第1866期:How multilingual dreams are connected to language learning

It is often said that if we dream in a foreign language, it's a sign that we are making progress in learning that language. But is it true? Before we can look at multilingual dreams, first we need to look at sleep. The link between sleep and language can be applied to how we learn any language, including our mother tongue. Even adults still learn about one new word every two days in their first language, but, if we are going to have a firm grasp of that new word, we need to link it to our existing knowledge. And in order to do that, we 'need to have some sleep', says Gareth Gaskell, a psychology professor at the University of York.

人们常说，如果我们梦见外语，则表明我们在学习该语言方面取得了进展。但这是真的吗？在我们研究多语言梦之前，我们首先需要研究睡眠。睡眠和语言之间的联系可以应用于我们学习任何语言的方式，包括我们的母语。即使成年人仍然每两天用他们的第一语言学习一个新单词，但是，如果我们要牢牢掌握该新单词，我们需要将其与我们现有的知识联系起来。约克大学心理学教授加雷斯·加斯克尔说，为了做到这一点，我们“需要睡一会儿”。

It's during sleep that the integration of old and new knowledge happens. At night, one part of our brain – the hippocampus – takes whatever new information it soaked up in the day, and passes it on to other parts of the brain to be stored. The role that dreams play in this night-time learning process is still being studied, but 'it's entirely possible that during multilingual dreams, the brain is trying to connect two languages', says Marc Züst, researcher at the University Hospital of Old Age Psychiatry and Psychotherapy in Bern, Switzerland.

新旧知识的融合是在睡眠期间发生的。晚上，我们大脑的一部分——海马体——吸收白天吸收的新信息，并将其传递到大脑的其他部分进行存储。梦在夜间学习过程中所扮演的角色仍在研究中，但老年精神病学大学医院的研究员和瑞士伯尔尼的心理治疗的马克·祖斯特说：“在多语言梦中，大脑完全有可能试图连接两种语言”。

So having multilingual dreams could mean that our brain is trying to master a new word or phrase, for example, but it could also have an emotional significance. Danuta Gabryś-Barker, a professor of psycholinguistics at the University of Silesia in Poland, suggests that multilingual dreams can express 'fears and desires' around learning a foreign language, including the wish to be a native-like speaker or to be accepted within a certain community. We clearly still have a lot to learn about multilingual dreams, but one thing seems certain: if you're trying to learn a new language, you should definitely sleep on it.

因此，做多语言的梦可能意味着我们的大脑正在尝试掌握一个新单词或短语，但它也可能具有情感意义。波兰西里西亚大学心理语言学教授达努塔·加布里斯·巴克 (Danuta Gabryś-Barker) 表示，多语言梦可以表达学习外语的“恐惧和愿望”，包括希望成为母语人士或在某个群体中被接受的愿望。某些社区。显然，关于多语言梦想，我们还有很多东西需要了解，但有一点似乎是肯定的：如果你想学习一门新语言，你绝对应该好好考虑一下。

make progress 进步
multilingual 使用多种语言的
apply to 适用
mother tongue 母语
firm grasp of 牢牢掌握
existing knowledge 已有知识
integration 融合
hippocampus 海马体
soak up 吸收（信息）
store 储存
learning process 学习过程
master 学习，掌握
significance 重要意义
psycholinguistics 心理语言学
express 表达
desire 渴望，愿望
native-like 像母语人士一样的，地道的
sleep on it “睡一觉再考虑”，考虑清楚再决定