讲堂｜学了这么多年英语，我们怎样才能用英语去真正交流？（英汉双语＋视频）

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So for the past 20 years, I’ve been helping Malaysian and other Southeast Asians to speak better English. And through training thousands of Southeast Asians, I’ve discovered a very surprising truth. 

在过去的20年里，我一直在帮助马来西亚人和其他东南亚人讲一口流利的英语。通过培训成千上万的东南亚人，我发现了一个令人惊讶的真相。

I’ve discovered that how well somebody communicates in English actually has very little to do with their English level. It has a lot to do with their attitude towards English. 

我发现一个人用英语交流的好坏实际上与他们的英语水平没有多大关系。这与他们对英语的态度有很大关系。 

There are people out there who have a very, very low level of English, and they can communicate very very well. One of them that I remember was a student, a participant of mine, named Faizal. He was a factory supervisor–English level very very low–but this guy could just sit and listen to anybody, very calmly, clearly, and then he could respond, absolutely express his thoughts beautifully, at a very low level of English. 

有些人的英语水平非常非常低，他们能够很好地交流。我记得其中的一位是学生，我的一个参与者，名叫费扎尔。他是个厂长——英语水平很低——但是这个家伙可以坐下来听任何人说英语，非常平静、清晰，然后他可以做出反应，用非常低的英语水平完美地表达他的想法。 

So, today I want to share with you what is so different about people like Faizal? How do they do it? 

所以，今天我想和大家分享一下像费扎尔这样的人为何能与众不同，他们是怎么做到的？ 

And second of all, why is this so important not only to you, but to your children, to your community, and to the future of Malaysia? 

其次，为什么这不仅对你很重要，而且对你们的孩子，对你们的社区，对马来西亚的未来同样重要？

And third of all, what’s one thing you can do, starting today, if you want to speak with that calm, clear confidence that people like Faizal have. 

第三，从今天开始，如果你希望像费扎尔这样的人有冷静、明确的自信，你可以做一件事。

So first of all, what is so different? How do people like Faizal do it? 

首先，有什么不同呢？像费扎尔这样的人是怎么做到的？

So to answer that question, I’m going to take you back about 10 years, okay? I was training staff at that time, and my daughter, at that time, was taking piano lessons. And I started to notice two really strong similarities between my daughter’s attitude or thinking towards playing the piano and a lot of Malaysians’thinking or attitude towards English. 

所以要回答这个问题，我会带你回到10年前，好吗？那时我正在培训工作人员，我女儿当时正在上钢琴课。我开始注意到我女儿对弹钢琴的态度和很多马来西亚人对英语的想法和态度有两个非常相似的地方。

Now first of all, I should tell you my daughter absolutely hated piano, hated the lessons, hated practicing. This is my daughter practicing piano, okay? This is as good as it got. This is the real thing. 

首先，我要告诉你，我女儿非常讨厌钢琴，讨厌功课，讨厌练习。这是我女儿练习钢琴，好吗？这已经是她最好的表现了，这是真的。

And she dreaded going to piano lessons because to my daughter, going to piano lessons, she was filled with this sort of dread, because it was all about not screwing up, right? 

她害怕去上钢琴课，因为我女儿，去上钢琴课这件事本身，就让她充满了这种恐惧，因为这一切都是为了不搞砸，对吧？

Because like for a lot of piano students, to both my daughter and her teacher, her success in piano was measured by how few mistakes she made. Now at the same time, I noticed that a lot of Malaysians went into English conversations with the same sort of feeling of dread. This sort of feeling that they were going to be judged by how many mistakes they were going to make, and whether or not they were going to screw up.

因为就像很多钢琴学生一样，对我女儿和她的老师来说，她在钢琴上的成功取决于她犯的错误有多少。与此同时，我注意到很多马来西亚人进入英语会话时都带着同样的恐惧感。这种感觉是，他们会被评判犯了多少错误，他们是否会搞砸。

Now, the second similarity that I noticed was to do with self-image. See, my daughter, she knew what good piano sounded like, right? Because we’ve all heard good piano. And she knew what her level was, and she knew how long she’d have to play for to play like that. 

