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20年前，幼儿园里的小朋友还在跟着老师学习汉语拼音，而今天，已经有越来越多的幼儿园开始教授外语课程。过早的外语教学在社会上也引起了一些争议。学习外语，多早算太早？不仅是中国的父母，全世界的父母似乎都有这样的困惑。
FT撰稿人兼编辑奥拉•莱恩以自己女儿的外语学习经历为例告诫了还在犹豫的父母，孩子最理想的学习时间是——马上。
For the past few months, my three-year-old daughter has spent an hour every week learning a foreign language. She taps along the corridor to a small room in a local school, where she and a handful of three- and four-year-olds spend the next hour dancing to “La Vaca Lola”, a song about a Spanish cow, creating finger puppetsto voice what they like and don’t like (me gusta, no me gusta) and shouting out which animals are big (grande) or small (pequeño).
近几个月来，我3岁的女儿每周会学一个小时的外语。她走进本地一所学校，沿着走廊轻声走进一间小教室，然后在接下来一个小时里和几个三、四岁的孩子一起伴着“La Vaca Lola”——一首关于一头西班牙奶牛的歌曲——跳舞，戴着手指玩偶说“me gusta, no me gusta”（西班牙语：我喜欢什么，我不喜欢什么）， 喊出哪些动物“grande”（西班牙语：体型大），那些动物“pequeño” （西班牙语：体型小）。
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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.
让她上外语课这件事就跟大多数事一样，先是逐渐起了念头，然后仓皇之间一下子就做了决定。我平常负责阅读和编辑新闻报道，内容涉及中国经济、不断锈化的美国腹地，以及英国拖泥带水的脱欧谈判。很早以前我就觉得学一门外语对她有好处，但我没有制定过完整的计划，比方说什么时候开始学。
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.
然后我读到了一本同事写的书——爱德华•卢斯(Edward Luce)的《西方自由主义的撤退》(The Retreat of Western Liberalism)——这本书将我对经济、政治和极右翼势力崛起的所有潜在思想和焦虑，通通化为一次惊慌失措的午夜惊魂。我满身大汗地惊醒，前景已经很明确了，如果我女儿还想有未来可言，她必须学一门外语。而理想的学习时间是，马上。
② enrol her in 替她报名参加
③ faltering ['fɔ:ltəriŋ] adj.踉跄的；不稳的；颤抖的；踌躇的
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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 fortoddlers 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.
我考虑过让她学中文，这是英国文化教育协会(British Council)提出的未来我国十大重要外语之一，其他还有阿拉伯文、法文、德文、葡萄牙文、意大利文、俄文、荷兰文和日文。但我家附近没有中文幼儿培训班。不过有西班牙语班，这可是排在榜单首位的外语。当我女儿在一位拉美裔幼教工作者的帮助下，开始用西班牙语和英语唱“小小蜘蛛”(Incy Wincy Spider)时，我们下了决定。
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.
我告诉自己她成长在一个多元文化世界，英国有五分之一的小学生在家里能接触到一门外语，而伦敦地区至少有一个自治市的这个比例超出75%。她需要为未来做好准备。
④ toddler ['tɒdlə] n.学步的儿童；刚学会走路的孩子
⑤ borough ['bʌrə] n.自治市镇；（城市）行政区
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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.
不过，当我说起孩子上外语课这件事，有些人会露出怪怪的表情，我自己也怀疑她现在就开始正式学外语会不会太小。但研究成果给了我支持：儿童越早学习外语越好。
“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.”
言语及听觉学教授帕特里夏•库尔(Patricia Kuhl)在她的TED演讲“婴儿的语言天赋”中说过：“我喜欢把世界各地的宝宝们称为世界公民。他们可以辨别所有语言的所有发音。我们成年人可以辨别我们母语的发音，但辨别不了外语的发音。于是问题来了：那些世界公民们是从什么时候开始变成像我们这样受制于语言的听众呢？答案是：从他们周岁之前。”
⑥ grimace ['grɪməs; grɪ'meɪs] n.鬼脸；怪相 v.做怪相
⑦ discriminate [dɪ'skrɪmɪneɪt] v.歧视；区分；辨别
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While my daughter is starting young, so did I. We spoke English at home but I learnt Irish at school from the age of four. As well as Irish, later there was French and also German, thanks to a nun from a convent in Koblenz.
