Another advantage a toddler holds is his very lack of experience. After speaking our native language for decades, we adults can’t help but hear the second language through the filter of the first. And this filter doesn’t take decades to develop. Researchers have found that newborn Japanese babies can distinguish between the English “L” and “R” sounds, but if not exposed to Western languages, they begin to lose that ability — not by the age of 6 or even 3 — but by eight months.

孩童具有的另一个优势是没有经验。在讲了十几年母语之后，我们成年人在听第二语言时，会不由自主地经过第一语言的过滤。而且这种“过滤”并不需要几十年来发展，研究人员发现，日本的新生儿能够辨别英语中“L”和“R”发音的区别，但是如果不接触西方语言，他们的辨别能力就会丧失——并不是在6岁甚至3岁的时候丧失，而是在八个月大时就会丧失。

Adult language learners are, to borrow a phrase used by some psycholinguists, too smart for our own good. We process too much data at once, try to get everything right from the get-go and are self-conscious about our efforts. But toddlers instinctively grasp what’s important and are quite content to say, “Tommy hitted me,” as long as Tommy gets what’s coming to him.

用一些心理语言学家的话说，成年的语言学习者聪明反被聪明误。我们会同时处理太多数据，试图从一开始就正确掌握所有东西，而且对自己说的东西会感到难为情。但孩童会本能地掌握要点，并不介意说，“汤米打了我（Tommy hitted me，此句有语法错误——译注）。”只要汤米能得到惩罚就好。

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