现在，我注意到的第二个相似点与自我形象有关。我女儿，她知道弹得好的钢琴听起来像什么，对吧？因为我们都听过好听的钢琴曲。她知道自己的水平怎样，也知道自己要弹多长时间才能达到这样的水平。

And a lot of Malaysians, I noticed, had this idea of what good proper English is supposed to sound like, and what their–I see a lot of you nod–and what their English sounded like, and how far they would have to go to get there. And they also felt like they were–like my daughter–just bad, bad piano player, bad English speaker, right? My English not so good, lah. Cannot…Sorry, yah. Cannot…Ah– 

我注意到，很多马来西亚人都有这样的想法：他们知道好的英语应该听起来像什么，他们——我看到你们许多人点头——而他们自己的英语听起来像什么，以及他们要走多远才能达到那个水平。他们也觉得，就像我女儿一样，水平不好，钢琴弹得不好，英语说得不好，对吧？我的英语不是很好，嗯。做不到……对不起，是的。做不到……啊—— 

So I could see these similarities, but I still couldn’t figure out, okay, what is it about these people like Faizal, that are so different, that can just do it smoothly, calmly, with confidence? 

所以我可以看到这些相似之处，但是我仍然无法弄清楚，像费扎尔这样的人，有什么不同，可以顺利地，平静地，自信地完成英语沟通。

One day, I discovered that answer, and I discovered it quite by chance. It was a day when my computer broke down, and I had to go to a cybercafe. Okay, it was my first time, and I discovered cybercafes are disgusting places, okay? They’re really gross. They’re smelly, and they’re filled with boys. And they’re all playing noisy, violent games. They’re just disgusting places. 

有一天，我发现了那个答案，而且我是偶然发现的。那天我的电脑坏了，我不得不去网吧。好，这是我第一次，我发现网吧是恶心的地方，好吗？它们真的很恶心。它们很臭，而且里面都是男孩。他们都在玩吵闹、暴力的游戏。只是些恶心的地方。

But I had to go there. So I sat down, and I started noticing this guy beside me. And I became very interested in this guy next to me. Now, this guy is playing this game that is basically, it’s like shooting people until they die. And that’s it. That’s the game, right? 

但是我必须去那里。于是我坐下来，开始注意到我旁边的那个人。我对我旁边的那个人很感兴趣。现在，这个家伙正在玩这个游戏，基本上就是不停地杀人直到杀死别人。就这样。这就是游戏，对吧？

And I’m noticing that this guy is not very good. In fact, he’s terrible, right? Because I’m looking, and I’m seeing, like, a lot of shooting and not much dying, right? But what really interested me was behind this lousy player were three of his friends, sort of standing there watching him play. What I really noticed was even though this guy was terrible, even though his friends were watching him, there was no embarrassment. There was no feeling of being judged. There was no shyness. In fact, quite the opposite. 

但是我注意到这个人他不会玩游戏，事实上，他玩得很糟糕，因为我再看他玩得时候发现，他开了很多枪，但没杀掉几个人，但真正让我感兴趣的是这个糟糕的玩家背后的三个朋友，他们站在那里看着他比赛。我真正注意到的是，即使这个家伙水平很差，即使他的朋友在看他，他也没有什么尴尬。没有被评判的感觉。一点儿不羞怯。事实上，恰恰相反。

This guy’s like totally focused on the bad guys, smile on his face. All he can think about is killing these guys, right? And I’m watching him. And I suddenly realize: this is it. This is the same attitude that people like Faizal have when they speak English, just like this guy. 

这个家伙好像把注意力全都集中在坏家伙身上了，他脸上挂着微笑。他满脑子想到的就是杀了这些敌人，对吧？我在看着他。我突然意识到：就是这样。这就是像费扎尔这样的人讲英语时所持的态度，就像这个家伙一样。

When Faizal goes into an English conversation, he doesn’t feel judged. He is entirely focused on the person that he’s speaking to and the result he wants to get. He’s got no self-awareness, no thoughts about his own mistakes. 