我女儿开始学外语的年龄确实很小，不过我自己也是。我们家说的是英语，但我从4岁起就在学校学习爱尔兰语了。除了爱尔兰语之外，我后来还学了法语，还有德语，这要感谢一位来自科布伦茨某修道院的修女。
The classes fed an already active imagination. As a teenager, raised on a televisual diet of Indiana Jones, Charlie’s Angels and The Saint, I entertained the fantasy that the right language at the right moment could save me from danger. I imagined myself as a female James Bond, moving from one train carriage to the next and effortlessly switching languages to communicate with border guards. “Passport, bitte.” “Ja, gerne.”
这些外语课充盈了我本就活跃的想象力。作为一个从小看着《夺宝奇兵》(Indiana Jones)、《查理的天使》(Charlie’s Angels)、《侠探西蒙》(The Saint)等电视剧长大的少女，我怀有一个幻想：在正确的时间使用正确的语言可以助我脱离危险。我幻想自己是女版詹姆斯•邦德(James Bond)，从一节车厢走进下一节车厢，轻松自如地切换各种语言，与边防警卫对谈如流。“Passport, bitte.”（德语：请出示护照。）“Ja, gerne.”（德语：好的，请看。）
⑧ nun [nʌn] n.尼姑；修女
⑨ convent ['kɒnv(ə)nt] n.(女)修道院
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The reality was much less glamorous.
现实就没那么刺激了。
We competed for a three-week scholarship to Germany, funded by a German auto parts company with an office in Wexford. I didn’t get it but received a cobbled-together second prize to serve food to pilgrims at a German convent. In what would be a harbinger of many future attempts to master a foreign language, I stayed in a flat with four other Irish people, ate too much cake and scarcely spoke any German at all.
一家在韦克斯福德(Wexford)设有办公室的德国汽车零件公司资助了我们一次为期三周的德国奖学金之旅，我们为此展开了竞赛。我没有得到奖学金，但获得了一个临时攒的二等奖：在德国一家修道院为朝圣者提供食物。这次经历成了我日后数次试图掌握一门外语的预示，我和另外四个爱尔兰人住在一间公寓里，蛋糕吃了不少，德语一句没说。
⑩ glamorous ['glæmərəs] adj.特别富有魅力的；富于刺激的；独特的
⑪ cobbled-together 拼凑的；七拼八凑的
cobble ['kɒb(ə)l] n.鹅卵石 v.修补（鞋）
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While there, I felt lucky that the Germans spoke such good English because I doubted I would ever be any good. I loved Irish but could never really see the use for it, nor the endless Irish proverbs we were taught. Globe-trotting heroines didn’t resort to Irish to get themselves out of a tricky situation.
当时让我感到特别幸运的是，德国人的英语说得真好，不然我都怀疑自己什么忙都帮不上。我对爱尔兰语有着深沉的爱，但恐怕永远看不出它有什么用处，更别提我们学不完的那些爱尔兰谚语了。周游世界的女英雄们是不会靠爱尔兰语帮她们脱离困境的。
I laughed at the Frenchman who had studied the Irish language at Trinity, wore an Aran jumper and had for some reason chosen to teach us our native language at secondary school. Any Frenchman worth his salt would surely stay in Paris and not waste his time at the Presentation Convent on Grogan’s Road. He struggled with his Irish accent but bravely persisted in the face of our taunts.
我曾嘲笑过一个法国人，他曾在三一学院(Trinity)学习爱尔兰语，常穿着件阿兰毛衣，出于某种原因选择来中学向我们教授我们的母语。每个名副其实的法国人当然都会留在巴黎，而不是把时间浪费在格罗根路的Presentation修道院。他的爱尔兰语发音令人无语，但依然勇敢地直面我们的嘲讽。
⑫ globe-trotting adj.环球旅行的 n.(短期)环球旅行
trot [trɒt] n./v.快步；小跑
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I find myself thinking of him as I watch my daughter practise her cute holas. I think about the confidence it takes to use those words in the real world, to continue talking even as native speakers stare at you blank-faced.
