唱还是念？

侯冬意

Have you ever found yourself in this situation： When you hear a song you used to sing as a child， you can’t help looking back on your childhood. But it is not a distant childhood memory. The words come back to you as clearly as when you sang them all those years ago.

你是否遇到过这样的情况：当你听到你小时候经常听的歌时，你就会情不自禁地回忆起你的童年。但这并不是遥远的童年记忆，而是你对这些歌词记忆犹新。

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh studied the relationship between music and remembering a foreign language. They found that remembering words in a song was the best way to remember even one of the most difficult languages.

爱丁堡大学研究者们研究了音乐和学习外语之间的关系。他们发现：用唱歌的方式来背单词是记忆语言最有效的方法，哪怕那是世界上最难学的语言。

Researchers took 60 adults into three groups of 20. Then they gave the groups three different types of “listen-and-repeat” learning conditions. Researchers had one group simply speak the words. They had the second group speak the words to a beat. And they asked the third group to sing the words. All three groups studied words from the Hungarian language for 15 minutes. Then they took part in a series of language tests to see what they remembered.

研究者們将60名成年人分成了三组，每组20人。然后，他们分别给了三组人员三种不同的“听写和复读”的学习环境。其中一组只用念出单词。第二组要有节奏地将词语说出来。第三组则要将词汇唱出来。三组人都学习匈牙利语中的词语15分钟。之后他们接受了一系列词语测试来检测他们到底记住了多少。

After the tests were over， the singers came out on top. They did the best in four out of five of the tests. They also performed two times better than those who simply learned the words by speaking them.

在测试结束之后，要求唱歌组的成绩最好。在五分之四的测试中都表现最佳。成绩甚至比念单词组要高出两倍。

According to the study， singing could lead to new ways to learning a foreign language. The brain， it seems， likes to remember things through tune.

根据这次实验，唱歌可能给外语教学带来一种新的学习方法。大脑看起来更容易通过曲调记住东西。

Language teachers already know the value of using music and singing. A teacher at a Chinese language school in Washington， D.C. relies heavily on songs and chants to teach Chinese. She teaches students who most likely have never spoken Chinese before coming to the school. She says she uses music all the time to teach children Chinese. “For example， for little kids usually we will use English songs but we are teaching them the Chinese lyrics. So it’s easy for them to start because they know the music. They just need to translate into Chinese words.” She adds that not only does it work， but it is fun for the kids.

语言教师们已经知道使用音乐和歌唱来教学的价值。一位在华盛顿教授中文的老师就十分依赖用歌曲来教学。她所教的学生在进入学校以前几乎都没接触过中文。她说她在教孩子中文的过程中一直都使用音乐。“例如，对于一些小孩子，我们会用一些英语曲调中文歌词的歌。这对于他们来说容易得多，因为他们知道这些音乐。他们只需要把歌词转化成中文。”她补充道，这不仅仅很有用，而且孩子也感到很有趣。