当费扎尔进入英语会话时，他不觉得自己受到了评判。他全神贯注于和他谈话的人以及他想要得到的结果。他没有自我意识，不考虑自己地错误。

I want to share with you a real, true example, to paint a picture, of somebody who speaks English like they are playing piano and someone who speaks English like they are playing a computer game. And this is a true story. It happened to me. 

我想和你们分享一个真实的例子，来描绘一幅面，一个人说英语就像在弹钢琴，而另一个人说英语就像在玩电脑游戏。这是一个真实的故事。这件事发生在我身上。

A while ago, I was in a pharmacy. I had to buy omega; my doctor said I should get omega. And I go to the shelf, there’s tons of omega, there’s omega that’s high in DHA, omega that’s high in EPA, and I don’t know which one to buy. 

不久前，我在一家药房。我不得不去买omega（药品），因为我的医生说我应该吃omega。我走到货架上，货架上有很多omega，有富含DHA的omega，和高EPA含量的omega，我不知道买哪一种。

Now, the sales rep happened to be there. And I saw she’s like this well-dressed, professional woman. I walk over to her, and I see this look as she sees me, this sort of–it’s a look I recognize very well. Her eyes go all wide. It’s sort of that panic: Oh my God! I’ve got to speak to a native speaker; she’s going to judge me and notice my mistakes. 

这时，销售代表碰巧在那儿。我看到她像个穿着讲究的职业女性。我走到她跟前，我看到了她看到我时的表情，这种表情——这是我很熟悉的一种表情。她的眼睛睁得大大的。有点恐慌：我的天哪！我得和一个说英语为母语的人讲话，她会对我评头论足，注意到我的错误。

I go up to her, and I explain my situation: which omega do I get? And she starts explaining to me everything about DHA and EPA you could possibly imagine. She speaks very quickly, goes all around in circles. And when she finishes, no idea what to buy. 

我走到她跟前，向她解释我的处境：我吃哪种？她开始向我解释，所有你可以想象到的关于DHA和EPA的一切。她说得很快，绕圈子。当她讲完之后，我还是不知道该买什么。

So I turn to the girl behind the counter. Now, the girl behind the counter, I heard her before, her English level is very low. But when I walk over to her, this girl, there’s no fear. In fact, she’s just looking at me. You know that look? Like Yeah? Okay So, how? Yeah, I’ve been in Malaysia a long time. 

所以我转向柜台后面的女孩。现在，柜台后面的女孩，我以前听说过她，她的英语水平很低。但是当我走向她，这个女孩，没有恐惧。事实上，她只是看着我。你知道那个样子吗？是吧？好，怎么办？是的，我在马来西亚待了很长时间。

So, I go up to her and I explain the problem, EPA and DHA. She looks at me, she says,“Okay, yeah” “Ah, EPA for heart.” “DHA for brain.” “Your heart okay or not?” 

所以，我走到她跟前，解释一下问题，EPA和DHA。她看着我，说，“好的，是的”，“啊，EPA是给心脏用的”，“DHA是给大脑的”，“你的心脏好不好？”

“ So I said,“Yeah, yeah,”I said,“my heart is really, I think it’s pretty good.” 

所以我说，“是的，是的，”我说，“我的心真的很好，我认为它非常好。

” She says,“Your brain okay or not?” 

她说：“你的大脑还好吗？“ 

I said,“No. No, my brain is not as good as it used to be.”

我说：“不，不，我的脑子没有以前那么好。” 

She looks and says,“Okay lah, you take Omega DHA!” 

她看了看然后说：“好吧，拉啊，你拿欧米茄DHA！“ 

Problem solved, right? So we’ve got two different kinds of communicators. We’ve got the one who’s got a high level, but totally focused on herself and getting it right, and therefore, very ineffective. We’ve got another one, low-level, totally focused on the person she’s talking to and getting a result. Effective. And therein lies the difference. 

