学会同周围和世界对话 Learning to speak within—and with—our world

My 3-year-old son started tospeak a while ago — but only recently in English.

不久前，我三岁的儿子开始讲话——但是最近才开始讲英文。

Most Americans whoencountered the blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy during his recent summer vacationin the rural United States figured he was babbling rather than attempting toconverse with them in Mandarin.

近期在美国乡下过暑假的时候，大部分美国人遇到这个金发碧眼的小男孩时，都认为他只是在牙牙学语，未曾想到他是在试图用普通话与他们交流。

Strangers in northernMichigan would hear me responding to Sagan and at least sometimes presumed wewere foreign.

听到我回复萨根时，北密歇根一些不认识我们的人有时会以为我们是外国人。在北密歇根，总有些时候陌生人听到我跟萨根说话时，会以为我们是外国人。

Fair enough.

不无道理。

But they were seemingly leftguessing at what language we were using, since, when it comes to Chinese, wedon’t look the part, to say the least.

但他们似乎一直猜测我们所讲的语言。退一步讲，就算我们说中文时，我们也并不像中国人。但是，他们似乎会待在那儿猜测我们讲的语言。因为退一步讲，如果要说我们讲的是中文的话， 我们看起来又不是中国人的样貌。

In other words, their eyesand ears would seem to disagree.

换言之，他们所看到的和听到的都似乎证明我们并不是中国人。换言之，目之所及告诉他们我们是当地人，而耳朵听到的内容有让他们觉得我们是外国人。

“So,” a few asked, “where areyou from?”

“所以，”一些人问道：“你们来自哪里？”一些人会问我们：“你们来自哪里呢？”

“Here,” I’d reply.我会说：“就是这里人。”

“就是这里，”我回答道。

Their question purposefullydidn’t exclude the provided answer.

他们的问题并没有刻意避开我的这一回答。他们问的时候也自觉地想到了这个可能的答案。

I’d then explain we live inChina where both kids were born and raised, and we were making our annual visithome to see family.

接着，我解释道，我们定居在中国，我的两个孩子都在那里出生长大。我们每年会回来探亲。

Their faces settled intonods, seemingly as much as an affirmation to themselves as to us.

他们脸上露出赞同的神情，似乎及时对自己猜测的肯定，也是对我们的肯定。他们点点头，似乎是肯定了自己的猜测，也好像是终于确认了我们的身份。

“Well, that makes sense,” Iimagined them thinking.

“这样就讲得通了，”我猜他们会这样想。他们一定会想：“这样就说得通了。”

Otherwise, it really wouldn’tmake much sense in the woodsy communities we were visiting.

否则，我们一家人来到在这个北密歇根的这个森林社区，实在没多大意义。

Home.

这里是我们的家啊。

But understanding Sagan wasstill a guessing game for family members, who knew the rules but not how toplay in his mother tongue.

但对家里人来说，他们还是靠猜来理解萨根的话。萨根明白语言规则但不知道如何用母语表达。

“Wo xiang he nai! (I want to drink milk!),” Sagan would announce tomy mom.

萨根会对奶奶说道：“Wo xiang he nai!（我想喝奶！），”

“Are you sleepy?” Grandmawould reply in English.

奶奶会用英文回答道：“你是困了吗？”

“Hungry? Need a new diaper?”

“饿了吗？还是要换一个新的尿不湿？”

When she’d correctly guess,“milk?”, Grandma wouldn’t understand his affirmative response withouttranslation.

就算奶奶猜对了萨根的意思“想喝牛奶吗？”，没有翻译的话，奶奶还是不知道自己已经猜对了奶奶还是不明白萨根接下来给她的反馈

After two months in the US,including a birthday, Sagan returned to Beijing speaking English, mostlyseparately.

在美国待了两个月后（在此期间还过了个生日），萨根回到北京时，开始零零碎碎地讲一些英文。

Still, days after we werereunited, he tugged my sleeve, pointed to the sky and declared: “Baba(Dad!),hai you yi ge(there’s another) airplane flying. Look!”

在我们团聚后的几天里，有一次，他拽着我的袖子，指向天空，说：“Baba（爸爸！），hai you yi ge（还有一个）飞机在飞。你看！”

I’d just pointed the firstout to him, using only English.

