听力损失的原因是什么？

你认识刚开始学英语的人吗？我们有一个新的简单视频系列专为他们打造——《伦敦字母挑战赛》。三支队伍在伦敦四处奔走，寻找八个字母，这些字母将带领他们赢得冠军王冠。现在就在我们的网站上观看这个系列吧。

Do you know someone who is starting to learn English? We have a new easy video series just for them. The London Letter Challenge. Three teams race around London to find eight letters which will take them to the winning crowns. Watch the series on our websites now.

Bbclearningenglish.com。六分钟英语。来自bbclearningenglish.com。

Bbclearningenglish.com. Six Minute English. From bbclearningenglish.com.

大家好。这里是BBC学习英语的《六分钟英语》。我是尼尔。

Hello. This is Six Minute English from BBC Learning English. I'm Neil.

我是乔治。随着年龄增长，我们许多人注意到自己的听力变差了。也许我们需要更专注地听，或者请别人说得更大声些。尼尔，你有过这种情况吗？

And I'm Georgie. As we get older, many of us notice our sense of hearing getting worse. Maybe we need to concentrate harder or ask people to speak more loudly. Has that happened to you, Neil?

其实没有。之前有一阵子，我以为自己的耳朵可能变差了，但做了检查后，幸好一切正常。

Not really. A while ago, I thought maybe my ears were getting worse, but I had a check up and everything was fine, thankfully.

哦，那太好了。仅在英国，听力损失就影响了一千八百万人，而且这个数字还在增加。在本期节目中，我们将探讨为什么随着年龄增长我们会失去听力，并照例学习一些有用的新词汇。

Oh, that's great. In The UK alone, hearing loss affects eighteen million people, and that number is increasing. In this programme, we'll discover why we lose hearing with age, and as usual, learn some useful new vocabulary.

你也可以在我们的网站bbclearningenglish.com上找到本集的文字稿。但现在注意听，乔治，因为我有个问题要问你。你知道人体中最小的三块骨头——锤骨、砧骨和镫骨都位于耳朵里吗？但其中哪一块是最小的？是a) 锤骨 b) 砧骨 还是 c) 镫骨？

And you can also find a transcript of this episode on our website bbclearningenglish.com. But now listen up, Georgie, because I have a question for you. Did you know that the three smallest bones in the human body, the hammer, the anvil and the stirrup are all located in the ear? But which one of those is the smallest? Is it a) the hammer b) the anvil or c) the stirrup bone?

这个问题有点难。我猜是砧骨。

That one's a difficult one. I'm going to say the anvil bone.

好的。我们稍后会揭晓答案。要理解为什么随着年龄增长我们的听力会变差，首先了解一点耳朵的工作原理是很有帮助的。以下是伦敦皇家国家耳鼻喉医院的耳鼻喉外科医生Nish Mehta先生，在BBC广播四台的《Inside Health》节目中为初学者所做的讲解。

Okay. Well, we'll find out the answer later on. To understand why our hearing gets worse with age, it's useful to know a little about how the ear works in the first place. Here's Mr Nish Mehta, an ear, nose and throat surgeon at the Royal National ENT Hospital in London, giving a beginner's class to BBC Radio four programme Inside Health.

听力是一种奇妙的感觉，它是一种特殊的感觉。而耳朵确实是听觉器官。所以耳朵分为三个主要部分：外耳、中耳和内耳。外耳就是你看到的那部分。

Hearing is an amazing sense, it's a special sense. And the ear is really the hearing organ. So the ear is split up into three main parts. It's the outer ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear. The outer ear is the bit that you see.

它位于你头部的侧面，我们称之为耳廓。可以把它想象成卫星天线，负责收集声音并将其引导至感觉器官。然后这些声音被传递到中耳。

It's on the side of your head. We call that the pinna. Think of that as the satellite dish. It collects the sounds and it funnels them in towards the sense organ. That then gets transmitted to the middle ear.

中耳的主要功能是放大这些声音。这是通过鼓膜实现的，鼓膜捕捉声音并随之振动，与你听到的噪音振动产生共鸣。然后这些振动被传递到人体内三块最小的骨头：锤骨、砧骨和镫骨。

The middle ear's main job is to amplify those sounds. That's done by having an eardrum which catches it and then vibrates sympathetically to the vibration of the noise that you heard. And then that's passed on to the three smallest bones in the body, the hammer, the anvil, and the stirrup.

耳朵由外耳、中耳和内耳组成。它是我们的感觉器官之一。身体的特定部位——你的耳朵、眼睛、舌头、鼻子和皮肤——让你能够感知外部世界。

The ear is made up of outer, middle, and inner parts. It's one of our sense organs. Specific parts of the body your ears, eyes, tongue, nose and skin which allow you to experience the outside world.

可见部分，即外耳或耳廓，作用类似卫星天线，收集声音并将其导入中耳。动词'funnel'意指通过狭窄空间移动或引导某物。

The visible part, the outer ear or pinna acts like a satellite dish, collecting sounds which it funnels into the middle ear. The verb funnel means to move or direct something through a narrow space.

一旦进入中耳，鼓膜会放大声音，然后将其传递到内耳的微小毛细胞，这些细胞随后向大脑发送电信号。这是一个惊人的系统，但不幸的是，它在任何阶段都可能出现问题。在此，BBC广播四台《内部健康》节目主持人詹姆斯·加拉格尔向尼什·梅塔询问问题通常从何时开始出现。

Once in the middle ear, the eardrum amplifies the sounds before transmitting them to tiny hairs in the inner ear, which then sends electrical signals to the brain. It's an incredible system, but unfortunately one that can go wrong at any stage. Here, James Gallagher, presenter of BBC Radio four's Inside Health, asks Nish Mehta when problems tend to start.

