克服演讲焦虑：2. 我害怕忘记要说的话

这个BBC播客由英国境外的广告支持。

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside The UK.

这并不是我们曾被承诺的未来。

This is not the future we were promised.

比如，这个作为节目的标语怎么样？

Like, how about that for a tagline for the show?

来自BBC，这是《界面》节目，探讨科技如何重塑你的每周生活和整个世界。

From the BBC, this is the interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world.

这与季度收益或科技评测无关。

This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews.

这关乎科技实际上如何影响你的工作、政治和日常生活。

It's about what technology is actually doing to your work and your politics, your everyday life.

以及人们使用互联网的各种奇特方式。

And all the bizarre ways people are using the Internet.

在bbc.com或你收听播客的任何平台收听。

Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

您正在收听来自BBC英语教学的《英语会话》播客。

You're listening to the Learning English Conversations podcast from BBC Learning English.

我们很快会推出另一期《地道英语》节目。

We'll have another episode of The English We Speak soon.

但今天，我们将继续我们的特别系列《克服演讲焦虑》，这档播客旨在帮助您战胜说英语时的恐惧。

But today, we're continuing with our special series, Beating Speaking Anxiety, a podcast to help you fight your fears of speaking in English.

本期节目名为《我害怕忘记单词》。

This episode is called I'm scared of forgetting my words.

你有没有在说英语时突然想不起某个单词的经历？

Have you ever been speaking English and suddenly you forget a word?

我试图说英语时就会忘词。

I forgot the words when I try to speak.

有一瞬间，我的大脑一片空白。

For a moment my mind is blank.

我知道自己想说什么，但就是想不起任何词来。

I know what I want to say, but no words come to mind.

我的大脑就像突然当机了一样。

It's like my mind just shuts down.

双语者面临一个巨大的挑战，因为他们要处理双倍的内容。

The bilingual faces a big challenge in that they have double of everything.

在今天的节目中，我们将讨论如何在说英语时出错而不慌乱。

In today's episode, we're going to talk about how to avoid panicking when things go wrong speaking English.

欢迎来到《克服演讲焦虑》，这档播客将帮助你战胜说英语的恐惧。

Hello and welcome to Beating Speaking Anxiety, the podcast to help you fight your fears of speaking English.

我是乔治亚，BBC英语教学的英语教师和主持人。

I'm Georgie, an English teacher and presenter at BBC Learning English.

我是哈南，BBC阿拉伯语频道的双语记者，也是阿拉伯语教育节目《Durs》的主持人。

And I'm Hanan, a bilingual reporter for BBC Arabic and presenter of the Arabic educational series, Durs.

你可以在我们的网站bbclearningenglish.com上找到本集的文本和其他学习资源。

You can find a transcript for this episode and other resources to help you on our website bbclearningenglish.com.

我们在节目开始时听到了当你说一种新语言时忘记单词那种令人恐惧的感觉。

We heard at the start of the program about that terrifying feeling when you forget your words when you're speaking a new language.

这种情况发生过吗，佐治亚？

Has that ever happened to you, Georgie?

哦，发生过好多次了。

Oh, so many times.

我学西班牙语的时候经常这样。

It happened all the time when I was learning Spanish.

你的大脑一片空白。

Your mind goes blank.

会出现尴尬的停顿。

There's an awkward pause.

这会让你感到紧张。

That makes you stressed.

然后你就更难想起那个词了。

And then it's even harder to remember the word.

这是一个恶性循环。

It's a vicious cycle.

当你使用第二语言时，这种情况非常常见，即使你觉得自己已经掌握了大量词汇。

And this is very common when you're using a second language, even if you feel like you know lots of vocabulary.

我们采访了来自乌克兰的玛丽亚，她发现说英语时大脑会一片空白。

We spoke to Maria from Ukraine who finds her mind goes blank when speaking English.

我注意到，即使是一些简单的单词我也记不起来，因为对我来说，谈论与供水或政治局势相关的复杂话题反而更容易。

I noticed that I forgot even simple words because for me, it's easier to have a conversation with a difficult topic connected with water supply with some political situation.

玛丽亚可以就政治等复杂话题进行对话，但她发现记住日常情境中的词汇更困难。

Maria can have a conversation about complicated things like politics, but she finds it harder to remember words for everyday situations.

