Now, some of you may be thinking, "That's all very nice to enjoy language learning, but isn't the real secret that you polyglots are just super talented and most of us aren't?"
你们中的有些人可能会想，“享受语言学习固然美好，但是真正的秘密难道不是你们多语言者天生就比我们更擅长学习语言吗？”
Well, there's one thing I haven't told you about Benny and Lucas. Benny had 11 years of Irish Gaelic and five years of German at school. He couldn't speak them at all when graduating. Up to the age of 21, he thought he didn't have the language gene and he could not speak another language. Then he started to look for his way of learning languages, which was speaking to native speakers and getting feedback from them, and today Benny can easily have a conversation in 10 languages. Lucas tried to learn English at school for 10 years. He was one of the worst students in class. His friends even made fun of him and gave him a Russian textbook as a joke because they thought he would never learn that language, or any language. And then Lucas started to experiment with methods, looking for his own way to learn, for example, by having Skype chat conversations with strangers. And after just 10 years, Lucas is able to speak 11 languages fluently.
先别急，关于本尼和卢卡斯，有件事我还没说。本尼在学校时学习了11年的爱尔兰盖德尔语和5年的德语。而当他毕业时，却还完全不会用。直到21岁，他都认为自己没有语言天分，也学不会其他的语言。然后他开始找寻适合自己的语言学习方式，那就是和母语者交谈，并从他们那里得到反馈，而今天本尼可以毫不费力的用10种语言进行交流。卢卡斯在学校学了10年的英语。他是课堂上最差的学生之一。他的朋友们甚至取笑他，给了他一本俄语教材，想看他笑话，因为他们认为他永远也不可能学会俄语，或是任何一门外言。然后卢卡斯开始试验其他方法，寻找适合自己的学习方式，比如，用Skype和陌生人聊天。仅仅10年后，卢卡斯已经可以流利的说11种语言。
Does that sound like a miracle? Well, I see such miracles every single day. As a language mentor, I help people learn languages by themselves, and I see this every day. People struggle with language learning for five, 10, even 20 years, and then they suddenly take their learning into their own hands, start using materials which they enjoy, more effective methods, or they start tracking their learning so that they can appreciate their own progress, and that's when suddenly they magically find the language talent that they were missing all their lives.
这听起来是不是很神奇？如果是这样，那么我每天都会看到类似的奇迹。作为一名语言教师，我帮助人们自学语言，我每天都能看到奇迹发生。有些人5年、10年甚至20年都在语言学习中挣扎，然后他们突然就能够将学习掌握在自己的手中，开始使用他们感兴趣的材料，更加有效的方法，或是开始记录自己的学习进度，这样他们才能肯定自己的进步。就在这段时间，他们突然神奇般的找到了自以为一直欠缺的语言才能。
So if you've also tried to learn a language and you gave up, thinking it's too difficult or you don't have the language talent, give it another try. Maybe you're also just one enjoyable method away from learning that language fluently. Maybe you're just one method away from becoming a polyglot.
如果你也曾试着学习一门语言，然后你因为它太难了，或是觉得自己没有语言天赋而放弃了，再试试吧。或许你离熟练的说一门语言只差一种合适的，让你乐在其中的方法。也许你离成为一名多语言者，只差那一种方法。
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