我刚刚指给他看第一架飞机时，就用了英文。

His 7-year-old sister, Lily,also learned Chinese first and then mixed until she, also around 3, unglued thelanguages, both of which she speaks like a native.

萨根有一个七岁的姐姐莉莉，她也是先学会了中文，然后中英文混着讲。直到莉莉三岁左右的时候，她能将两种语言分开了。莉莉的中英文说得都很好，就像本地人一般。离里的中英文都说得和当地人一样好。

The only deficiency in herPutonghua (standardized spoken Mandarin) is a Beijing accent in which growlingersounds unfurl the end of manysyllables.

唯一的缺点就是莉莉讲普通话（标准化国语）时带有北京腔。莉莉普通话（标准化国语）的唯一缺点就是有北京腔。北京口音重说话在许多音节发音结束时带有很重的儿化音。北京腔会在很多音节后面带上儿化音。

Our family has made it apoint to circumnavigate a regret many immigrant families in the US, includingChinese friends, repeated to us about raising their kids abroad — that is,allowing the parents’ native tongue to become antipodean.（正相反的）

有很多的美国的移民家庭，包括一些中国朋友，不止一次地提及，在国外抚养孩子的话，父母的母语将不再是孩子的母语了。而我们家对此特别注意，尽量弥补这一遗憾。

Or, at least, we’ve tried to.

至少，我们尝试过。或者说，我们至少尝试着去这样做了。

My wife, daughter and Isprinkle commonly used Chinese words into overwhelmingly English sentences athome.

我的妻子、女儿和我在家时会在句子复杂的英文中夹杂常用的中文词汇。

Sure, environment is part ofthe reason our kids picked up Chinese first.

当然，环境是我们孩子先掌握中文而不是英文的原因之一。

But another feature of thelanguage seems to be a major underwriter — Mandarin is easier for beginningspeakers to pronounce.

但是语言的特征似乎是另一个重要原因——对于刚开始学说话的小孩子来说，普通话的发音更为容易。但语言的另一特征似乎才是主要原因——对于初学者来说，普通话的发音更容易。

That’s because tykes who arejust starting to talk initially can’t annunciate consonant sounds at the end ofsyllables. Putonghua has only three —n,ngand ’er— but most syllables instead end with vowels.

那是因为刚学说话的小孩子一开始不会在音节结尾处发辅音。而普通话只有三个辅音——n,ng和er, 普通话中大部分音节都是以元音结尾。

So, “horse” is nearlyimpossible for a nascent chatterbox to pronounce.

因此，对于刚学说话的小孩子来说“horse”这个单词的发音几乎不可能完成。

“HO’wuh” is about as close asour kids came, initially. That pesky（麻烦的） “rse” endingkicked them in the lips.

“HO’wuh” 是小孩子一开始就能发出来的音。 “rse”结尾就很麻烦了，因为他们嘴唇的形状难以控制。

Ma? No problem.

那么“Ma”呢？这个发音完全没有问题。

But environment’s role inlanguage acquisition recently became clearer as our daughter completed herfirst month of first grade in a local school.

但是最近环境在语言习得中扮演的角色变得更加清晰了。我们的女儿在当地学校上一年级的第一个月就完成了学习任务。女儿在当地学校一年级上了一个月后，环境在语言习得中的作用更明显了。

Her Chinese reading andwriting will soon surpass her English.

她的中文阅读和写作水平很快超过了她的英文能力。

I’m, frankly, both delightedand dismayed.

说实话，我对此既欣喜又沮丧。

Could there be a linguistictradeoff in becoming better than almost all nonnative readers of multiplelanguages but not as good as most native writers of any one?

能否在比使用多国语言的非本地读者表现出色的同时，也能够和任何一个本地作者表现一样优秀呢？是否会有一种语言上的权衡，即几乎能够胜过所有非本地的多语言读者，但又不如大多数本土作家那样优秀？

Or, will our kids claim thebest of both worlds, linguistically and culturally?

或者说，我们的孩子能否在两国的语言和文化方面都能做到最好？我们的孩子能否在两国不同的语言和文化方面都做到最好？

Only their lives will tell.

只有他们以后的表现会给我们答案了。