但当我需要问一些非常简单的问题，比如在公交车上或找地方时，我就会完全迷失并感到沮丧。

But when I need to ask something really simple, for example, in a bus or trying to find some place, I'm completely lost and frustrated.

我不知道为什么。

I don't know why.

这并不是

It's not

玛丽亚不知道这些情境中的词汇，而是在那一刻她很难想起来。

that Maria doesn't know the words for these situations, but in the moment she finds it difficult to remember them.

那么，为什么会发生这种情况呢？

So why does this happen?

要回答这个问题，我们需要了解在学习一门新语言时，我们的大脑里发生了什么。

Well, to answer that question, we need to understand what's happening in our brains when we learn a new language.

当你刚开始学习一门语言时，你会进行大量有意识的活动，而这些活动在说母语时是不会发生的。

So when you're first learning a language, you're doing a lot of really conscious activity that you don't do when you're speaking your native language.

这是邓迪大学的艾莉莎·梅林格教授。

This is Alissa Melinger, a professor at the University of Dundee.

艾莉莎研究我们在说话时如何选择词汇，她说，说一门新语言需要有意识的思考。

Alissa researches the way we choose our words when we're speaking, and she says that speaking a new language requires conscious activity.

这意味着你的大脑必须付出大量努力去仔细思考，而不是像说母语那样自动完成。

That means your brain has to think things through with a lot of effort rather than doing things automatically like you would when you speak your first language.

有意识地先想这个词，然后是那个词，现在我得加上另一个我平时不会放在这里的词，但这里才是它该放的位置。

Consciously thinking this word first, then that word, now I have to put this other word that I wouldn't normally put here, but this is where it goes.

我必须记住，这里才是它该放的位置。

I must remember that this is where it goes.

所以你在进行大量非常明确的思考。

So you're doing a lot of kind of very explicit thinking.

阿莉莎说，由于你的大脑在做这么多工作，即使你知道这个词，也可能难以完成最后一步——找到具体的词来说出来。

Alissa says that because your brain is doing all this work, it can struggle to reach the final step of finding a specific word to say, even if it's a word you know.

可能是这样。

It could be.

这可能是处理超载造成的，你找不到这个词，因为你花了太多精力去记住单词应该按什么顺序排列。

It could be a sort of processing overload that you can't find the word because you spent so much energy trying to remember what order the words are supposed to go in.

阿莉莎称这种情况为处理超载。

Alissa calls this situation a processing overload.

你的大脑同时试图处理太多事情，她说这在语言学习的初期阶段可能尤其成问题。

Your brain is trying to do too much at once, And she says it can be a particular problem in the early stages of learning a language.

你可能会想，比如去度假时，你会想，好吧，我得学会说‘请’。

You think like you go on holiday and you think, right, I need to learn how to say please.

我得学会说‘谢谢’。

I need to learn how to say thank you.

我需要学会怎么要账单。

I need to learn how to, you know, ask for the bill.

你其实并没有真正学习这些词或这门语言。

You're not really learning those words or learning that language.

你只是在记忆一些声音。

You're just memorizing sort of sounds.

当你只把单词当作母语的翻译，却从未实际使用过它们时，在你需要点咖啡或问路的紧张时刻，你的大脑就更难找到它们。

When you only know words as a translation of your native language and you haven't used them, they're much harder for your brain to find in that stressful moment where you need to order a coffee or ask directions.

你所学习的那些词，并没有它们自己的含义。

Those words that you're learning, they don't have their own kind of meanings.

它们没有扎根于你使用过它们的经验中。

They're not grounded in your experience of having used them.

你可能无法调用它们，因为它们从一开始就没有被充分地建立起来。

You can fail to access them because they were only sort of they were never very strongly represented in the first place.

因此，对于我们在节目开头听到的玛丽亚来说，她记不住简单词汇的问题可能是因为她使用得不够多。

And so for Maria who we heard from at the start of the program, her problem remembering simple words could be because she hasn't used them enough.

但正如我们所知，高级学习者也常常会忘记单词。

But as we know, advanced learners often forget words too.

根据艾莉莎的说法，这可能只是双语者的一个自然现象，双语指的是能够说两种语言的人。

According to Alissa, this could just be a part of being bilingual, which is how we describe someone who can speak two languages.

双语者面临一个巨大的挑战，那就是他们的一切都是双倍的。

The bilingual faces a big challenge in that they have double of everything.

所以他们的词汇量是双倍的。

So they have double the vocabulary.

