Talking a second language keeps old age at bay    June 13, 2004  Sunday Times (London)
Jonathan Leake, Science Editor

讲第二种语言能够延缓衰老        2004年6月13日（周日时报）伦敦   Jonathan Leaka, 科学编辑
 
Learning and using a second language helps to protect the brain from the effects of ageing, a study has found. 一项研究表明：学习和使用第二语言可以防止大脑老化。

Researchers found that bilingual people are far better at retaining their mental abilities into old age than the majority, who speak only one language. 研究人员发现， 和大多数只说一种语言的人相比， 会说两种语言的人能更好地把记忆力保持至老年。

The findings suggest that parents who help their children to learn a language while young could be raising their chances of a healthy old age. 研究结果表明帮助孩子在幼年学习另外一种语言能使他们更可能有健康的老年生活。

This contrasts with advice given to earlier generations. In the 1950s it was believed that raising youngsters to be bilingual could inhibit their language development. Not until the late 1980s were modern languages made compulsory in the national curriculum. 这个结论和早期给出的建议非常不同。早在20世纪50年代，人们相信教小孩子两种语言有害于他们语言的发展。直到80年代晚期，现代语言才成为国家课程里的必修课。

Dr. Ellen Bialystok of York University in Toronto, Canada, author of the study, said people who had been bilingual for most of their lives were better able to concentrate on complex tasks. For elderly people, “bilingualism appears to offer widespread benefits across a range of complex cognitive tasks”. She compared the performances of 104 monolingual and bilingual people aged 30 to 59 with 50 aged from 60 to 88. 加拿大多伦多约克大学的博士Ellen Bialystok作了此项研究。他说一生里大多数时间说两种语言的人更有能力做好复杂的工作。“对老年人来说， 各种各样复杂的脑力工作中，说双语都会有很大的益处。”她比较了104个30到59岁的只说一种语言和说双语的人和50个60岁到88岁的人的表现。

The research follows other work done by Bialystok, which showed that the intellectual advantages of speaking two languages begins early in life. She found that four and five-year-olds who were learning two languages were more intellectually advanced in other ways. 这项研究是基于Bialystok的其他研究。研究表明学习两种语言的最好阶段从儿童时期开始。她发现学习两种语言的4岁和5岁的孩子在其他方面的智力也超前。

The findings have important implications for education. Other research has shown that children are at their most receptive to new languages while they are very young. 这些研究结果对教育来说有着非常重要的意义。其他研究表明孩子在非常小的时候对语言的接受能力最强。

There is also evidence that the younger a child learns a new language, the less of a foreign accent it will retain. In Britain, however, few children are taught a second language until they reach secondary school — by which time, the research suggests, it is too late for them to become truly fluent. 也有证据表明：孩子越早学习第二种语言，口音就会越准确。但是在英国，很少有孩子在进入中学以前学习两种语言， 而到了中学的时候，研究表明，孩子们的语言很难达到流利的程度。

Bialystok said that as people grew older they generally found it harder to concentrate on a task. “Life-long experience of managing two languages slows this age- related decline,” she added. Her work appears to confirm other research which indicates that brains, like muscles, grow and develop with use or atrophy with neglect. Bialystok说人们的年龄越大，就越难集中于一项工作。她又说：“能够一生运用两种语言能减缓这种与年龄相关的能力的下降。”她的工作肯定了其它的研究， 这些研究表明大脑和肌肉一样，用则进不用则废。

In the brain, growth is measured by the number and complexity of connections between neurones, rather than by size. 大脑的生长是由神经突触之间的链接的数目和复杂程度， 而不是大小，来衡量的。

A spectacular confirmation of the link between brain use and complexity came from a study of London taxi drivers. They had a larger than average hippocampus, the part of the brain associated with navigation in birds and animals — and it grew as they spent more time in the job. 对大脑使用和复杂性的关联性的证实来自于一项对伦敦出租车司机的研究。 出租车司机的海马状突起比一般人的大，这一部分大脑和鸟及动物的航行相关。随着他们做这一行业时间的增长，这一部分会长的更大。

The implication, say researchers, is that the more complex and well developed a brain is, the longer it will take for degenerative diseases to make an impact. 研究人员说， 这表明大脑发育得越复杂越好，退化性的疾病要产生损害就需要越长的时间。