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Chapter XIII
第十三章
It was in the spring of 1890 that I learned to speak. The impulse to utter audible sounds had always been strong within me. I used to make noises, keeping one hand on my throat while the other hand felt the movements of my lips. I was pleased with anything that made a noise and liked to feel the cat purr and the dog bark. I also liked to keep my hand on a singer's throat, or on a piano when it was being played.
1890年的春天，我開始學習說話。對我而言，能夠發聲講話的沖動變得日益強烈。我常常會發出一些雜音，我會把一只手放在自己的喉嚨上出聲，而別人則用手感知我嘴唇的移動。我對自己發出的任何聲音都感到無比滿足，我也喜歡通過觸摸感知貓兒“咕嚕咕嚕”的哼唱，或者是狗兒歡快的吠叫。有時候，我還會把手放在一個歌唱家的喉嚨上，或者是一架正在彈奏的鋼琴上面。
Before I lost my sight and hearing, I was fast learning to talk, but after my illness it was found that I had ceased to speak because I could not hear. I used to sit in my mother's lap all day long and keep my hands on her face because it amused me to feel the motions of her lips; and I moved my lips, too, although I had forgotten what talking was. My friends say that I laughed and cried naturally, and for awhile I made many sounds and word-elements, not because they were a means of communication, but because the need of exercising my vocal organs was imperative. There was, however, one word the meaning of which I still remembered, WATER. I pronounced it "wa-wa." Even this became less and less intelligible until the time when Miss Sullivan began to teach me. I stopped using it only after I had learned to spell the word on my fingers.
在我失去視覺和聽覺之前，我咿呀學語的速度很快，但是在得病之后，我就停止了講話，因為我什么都聽不見。于是，我整天坐在母親的腿上，還把手放在她的臉上，因為她嘴唇的移動令我興味盎然。同時，我也移動自己的嘴唇，不過我早已忘了當時都說了些什么。我的朋友們說，無論是笑是哭，我流露出的情緒都很自然；而且，我還會發出許多聲音和模糊的詞語。當然，這些聲音并不包含與人交流的成分，它只是表明我練習使用發音器官的本能需求。至今我仍然記得學習“water”這個詞的過程，一開始，我總是發出“wa?wa”的聲音。顯然，這樣的發音是令人難以理解的。直到蘇立文小姐教我學會用手指拼寫后，我便放棄了用發音進行交流的方式。
