AF Education
专属博客 Liam Carrigan
唱学英语这一招你试过吗？
Singing your Way to English Fluency: How Music can improve your English
通过唱歌来学英语到底是一个好方法还是坏方法，取决于你的个人态度。我住在日本的时候，就常常被我的朋友邀请去卡拉OK派对。
One of the upsides, or downsides depending on your attitude, about living in Japan is that I regularly find myself being invited to Karaoke parties with my friends.
随着我去卡拉OK次数的增加，我越来越同意我爸第一次去在日本去卡拉OK酒吧回来跟我说的那番话：“一个伟大的卡拉OK歌手是有趣的，一个差劲的卡拉OK歌手也可以是有趣的，但在卡拉OK里面最劲爆的是唱得很糟糕却觉得自己是一个明星的人！”
As far as karaoke goes, I tend to agree with what my dad said the first time he went to a karaoke bar in Japan: “A great karaoke singer is fun, a bad karaoke singer can also be fun, but the best kind of karaoke is a terrible singer who thinks they are a star in the making!”
言归正传，家父也发现了有趣的另一面。在派对的乐子、饮酒、唱歌当中，他很惊喜地发现我的一些日本朋友唱的美国歌发音特别标准。
Joking aside, my father also noticed another interesting facet to the evening. Amidst all the fun, drinking, singing and so on, he was amazed at how natural some of my Japanese friends’ accents sounded when they were singing American songs.
“他们的英语口语肯定特别棒。”我的父亲说道。
“They must all be really good at speaking English” he remarked.
事实正好相反。我很爱我的日本朋友，但当说到英语时，我只能说他们很少有人能连着说两句话的。
In fact it was quite the opposite. As much as I love my Japanese friends, when it comes to English, most of them can barely string two sentences together.
然而，当他们的手中握着麦克风时，闭上你的眼睛，你会真的以为佛瑞迪·莫库瑞（译者注：英国皇后乐队的前主唱）、埃尔维斯·普雷斯利（译者注：美国歌手猫王）在你跟前唱歌呢。
And yet, when they have that microphone in their hand, if you shut your eyes, you could be forgiven for thinking that it was actually, Freddy Mercury, Elvis Pressley, et al, right there with you in that karaoke booth.
那么，音乐有助于学习音乐吗？事实上，如果运用得当的话，它真的会很有帮助。
So, just how effective is music as an actual tool for learning English. In truth, it can, when used correctly, actually be really useful.
首先，歌曲和旋律朗朗上口，反之，歌词随着旋律也会更容易融入到你的脑海当中。这让你更容易记住词序和语调，要知道这我在大阪的学生当中即使是英语水平比较高的在这两方面也还有困难。
Firstly, songs are catchy, and the melodies, and, in turn, the words that follow them, do tend to stick in your mind. This makes it easier to remember the word order and the intonation, issues which many of my students here in Osaka, even the advanced ones, still have trouble with.
在英语或者是许多其他语言当中记忆单词的重要一环，就是诵读以及不断的练习。研究表明，或者是作为老师的我可以证明，当你在练习当中加入节拍、节奏或者音乐元素，学生会比平时更容易记住生词。
A large part of memorizing new words in English, or indeed most other languages, is choral repetition and drilling exercises. Research has indicated, and also as a teacher I can personally vouch for this, that when you apply a beat, rhythm or musical element to this drilling, students tend to remember things much better than they did before.
还有一种被大肆吹嘘但仍然有待得到证实的是：“莫扎特效应”，有人认为，如果学生在学习的时候听一些特定类型的音乐，特别是古典音乐，能提高学习能力。
There is also the much vaunted, though as of yet still to be conclusively proven, “Mozart effect”, the idea that listening to certain types of music, especially classical, whilst studying, boosts the student’s capacity for learning.
我在高中的一位老师遵循了这一理论，但说实话，这招对我没用，但也不能说对其他人也没用。反正不管学习的时候有没有背景音乐，我都一直是优等生。
I had a teacher in high school who subscribed to this theory, and to be honest, it didn’t really work for me, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it doesn’t work at all. I was consistently a grade A student, with or without music playing in the background.
