評論
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I think there are a lot of reasons, but I first want to address the one that you're probably most likely to have heard of,
我覺得理由很多，但是我首先想要弄清一個概念，可能大家也都聽過，
because actually it's more dangerous than you might think.
但它可能比你想象的還要重要。
And that is the idea that a language channels your thoughts,
這個觀點是語言能塑造你的思維，
that the vocabulary and the grammar of different languages gives everybody a different kind of acid trip, so to speak.
不同語言的詞匯和語法結構給了每個人不同的思維方式，類似于此。
That is a marvelously enticing idea, but it's kind of fraught.
這是個挺誘人的觀點，但卻有點誤人子弟。
So it's not that it's untrue completely.
這個說法也不全錯。
So for example, in French and Spanish the word for table is, for some reason, marked as feminine.
比如說，法語和西班牙語中“桌子”這個單詞，由于某些原因，都是陰性的。
So, "la table," "la mesa," you just have to deal with it.
比如“la table”、“la mesa”，你知道就夠了。
It has been shown that if you are a speaker of one of those languages and you happen to be asked how you would imagine a table talking,
研究表明，如果這些語言是你的母語，那么當你被問到要想象一張桌子突然開口說話，
then much more often than could possibly be an accident,
那么大多數情況下，不排除意外，
a French or a Spanish speaker says that the table would talk with a high and feminine voice.
一位說法語或西班牙語的人會說桌子說話的聲音是女性的高音。
So if you're French or Spanish, to you, a table is kind of a girl, as opposed to if you are an English speaker.
所以如果你是法國或西班牙人，你會把桌子看成女孩，而說英語的人的看法恰恰相反。
It's hard not to love data like that,
我們都很喜歡這種觀察結果，
and many people will tell you that that means that there's a worldview that you have if you speak one of those languages.
而且很多人會告訴你這意味著當你說話時，你繼承了那種語言的世界觀。
But you have to watch out, because imagine if somebody put us under the microscope,
但是你要謹慎些，想象一下有人把我們放在顯微鏡下，
the us being those of us who speak English natively. What is the worldview from English?
我們這些母語是英語的人。那么英語的世界觀是什么？
