20年前，幼兒園里的小朋友還在跟著老師學習漢語拼音，而今天，已經(jīng)有越來越多的幼兒園開始教授外語課程。過早的外語教學在社會上也引起了一些爭議。學習外語，多早算太早?不僅是中國的父母，全世界的父母似乎都有這樣的困惑。

For the past few months, my three-year-old daughter has spent an hour every week learning a foreign language.

近幾個月來，我3歲的女兒每周會學一個小時的外語。

She tells us little about the classes. In fact, for the first few weeks, nothing at all. I begin to wonder if it was a huge mistake (each lesson works out at about 9 pounds) but then I show her “La Vaca Lola” on YouTube. She shouts vaca with enthusiasm, and with what I hope is a Spanish accent.

她很少跟我們講都學了什么。事實上，頭幾周她什么都沒說。我開始懷疑這可能是個巨大的錯誤(算下來，每節(jié)課要交9英鎊學費)。不過后來當我在YouTube上給她放“La Vaca Lola”，她會興奮地大喊“Vaca”——我希望她說的是西班牙語。

The desire to enrol her in language lessons came, like most things, gradually and then in a sudden, panicked rush. In my day job, I read and edit stories about the Chinese economy, the rusting American heartland and Britain’s faltering Brexit negotiations. For a long time, I felt that it would be good for her to learn another language but I had no great plan as to when.

讓她上外語課這件事就跟大多數(shù)事一樣，先是逐漸起了念頭，然后倉皇之間一下子就做了決定。我平常負責閱讀和編輯新聞報道，內(nèi)容涉及中國經(jīng)濟、不斷銹化的美國腹地，以及英國拖泥帶水的脫歐談判。很早以前我就覺得學一門外語對她有好處，但我沒有制定過完整的計劃，比方說什么時候開始學。

Then I read a colleague’s book (Edward Luce’s The Retreat of Western Liberalism) and all my latent thoughts and anxiety about the economy, politics and the rise of the far right coalesced into an incoherent middle-of-the-night panic. Waking in a sweat, it seemed obvious that if my daughter was to have any kind of future, she would have to learn another language. Ideally, immediately.

然后我讀到了一本同事寫的書——愛德華.盧斯(Edward Luce)的《西方自由主義的撤退》(The Retreat of Western Liberalism)——這本書將我對經(jīng)濟、政治和極右翼勢力崛起的所有潛在思想和焦慮，通通化為一次驚慌失措的午夜驚魂。我滿身大汗地驚醒，前景已經(jīng)很明確了，如果我女兒還想有未來可言，她必須學一門外語。而理想的學習時間是，馬上。

I thought about Mandarin Chinese, one of the top 10 languages most important for our future, according to the British Council (others include Arabic, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Dutch and Japanese). But there were no classes for toddlers nearby. There were, however, local Spanish classes — the number-one language on the list. When she started to sing “Incy Wincy Spider” in Spanish and English — helped by a Hispanic nursery worker — our decision was made.

我考慮過讓她學中文，這是英國文化教育協(xié)會(British Council)提出的未來我國十大重要外語之一，其他還有阿拉伯文、法文、德文、葡萄牙文、意大利文、俄文、荷蘭文和日文。但我家附近沒有中文幼兒培訓班。不過有西班牙語班，這可是排在榜單首位的外語。當我女兒在一位拉美裔幼教工作者的幫助下，開始用西班牙語和英語唱“小小蜘蛛”(Incy Wincy Spider)時，我們下了決定。

I told myself that she was growing up in a multicultural world — one in five primary schoolchildren in England are exposed to a language other than English at home, and in at least one London borough this figure rises to about 75 per cent. She needed to be equipped for the future.

我告訴自己她成長在一個多元文化世界，英國有五分之一的小學生在家里能接觸到一門外語，而倫敦地區(qū)至少有一個自治市的這個比例超出75%。她需要為未來做好準備。

Still, a few people grimaced when I told them about the classes and I wondered if she was too young to start formal learning. But I felt backed up by the weight of research. The earlier children learn a language, the better.

不過，當我說起孩子上外語課這件事，有些人會露出怪怪的表情，我自己也懷疑她現(xiàn)在就開始正式學外語會不會太小。但研究成果給了我支持：兒童越早學習外語越好。

“Babies all over the world are what I like to describe as citizens of the world. They can discriminate all the sounds of all languages,” says Patricia Kuhl, a professor of speech and hearing, in her TED talk, “The linguistic genius of babies”. “We [adults] can discriminate the sounds of our own language, but not those of foreign languages. So the question arises: when do those citizens of the world turn into the language-bound listeners that we are? And the answer: before their first birthdays.”

言語及聽覺學教授帕特里夏.庫爾(Patricia Kuhl)在她的TED演講“嬰兒的語言天賦”中說過：“我喜歡把世界各地的寶寶們稱為世界公民。他們可以辨別所有語言的所有發(fā)音。我們成年人可以辨別我們母語的發(fā)音，但辨別不了外語的發(fā)音。于是問題來了：那些世界公民們是從什么時候開始變成像我們這樣受制于語言的聽眾呢?答案是：從他們周歲之前。”