我看着女儿可爱地练习着“hola”（西班牙语：你好），不由得想起了他。我想，一个人得多自信才能在现实世界说那些话，甚至当母语人士面无表情地看着你时还在继续说。
Maybe, I think, that is why the English are so reluctant to learn languages. While my corner of south-west London may be multilingual and many people do indeed speak a second language at home, the evidence suggests that fewer people are studying foreign languages.
我觉得，也许这就是为什么英国人这么不愿意学外语的原因吧。虽然我所在的伦敦市西南角可能是多语言环境，许多人也的确会在家讲第二门语言，但事实证明学习外语的人越来越少了。
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Just under 10,000 people sat A-level French in 2013, less than half the number that took it in 1996, a drop that in part reflects the fact that, since 2004, languages are no longer compulsory after the age of 14.
2013年只有不到1万人参加了A-Level法语考试，不到1996年参加考试人数的一半，这一下降部分反映了一件事，从2004年开始，外语不再是14岁以上学生的必修课。
The more I consider monolingualism and what it means, the more I start to think an hour a week is not enough. I buy a CD of Spanish nursery rhymes. My daughter loves them and her baby brother bangs his porridge bowl on the table in time to “Sol Español”.
我对单语及其影响思考得越多，就越觉得每周一小时学习是不够的。我买了一张西班牙语童谣CD。我女儿很喜欢这些童谣，而她弟弟每逢听到“Sol Español”会用他的粥碗敲桌子。
⑬ compulsory [kəmˈpʌlsərɪ] adj.（因法律或规则而）必须做的 n. （花样滑冰、竞技体操等的）规定动作；必修课
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As the Spanish lessons progress, I find myself picking up the Irish storybooks my daughter was given when she was born. “Póg mar seo”, she shouts, not remotely understanding what it means (“a kiss like this”) but liking the rhythm and the repetition. I make no serious effort to teach her Irish but am touched that the words mean something to her.
随着女儿开始上西班牙语课，我无意识地捡起了她出生时收到的一件礼物——一本爱尔兰语故事书。“Póg mar seo”（爱尔兰语：像这样亲吻），她喊道，完全不知道何意，但喜欢它的节奏和重复。我没有认真教过她爱尔兰语，但很感动这些词对她是有意义的。
I wonder if, like the Frenchman, these few Irish words will offer her something she won’t get in the cosmopolitan city that is her home, and whether in years to come she will be left with just a few fragmented Spanish phrases and only a vague memory of how she learnt them.
我不知道这寥寥几句爱尔兰语是否能给她带来一些她的大都会家乡不会给予她的东西，就像那个法国人一样；也不知道多年后她是否只能记得几句西班牙短语，以及学习这些短语的模糊回忆。
⑭ cosmopolitan [.kɒzmə'pɒlɪt(ə)n] adj.世界性的；全球各国的；大都会
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If nothing else comes of these lessons, I console myself her life will have been a little richer for not having been conducted solely in English. After all this time, I still remember my Irish proverbs. Mar dhea (a sceptical harrumph) and plámás (a particularly oily or self-serving flattery) are phrases I recall on an almost daily basis. There are no English equivalents that roll off my tongue quite as smoothly. And when I get the train home in the evening, I stand at Waterloo station, words filtering into my head as the light drops through the arches:
就算这些课什么也没教会她，我安慰自己她的生活也比只接触英语要丰富了一些。毕竟直至现在，我仍记得我的爱尔兰谚语。我几乎每天都会想起“Mar dhea”（爱尔兰语：怀疑的哼声）、“ plámás”（爱尔兰语：特别谄媚或是为谋私利的奉承）这些短语。英语就没这样的词汇能这么流利地从我嘴里说出来。每当夜里我要坐上回家的火车，站在滑铁卢站，那些词句就像透过拱门的光柱一样渗入我的脑海：
"dá fhada an lá tagann on tráthnóna."
(however long the day, the evening comes).
（爱尔兰语，“再长的一天，也会有夜幕降临。”）
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