当你在两种语言之间切换时，你很可能在两种语言中使用单词的频率都降低了。

When you're switching between two languages, you are probably using the words in both languages less frequently.

正如我们所知，如果你使用单词的频率较低，那么在说话时，你的大脑就更难记住它们。

As we know, if you use words less, they are harder for your brain to remember when you're speaking.

一种解释是，这两种语言彼此竞争，从而在处理过程中引入了不确定性或干扰，使你更难最终找到想要的发音。

One explanation is that the two languages are competing with one another, and so that just introduces uncertainty or interference in the processing and makes it harder for you to to to eventually find the sounds that you're looking for.

另一种说法是，对于任何双语者来说，你使用每种语言的频率都只有单语者使用其单一语言的一半。

Alternatively, it's because for any bilingual, you're using each language half as much as a monolingual would use their single language.

所以你所有的语言表征都比较弱。

So all your representations are sort of weaker.

听阿莉萨这么说，让我意识到我们的大脑有多了不起，当我们说另一种语言时，大脑要付出多大的努力。

Hearing from Alissa, it makes me realize how amazing our brains are and how hard they have to work when we speak a different language.

是的。

Yes.

听起来，随着你不断练习说和使用所学的词汇，事情会变得更容易。

And it sounds like things can get easier the more you practice speaking and using the words you learn.

你使用得越多，这些词就越容易被调用。

The words become more accessible the more you use them.

对，正是如此。

Yeah, exactly.

但正如阿莉萨所说，即使是流利的双语者也会忘记单词。

But as Alissa says, even fluent bilinguals forget words.

这只不过是同时在脑海中保留两种语言的一部分而已。

It's just part of holding two languages in your head.

所以我们需要想一些应对这种情况的办法。

So we need to have some ideas for what to do when this happens.

是的。

Yes.

乔治，你有什么建议吗？

Georgie, do you have any tips?

我认为最好的方法是找到一种方式来描述那个词。

I think the best way is to find a way to describe that word.

比如，如果你记不起‘table’这个词，你可以说，这是我们吃饭用的东西。

So if you can't remember the word table, for example, you can say something like, it's something we eat food off.

它是平的，有四条腿。

It's flat and has four legs.

这样对方就能猜出这个词，你们就能继续对话。

Then the other person can guess the word and you can continue with your conversation.

所以关键是不要卡住。

So the idea is to not get stuck.

但如果你真的想找到那个特定的词，那就学一些我们所说的‘争取时间’的表达。

But if you really do want to find that specific word, learn some what we call buying time phrases.

例如，抱歉，我想不起这个词了。

For example, sorry, I can't think of the word.

请稍等一下。

Just bear with me.

或者，我脑子一片空白。

Or my mind has gone blank.

给我一秒钟。

Just give me a second.

我太喜欢这个了。

I love that.

你还记得吗，Georgie，上周我们提到过一些技巧，你可以坦诚面对，把它变成一个笑话，分享你的尴尬，对方很可能会帮你。

And do you remember, Georgie, we have some tips from last week that you feel free to be vulnerable, make a joke out of it, Share your embarrassment and you know the other person will probably help you.

是的，人们有时候比我们想象的要更友善。

Yeah, people are kinder than we think sometimes.

本期《克服演讲焦虑》就到这里。

That's it for this episode of Beating Speaking Anxiety.

请访问我们的网站，观看更多帮助你缓解焦虑的视频。

Find a video with more tips to help you with your anxiety on our website.

访问 bbclearningenglish.com。

Visit bbclearningenglish.com.

在本系列的下一期中，我们将讨论在对话中听不懂对方说话时该怎么办。

Next up in this series, what to do when you don't understand the other person in the conversation.

暂时告别了。

Goodbye for now.

再见。

Bye bye.

这并不是我们曾经被承诺的未来。

This is not the future we were promised.

比如，这作为节目的标语怎么样？

Like, how about that for a tagline for the show?

来自BBC，这是《界面》节目，探讨科技如何重塑你的每周生活和整个世界。

From the BBC, this is the interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world.

这并不是关于季度收益或科技评测。

This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews.

而是关于科技实际上如何影响你的工作、政治以及日常生活。

It's about what technology is actually doing to your work and your politics, your everyday life.

还有人们使用互联网的各种奇怪方式。

And all the bizarre ways people are using the Internet.

在bbc.com或你收听播客的任何平台收听。

Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.