问题解决了，对吧？我们有两种不同的交流者。我们有一个水平很高，但完全专注于自己，并把事情做好的人，因此，效率很低。我们还有一个，低级别的，完全专注于她正在交谈的人并获得结果。有效。其中的区别就在于此。

Now, why is this distinction so important not just to you, to your children, but to the future of Malaysia and countries like Malaysia? And to answer that, let’s take a look at who actually is speaking English in the world today, okay?

现在，为什么这种区别不仅对你，对你的孩子，而且对马来西亚和像马来西亚这样的国家的未来如此重要？为了回答这个问题，让我们来看看今天世界上谁在说英语，好吗？

So, if we looked at all of the English conversations in the whole world, taking place right now on planet Earth, we would see that for every native speaker, like me, there are five non-native speakers. And if we’d listen to every conversation in English on planet Earth right now, we would notice that 96% of those conversations involved non-native English speakers–only 4% of those conversations are native speaker to native speaker. This is not my language anymore, this language belongs to you. It’s not an art to be mastered; it’s just a tool to use to get a result. 所以，如果我们看看现在地球上发生的所有英语会话，我们会发现对于像我一样的每个母语者来说，就会有五个非英语母语的人参与对话。如果我们现在收听地球上用英语进行的每一场英语对话，我们会注意到96%的会话涉及非母语的英语者——只有4%来自英语为母语的的人之间的对话。这不再是我的语言，这语言属于你们的。这不是一门需要掌握的艺术，它只是一种用来获得结果的工具。

And I want to give you a real-life example of what English is today in the world, real English today. This is another true story. I was at a barbecue a little while ago–this was a barbecue for engineers, engineers from all over the world. And they were making hot dogs. 

我想给你们举一个真实生活中的例子，当今世界的英语是什么的，什么是真正的英语。这是另一个真实的故事。我刚才参加了一个烧烤会——这是为来自世界各地的工程师、工程师举办的烧烤会。他们在做热狗。

Now some of the hot dogs were regular hot dogs, and some were these cheese hot dogs, you know, with the cheese in the middle. A French engineer is cooking the hot dogs, and he turns to this Korean engineer, and he says,“Would you like a hot dog?” 

有些热狗是普通的热狗，有些是奶酪热狗，你知道的，中间有奶酪。一位法国工程师正在做热狗，他转向这位韩国工程师，说：“您想吃热狗吗？”

“ And the Korean guy says,“Yes, please!”

韩国人说：“是的，谢谢！“

He says,“Do you want the cheese?” 

他说：“你要奶酪吗？“ 

And the Korean guy looks around at the table, he says,“I no see cheese.” 

韩国人环顾四周，他说：“我看不到奶酪。”

 The French guy says,“The hot dog is contains the cheese.” 

法国人说：“热狗里有奶酪。” 

The Korean guy doesn’t understand him, right? So the French engineer tries again:“The hot dog is making from with the cheese.” 

韩国人不理解他，对吗？所以法国工程师再次尝试：“热狗是用奶酪做的。” 

Korean guy still doesn’t understand. He tries again, he says,“The hotdog is coming from–No, the cheese is coming from the hot dog.”Korean guy cannot understand. 

韩国人仍然不了解。他试了一次，他说，“热狗是来自–不，奶酪是热狗做的。”韩国人无法理解。

Now there’s a Japanese engineer who’s been listening to this conversation, turns to the Korean engineer and he says,“Ah! Cheese integrator!”He understands, okay. Everybody understands. So, this is what English is today. It’s just a tool to play around with to get a result, like a computer game. 

有个日本工程师在听这个对话，他转向韩国工程师说，“啊！奶酪是个积分器！"他明白，好吧。大家都明白。这就是今天的英语。这只是一个工具，玩弄得到结果，像一个电脑游戏。

Now, the challenge is that we know in schools all around the world, English is not really being taught like it’s a tool to play with. It’s still being taught like it’s an art to master. And students are judged more on correctness than on clarity. 

