迷思一，学外语最好方法是去外国

本文英语原文节选自 antimoon，略有删改并增加中文译文 Myth #1:“The best way to learn a foreign language is to go to a foreign country”

A lot of people seem to think that being in a foreign country means that you automatically learn the country’s language well. Perhaps the most prominent people who believe in this “common-sense truth” are European parents who pay a lot of money to send their children to language schools in England, expecting that they will come back speaking fluent English. 许多人似乎认為到了外国，就自然会学好那国的语言。深信这条「常理」的人，最显著的例子，可能是欧洲的一些父母。他们花大笔金钱，送子女到英国的语言学校，期望子女归来后，就能说一口流利英语。

事实Fact

Most immigrants in America don’t speak English very well, even after living there for 20 years. Many of them have been making the same basic mistakes for decades — for example, saying things like “He make tea?” instead of “Did he make tea?” or “I help you” instead of “I will help you”. They typically speak with strong accents, which enables others to instantly classify them as Asians, Latinos, Russians, etc. 绝大多数移居美国的人都不能说一口很好的英语，即使住了达20年。很多人几十年来还在犯相同的初等错误——例如说"He make tea?"而非"Did he make tea?"，或者"I help you"而非"I will help you"。他们通常说话口音很重，别人立时能听出他们是亚洲裔、拉丁裔、俄罗斯裔等等。

The reason immigrants don’t do anything about their grammar and pronunciation is that there is little pressure to do so. Other people can understand them despite their mistakes (sometimes with some effort), and are normally too polite to correct them. 移民不理会自己的语法和发音，原因在缺少压力催促他们去做。即使他们出错，别人还是能明白他们（有时要费点劲），而别人一般也不好意思去改正他们。

The example of immigrants in America reveals a truth that many language learners find quite shocking: that living in a foreign country simply does not make you speak the country’s language well. It does not force you to learn good grammar, good pronunciation, or a large vocabulary, because you can do quite well without those things in everyday life. For example, you can skip all your articles when speaking English (“Give me apple”, “Watch is not good”) and still be able to shop in America or Britain without much trouble. 美国移民的例子，揭示了一个令不少学外语者非常惊讶的真相：住在外国根本不能使你说好外语。你不会被迫去学好的语法、好的发音，或者大量的词汇，因為你不学，日子也能过得好。例如，你说话时可以略过所有英语冠词("Give me apple", "Watch is not good")，而仍可在美国或英国购物，不带来很大麻烦。

Being in a foreign country only forces you to learn what is necessary to survive — the ability to understand everyday language and just enough speaking skills to order pizza and communicate with your co-workers or co-students. The rest is up to you, your motivation and ability to learn — which means that you’re not much better off than someone who’s learning the language in his own country. 在外国生活，只会迫使你学会应付生活所必需的技能——能够理解日常对话，并学会足够的口语去订购薄饼，或者和同事、同学沟通。要不要学更多，视乎你自己、你的动力和学习能力——就是说你并不比一个留在本国学外语的人有多少优势。

In addition, being in a foreign country often forces you to say incorrect sentences, because it forces you to speak, even if you make a lot of mistakes. When you’re in a foreign country, you cannot decide that you will temporarily stop talking to people and focus on writing practice (which would enable you to learn correct grammar better than speaking, because you could take as much time as you needed to look up correct phrases on the Web or in dictionaries). You have to speak, because your life depends on it. 而且，你身在外国往往被迫说错误的句子，因為你被迫要说话，儘管你犯很多错误。当你在外国时，你不能决定暂时不和人说话，集中精力练习写作（写作比说话更能让你学会正确的语法，因為你有充足时间到网上或词典中，查找正确的语句）。你一定得说，因為这样才能生存。

By making mistakes, you reinforce your bad habits, and after a couple of years of saying things like “He make tea?”, it’s really hard to start speaking correctly. It is important to remember that native speakers will not correct your mistakes. Instead, they will try to be nice and try to understand you, no matter how bad your grammar is. 犯错误使你巩固自己的坏习惯，等到你说了好几年像"He make tea?"的句子，你很难开始正确地说话。要记住这重要一点：母语者不会改正你的错误；反而他们会对你友善，试著去明白你，不管你的语法多麼差劣。

结论Conclusions

While going to another country may seem like a sure-fire way to master a foreign language, it is not so. Without sufficient motivation, you will learn very little and are likely to end up speaking in an understandable way, but with lots of mistakes. On the other hand, if you have the motivation, you might as well simulate a foreign-language environment in your own home with foreign-language TV and the Internet. Such an environment will be safer, because it will not force you to speak and reinforce your mistakes. Instead, you can learn at your own pace and concentrate on pronunciation, input and writing before you start speaking. 虽然到外国生活看似是必定能掌握外语的方法，但其实不然。没有足够动力，你会学得很少，结果很可能是你可以用人家明白的方式说话，但却有许多错误。相对地，如果你有动力，你或许更应在你家中营造外语环境，可藉由看外语电视和上网达成。这样的环境会更為安全，因為你不会被迫说话，使你错误更牢固。你反而可以用适合你的节奏学习，集中於发音、输入语言材料及写作，然后才开始说话。

The advantages of going abroad are:去外国的优点是：

• easy access to native speakers that you can converse with (though you can also find natives in your own country, or you can just talk with someone who’s learning the same language)
• the opportunity to perfect your listening skills (trying to understand English-language TV and movies is not quite the same as trying to understand the speech of a teenaged supermarket clerk in Frederick, Maryland)
• the opportunity to learn useful everyday words which are not frequently heard on TV or in movies, e.g. Kleenex, ATM, carpool, parking space, detergent, deli, cereal.
• 容易找到母语者交谈，（虽然你在自己国家也可以找到他们，又或者乾脆和学习相同外语的人说话。）
• 有完善听力的机会，（尝试理解英语电视、电影，和理解马里兰州弗雷德里克郡一个十多岁的超级市场店员的说话不太一样。）
• 有机会学会有用的日常词汇。这些词汇不会经常在电视或电影上听到。例如Kleenex, ATM, carpool, parking space, detergent, deli, cereal。

All things considered, learning in your own country will be a safer (and cheaper) option than going abroad, assuming you can motivate yourself and can find opportunities to speak in the language you’re learning. After you’ve learned to speak the language fluently, you can go abroad to polish your listening skills and make your vocabulary a bit more native-like. 考虑所有因素，留在本国学习比起去外国更安全（也更廉宜），这是假设了你能驱动自己学习，又能找到机会用你学的语言说话。等到你外语说得流利了，你可以到外国去练好聆听，并学会更地道的词汇。