it.

你刚刚学习到了这个是重要的，它与你有重要关系，因为它代表这个。任何有关联的东西，任何有关你生存的信息都是值得你注意的，而你给注意力的就会记住的。

If it's related to your personal goals then you're going to pay attention to it, if it's relevant you're going to remember it.

如果它关于你个人目标的，那么你就会注意到它，如果它与你是有关联的，你就会记住它。

So, the first rule, the first principle for learning a language is focus on language content that is relevant to you.

因此，学习一门语言的第一个原则就是注意那些与你息息相关的语言内容上。

Which brings us to tools.

这就让我们谈到工具。

We master tools by using tools and we learn tools the fastest when they are relevant to us.

我们通过使用工具来掌握工具，而当这些工具与我们息息相关的时候，我们就可以学得很快。

So let me share a story.

先让我分享一个故事。

A keyboard is a tool.

键盘是一个工具。

Typing Chinese a certain way, there are methods for this. That's a tool.

有不同方法打中文字。这些方法属于工具的一种。

I had a colleague many years ago who went to night school;

多年前，我有一位同事，她上夜校学习中文打字。

Tuesday night, Thursday night, two hours each night, practicing at home, she spent nine months, and she did not learn to type Chinese.

每周二、周四晚上，她都用2个小时上课，然后也在家练习，她花了9个月的时间，仍然没学会打中文字。

And one night we had a crisis.

一天晚上，我们有一件紧急的事情。

We had forty eight hours to deliver a training manual in Chinese.

我们有48个小时来准备用中文发表一本训练手册。

And she got the job, and I can guarantee you in forty eight hours, she learned to type Chinese because it was relevant, it was important, it was meaningful, she was using a tool to create value.

她获得了这个任务 ，并且我可以像你保证，在48个小时内，她学会了用中文打字。因为这是相关的、重要的、有意义的，她在使用一种工具来创造价值。

So the second tool for learning a language is to use your language as a tool to communicate right from day one. As a kid does.

因此，学习一门语言的第二个工具是从第一天开始，用你的语言作为一种工具来沟通，像一个孩子那样做。

When I first arrived in China I didn't speak a word of Chinese, and on my second week I got to take a train ride overnight.

当我初次来到中国，我一句中文都不会说。第二个星期我乘坐火车过夜。

I spent eight hours sitting in the dining car talking to one of the guards on the train。He took an interest in me for some reason, and we just chatted all night in Chinese and he was drawing pictures and making movements with his hands and facial expressions and piece by piece by piece I understood more and more.

我花了8个小时，坐在餐车，跟一位乘警聊。因为某种原因，他对我很感兴趣。我们在那用中文聊了整夜，随着他画画、比划双手并动用他的面部表情，我逐渐地明白越来越多。

But what was really cool, was two weeks later, when people were talking Chinese around me, I was understanding some of this and I hadn't even made any effort to learn that.

但是真正有趣的是，两个星期后，当人们在我周围说中文的时候，我可以明白一些而且我并没有为之付出任何努力。

 What had happened

发生了什么？

 I'd absorbed it that night on the train,

在火车的那晚我已经吸收了中文

which brings us to the third principle

也是我们要说的第三个原则。

When you first understand the message, then you will acquire the language unconsciously.

当你已经理解沟通的信息含义，接下来你将不知不觉下意识的获得该语言。

And this is really, really well documented now, it's something called comprehensible input and there's twenty or thirty years of research on this. Stephen Krashen, a leader in the field has published all sorts of these different studies and this is just from one of them.

而且这是有充足的证据证明的，我们把它称之为“可明白输入”，而这个概念被研究了了研究二三十年。此领域的佼佼者史蒂夫·克拉申发布了各类不同的学术研究成果，而这些数据来自他的一个报告。

The purple bars show the scores on different tests for language.

条形图里面的紫色部分显示不同语言测试的成绩。

The purple people were people who had learned by grammar and formal study, the green ones are the ones who learned by comprehensible input.

紫色代表那些通过正式学习和学习语法的人，绿色的代表那些通过可明白输入学习的人。

So, comprehension works.

因此，可明白意思的输入是有效的。