现在，挑战是我们知道在世界各地的学校，英语教学并不是真的像玩工具一样。它仍然被当作一门艺术来教授。对学生的评判更多的是基于正确性，而不是清晰性。

Some of you might remember the old comprehension exam in school. Does everybody remember in school when you’d get a question about a text that you read, you’d have to read through some text, right? And then answer a question to show that you understood the text? And this may have happened to you that you showed that you understood the text, but you got a big X because you made a little grammar mistake. Like this student. 

你们中的一些人可能还记得学校里以前的理解考试。在学校里每个人都记得吗，当你看到一个关于你读过的课文的问题时，你必须读一些课文，对吗？然后回答一个问题，表明你理解课文？这可能发生在你身上，你表明你理解课文，但是你得到一个大X，因为你犯了一点语法错误。就像这个学生。

Now this student clearly understood paragraph four. But no, not correct! Because he left the letter N off the word“environment.”But in the real world, what would matter? In the real world, what would matter is did you understand the email, or did you understand your customer so that you can go ahead and take action? 

这个学生清楚地理解了第四段。但是，不，不对！因为他把字母N从“环境”一词中忘掉了。但是在现实世界中，又有什么关系呢？在现实世界中，重要的是你能理解邮件的内容吗？或你了解你的客户？以便您可以继续采取行动？

Now, the problem that I see here, over and over, is that people take the attitude they developed about English in school, and they bring it into their adult life and into their work. 

现在，我在这里一遍又一遍地看到的问题是，人们采取他们在学校里对英语形成的态度，并将其带入他们的成年生活和工作中。

And if you’re in a stressful situation, and you’re having a conversation, and you’re trying to give a result to someone and say it correctly, your brain multi-tasks, it cannot do two things at once. And what I see is the brain just shutting down. And you may recognize these three symptoms of the brain shutting down. 

如果你处于一个有压力的境地，你正在进行一次谈话，你试图给某人一个结果并正确地说出来，你的大脑多任务，它不能同时做两件事。我看到的是大脑刚刚关闭。你可能会意识到大脑关闭的这三个症状。

The first one is that your listening goes. Someone is talking to you, and you’re so busy thinking about how you’re going to respond and express yourself correctly, you don’t actually hear what the other person said. And I can see a lot of nodding in the audience. 

第一个症状，你的听力下降了。有人在和你说话，而你却忙于思考如何正确地回应和表达自己，你实际上没有听到别人说什么。我可以看到很多观众点头。

The second thing to go is your speaking. Your mind sort of shuts down, and that vocabulary you do know just disappears, and the words don’t come out.

第二个症状就是你的讲话。你的头脑有点停顿，你所知道的词汇就这样消失了，话就说不出来了。

The third thing to go is your confidence. And the worst thing about this is you may only be confident because you cannot express yourself clearly, but to the person talking to you, they may misunderstand this as a lack of confidence in your ability to do the job, to perform. 

第三症状就是是你的信心。最糟糕的是，你可能只是因为不能清楚地表达自己，而变得没有自信，但是对于和你谈话的人，他们可能误解为缺乏自信，对自己的工作能力和执行能力缺乏信心。

So if you want to speak English like Faizal with that great confidence, here’s the one thing that you can do. When you speak, don’t focus on yourself. Focus on the other person and the result you want to achieve. 

所以如果你想像费扎尔那样自信地说英语，这能做的只有一件事：当你说话的时候，不要把注意力集中在自己身上，把注意力集中在别人和你想要达到的结果上。

Imagine a next generation of Malaysians, all with that wonderful confidence in communication that Faizal has, at any level of English. Because let’s remember that English today is not an art to be mastered, it’s just a tool to use to get a result. And that tool belongs to you. 

想像一下，下一代马来西亚人，无论英语水平如何，都像费扎尔一样对交流充满信心。因为让我们记住，今天的英语不是一门需要掌握的艺术，它只是一个用来获得结果的工具。那工具是属于你的。

Thank you.

谢谢

（中英文来源于 TED）

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