此外，不仅是歌曲本身的旋律或者音乐本身帮助你学习英语，歌词也能。大部分英文歌都包含许多你的教科书上不会出现的俗语、俚语和有用的短语。接触这些语言不但能帮助提高你的口语，更重要的是能够帮助你对英语的理解。我的日本和中国朋友在英语上的最大问题是他们不知道同样的意思有20种不同的表达方法。
Also, it’s not just the rhythm and musical nature of songs that helps you to learn English, it’s the words used as well. English songs, for the most part, include a lot of colloquialisms, slang and generally useful phrases that aren’t necessarily going to show up in your average textbook. Exposure to this language not only helps your speaking, but more importantly, it also helps your comprehension. One of the biggest issue many of my Japanese and Chinese friends have with English is the way in which there always seems to be about 20 different ways of saying the same thing.
这当然有些夸张了，其实他们还不至于那样。
This is of course hyperbolae, but only slightly so.
如果说歌词能够“超越教科书”或许有点过了，但可以说它们教了教科书之外的“真实语言”。我在学习日语的时候也发现了这一点，特别是跟教科书截然不同的大阪方言，因为教科书更倾向于东京方言，相当于我们说的“女王英语”。（译者注：比起大阪方言，东京方言更接近日本教科书式的标准语，而“女王英语”也更接近标准英语，但是歌词则未必会用标准语来谱写，所以作者说能让我们学到教科书以外的语言。）
Song lyrics go “beyond the textbook” as it were, and the teach “real language” that simply isn’t included enough in textbooks. I have found similar in my studies of Japanese, particularly the Osaka dialect, which is often radically different from what we see in the textbooks, which tends to favour the Tokyo dialect more, since this is probably considered to be the Japanese equivalent of the “Queen’s English”.
歌曲还有其他比教科书更好的地方，那就是教科书里不会见到的——我们诉诸现实生活的困境和挣扎的情感。
Songs also have another major advantage over textbooks. Since they are often about real life situations and the struggles therein they have the one thing that a book never can fully convey: emotion.
中国人和日本人说英语的最大缺陷是他们经常听起来木然、缺乏情感。如果你看一些成龙早期的美国电影，你能通过他平庸又没有演技的表演看出他还在努力学英语当中。咱们还是面对这个事实吧：没有人在看成龙电影的时候期待看到奥斯卡得奖者般的表演！
One of the biggest flaws in the way both Chinese and Japanese speak English is that their speech can often sound wooden and emotionless. If you watch some of Jackie Chan’s earlier American movies, where he is clearly still getting to grips with English, this is reflected in his seemingly flat, uninspired acting. But, let’s face it: nobody watches Jackie Chan movies expecting to see Oscar winning acting!
倾听英文歌手通过音乐传达出来的发自肺腑的情感，还可以帮助你更好地理解语调和变音，让你的英语口语发音更像欧美人。
By listening to the emotional, often heartfelt, way in which some singers convey emotion through their music, it can help you to better understand the subtle change in intonation and inflexion that will give your spoken English a much more human voice.
最后还有文化方面的得益。不论是一首抒情的情歌、一首鼓舞人心的摇滚歌曲，还是有抗议动机的政治歌曲，很可能的是，任何美国、英国或者是澳洲的歌曲跟你在中国听到的歌曲完全不同。歌曲不只是学习工具，它们还是进入欧美文化的快速通道，它们不但能提高你的英语口语，它们还会帮助你更好地理解英语的语言世界。
Finally there is also the cultural aspect. Whether the song is a love ballad, an inspirational hard rock anthem, or a politically motivated protest song, chances are, an American, British or Australian singer’s take on these issues is going to be radically different from anything you will hear in China. Songs aren’t just tools of learning, they are also gateways into a foreign culture, and they will not just improve your spoken English, they will better inform your understanding of the English-speaking world too.
