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Learning a new language can grow one's perspective. Now scientists find that learning languages grows parts of the brain.
學習一門新語言能拓展人們的視角。目前，科學家們發(fā)現(xiàn)學習語言能開發(fā)大腦的某些部位。
Scientists studied the brains of students in the Swedish Armed Forces Interpreter Academy, who are required to learn new languages at an alarmingly fast rate. Many must become fluent in Arabic, Russian and the Persian dialect Dari in just 13 months. The researchers compared the brains of these students to the brains of medical students who also have to learn a tremendous amount in a very short period of time, but without the focus on languages.
瑞典軍隊翻譯學院的科學家們研究了該校學生的大腦。這個學校要求學生以驚人的速度學習一門新的語言，要求他們在13個月內(nèi)必須熟練掌握阿拉伯語、俄語和波斯方言達里語。研究人員比較了這些學生與醫(yī)學院學生的大腦，其中醫(yī)學院學生被要求在很短的時間內(nèi)學習大量除語言之外的知識。
The brains of the language learners exhibited significant new growth in the hippocampus and in parts of the cerebral cortex. The medical students' brains showed no observed growth. The study was in the journal NeuroImage.
語言學習者大腦的海馬體和大腦皮質(zhì)的某些部位增長顯著。而醫(yī)學院學生的大腦沒有觀察出增長。這項研究發(fā)表在《神經(jīng)影像雜志》上。
Interestingly, the amount of growth in the brains of the linguists correlated with better skills—so those with better language skills also experienced more growth in the hippocampus and areas of the cerebral cortex that relate to language.
有趣的事，語言學習者大腦的生長量與語言能力有相互的關(guān)系——學習者的語言能力越強，大腦中海馬體和大腦皮質(zhì)與語言有關(guān)的區(qū)域增長得越顯著。
For other students who had to work harder to improve their language skills, the scientists found greater growth in the motor area of the cerebral cortex. Where and how much change take place in the brain are linked to how easily one picks up a language. But it remains to be seen why this is.
科學家們發(fā)現(xiàn)對于其他靠刻苦學習來提高語言水平的學生而言，他們的大腦皮質(zhì)運動區(qū)增長得更明顯。大腦的哪個部位發(fā)生變化以及如何變化與語言習得的難易程度有關(guān)。但個中原因還有待研究。
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