尼什，今天我们将会花很多时间讨论与年龄相关的听力损失。这种情况从什么时候开始？听力的磨损大约从八岁左右就开始了。好吧，所以我们注定要完蛋了。我们已经处于下降螺旋中，但我们的系统有很多冗余设计。

We're going to spend a lot of today, Nish, thinking about age related hearing loss. When does that start? Wear and tear of your hearing starts from around the age of eight. Okay, so we're doomed already. We're already on a downward spiral, but we've got a lot of redundancy on the system.

听力下降的速度部分取决于你与生俱来的基因，部分取决于你所处的环境。因此，一个拥有强大听力保护基因但终生操作气动钻机的人，其听力下降速度可能远快于另一种情况的人。你可以想象，你的大脑在幕后进行了大量计算，只是为了听人说话并理解所说的词语。所以当听力逐渐衰退时，大脑往往会增加其聆听努力。因此，你往往需要很长时间才能意识到自己正在经历听力困难。

And the speed at which our hearing declines is partly based on the genetics that you're born with and then partly based on the environment that you're exposed to. So someone who has really strong genetics to protect them from hearing but spends their life on a pneumatic drill may have a much faster decline than someone the other side. You can imagine that your brain is doing so much computation behind the scenes just to listen to someone speaking and understand the words that are saying. So whilst hearing is going, the brain tends to increase its listening effort. And so often it's a very slow process for you to realise that you're struggling with hearing.

我们的听力磨损从八岁就开始了。'磨损'指的是日常使用造成的损伤。

Wear and tear of our hearing starts as young as eight. Wear and tear means the damage that comes from ordinary everyday use.

当尼什这么说时，詹姆斯惊呼'我们完蛋了'，这是一种非正式的表达方式，意思是注定要失败。从八岁起，我们的听力就处于下降螺旋中，即情况越来越糟的状态。

When Nish says this, James exclaims, we're doomed, an informal way of saying we're destined to fail. From the age of eight, our hearing is on a downward spiral, a situation which gets worse and worse.

但先别担心，人类听力在进化过程中形成了系统冗余——这是一个技术术语，意味着有多种方式可以实现相同的结果，因此如果其他系统失效，备用系统可以接管。例如在这里，大脑会更努力地工作以补偿到达内耳的较弱声音信号。

But don't worry just yet human hearing has evolved with redundancy in the system a technical phrase meaning that there are many ways to achieve the same outcome so that a backup system can take over if other systems fail. Here, for example, the brain works harder to compensate for a weaker sound signal reaching the inner ear.

此外还有其他方法可以帮助改善听力损失，包括助听器、手术，甚至仅仅是清除多余的耳垢。这可不是我喜欢的活儿。在经历了这段关于听觉世界的迷人旅程后，我想是时候揭晓你的问题的答案了，尼尔。

And there are other ways hearing loss can be helped as well, including hearing aids, surgery or even just removing extra earwax. Not a job I would like very much. After that fascinating journey into the world of hearing, I think it's time to reveal the answer to your question, Neil.

我问你人体中最小的骨头是哪块，它们都在耳朵里。是 a) 锤骨 b) 砧骨 还是 c) 镫骨？

I asked you which is the smallest bone in the body and they are all in the ear. Is it a) the hammer b) the anvil or c) the stirrup bone?

我说的是砧骨，对吧？

I said the anvil, didn't I?

你是说了，但恐怕你显然没好好听生物课，因为你答错了。事实上是镫骨。好了，我们来回顾一下学到的词汇，从感觉器官开始——身体的特定部分，比如你的耳朵和眼睛，它们让你能够体验世界。

You did, but I'm afraid you obviously weren't listening in biology class because you are wrong. It is in fact the stirrup bone. Okay, let's recap the vocabulary we've learned, starting with sense organs specific parts of the body like your ears and eyes, which allow you to experience the world.

To funnel（引导）是指将某物移动或导向一个狭窄的空间。而 funnel（漏斗），作为名词，是指一个锥形的工具，用于实现这一功能。

To funnel means to move or direct something through a narrow space. And a funnel, the noun, is a cone shaped tool which does this.

Wear and tear（磨损）指的是日常使用某物所带来的损耗。

Wear and tear refers to the damage that comes from using something every day.

如果你说 we're doomed（我们完蛋了），意思是我们将要失败或遭遇不幸。

If you say we're doomed, you mean we're going to be defeated or fail.

而 a downward spiral（恶性循环）是指一种情况持续不断地变得越来越糟。

And a downward spiral is a situation which continuously gets worse and worse.

最后，redundancy in the system（系统冗余）指的是拥有不止一种方法来实现目标，以便在其他方法失败时可以有备用方案接管。你可能会难过地听到，我们的六分钟时间又到了，但何不前往我们的网站 bbclearningenglish.com 尝试本集的测验和工作表呢。再见，

And finally, redundancy in the system refers to having more than one way to achieve an objective so that a backup can take over if other methods fail. You'll be sad to hear that once again our six minutes are up, but why not head over to our website bbclearningenglish.com to try the quiz and worksheet for this episode. Goodbye for

再见。

now. Goodbye.