迷思三，犯错没关系

本文英语原文节选自 antimoon，略有删改并增加中文译文 Myth #3: "It is OK to make mistakes"

If a student in a language class does not want to speak, the teacher will normally assume they are shy, and will encourage (sometimes force) them to speak. He’ll tell the student: “Speak and don’t worry about mistakes”. After all, speaking practice is more important than making mistakes, isn’t it? 如果外语课上有学生不想说话，教师通常会假定那些学生害羞，并鼓励（有时强迫）他们说话。教师会对学生说：「说吧，别担心说错了。」练说话到底还是比犯错要紧，不是吗？

事实Fact

Mistakes are not harmless. Every time you say an incorrect phrase in a foreign language, you increase the probability that you will say that phrase again. Therefore, if you speak with mistakes, you can easily teach yourself bad grammar.

A lot of people think it’s more important to improve your fluency than to improve your correctness. If you follow this path, after some time you may find you can speak the language with ease, but it will be largely your own version of the language — not correct language as it’s spoken by native speakers. In other words, you may become quite fluent in speaking the wrong way.

错误并非没有害处。每一次你说外语的语句有错，你下一次再说出同样错句的机会就增大了。因此，如果你说话有错，你很容易教了自己错的语法。

很多人认為，改善你的流畅度，比起改善你的正确度更重要。如果你朝著这方向走，一段时间后你或许发觉你能轻易地说外语，但那很大部份是你自己版本的外语，而不是母语者说的那种正确外语。换言之，你可能会变得很熟练於用错误方式说话。

Perhaps such a state is more desirable than not speaking at all. But when bad grammar comes to your mind so easily, it becomes very difficult to improve. When you’ve been saying things like “He go away” for the last two years, it’s not so easy to start saying “He went away” all of a sudden.

The point is that it’s hard to go from “fluency with mistakes” to “fluency without mistakes”. It’s much easier to start with “careful, correct output” and then work on your speed to achieve “fluency without mistakes”.

或许这种状况比起完全说不出来更理想，但当坏的语法这麼容易进到你的心中，要改善就变得困难。当你这两年来都在说出像"He go away"的句子，忽然要开始改口说"He went away"绝非易事。

重点在於要从「流利有误地说话」转变到「流利无误地说话」是困难的。相比之下，由「小心正确地输出」开始，然后著眼於提升速度，达到「流利无误地说话」，要容易多了。

结论Conclusions

Making mistakes is not OK if your goal is to speak fluently and correctly.

If you’re a person who can’t help but make a mistake in every other sentence, you definitely shouldn’t speak yet. Even if you have a teacher who will correct your every error, you will not be able to remember such a large number of corrections and will make the same mistakes over and over again. You should rather concentrate on reading and listening, no matter what your teacher says.

If you decide to speak, do it carefully, sticking to phrases that you’re absolutely sure are correct.

如果你目标在说话流利正确，犯错并非没关係。

如果你是每说几句就错的人，现在你肯定不应该开口。即使你有个教师可以改正你所有错误，你记不起这麼大量的改正，结果还是不断地犯上同样错误。你应该著重读和听，不管你的教师怎麼说。

如果你决定要说，请务必小心地说，只说你绝对肯定正确的语句。