Have you ever held a question in mind for so long that it becomes part of how you think?

你是否曾經把一個問題留在心中很久， 結果它已經成為你的一種思路？

Maybe even part of who you are as a person?

甚至可能已經成為你自己的一部分？

Well I've had a question in my mind for many, many years and that is: how can you speed up learning?

我思考了一個問題很多很多年，就是：你怎樣才能加快自己學習的速度？

Now, this is an interesting question because if you speed up learning you can spend less time at school。

那么，這是一個很有趣的問題，因為如果你可以加快自己的學習的速度，你就可以花更少時間在學校里。

And if you learn really fast, you probably wouldn't have to go to school at all.

如果你真的可以學習得特別快，你可能根本就不用去上學。

Now, when I was young, school was sort of okay but I found quite often that school got in the way of learning so I had this question in mind: how do you learn faster?

在我小時候，上學還湊合，但我常常發現上學會阻礙學習，因此在心里面我有了這樣一個問題：怎樣才能學得更快呢？

And this began when I was very, very young. When I was about eleven years old I wrote a letter to researchers in the Soviet Union, asking about hypnopaedia, this is sleep learning, where you get a tape recorder, you put it beside your bed and it turns on in the middle of the night when you're sleeping, and you're supposed to be learning from this.

(這個想法)在我很小時候已經開始了，大約我11歲的時候，我給前蘇聯的研究者寫了一封關于睡眠學習的信， 所謂“睡覺學習”，就是拿一個磁帶錄音機放在你床邊， 等你入眠后機器開始播放磁帶，(然后)目的是通過這種方式來學習。

A good idea, unfortunately it doesn't work.

一個好主意，不幸的是它行不通。

But, hypnopaedia did open the doors to research in other areas and we've had incredible discoveries about learning that began with that first question.

但睡眠學習確實打開了研究其他領域的大門，并且我們從研究這個問題開始已經有了一些驚人的發現。

I went on from there to become passionate about psychology and I have been involved in psychology in many ways for the rest of my life up until this point.

從那開始我對心理學充滿熱情，直到現在我已經投入了幾十年的時間從事心理學相關的不同研究和工作。

In 1981 I took myself to China and I decided that I was going to be native level in Chinese inside two years.

1981年，我來到了中國，并且我決定在兩年內我的漢語要達到像中文母語者一樣的水平。

Now, you need to understand that in 1981, everybody thought Chinese was really, really difficult and that a westerner could study for ten years or more and never really get very good at it.

吶，你需要明白的是在20世紀80年代初，所有人都認為漢語是真的很難學，一個西方人可能學習10年或以上也未必能學好。

And I also went in with a different idea which was: taking all of the conclusions from psychological research up to that point and applying them to the learning process.

還有，我帶著一種不同的想法，就是把心理學對這個問題研究所得的全部結論運用到我學習的過程當中。

What was really cool was that in six months I was fluent in Mandarin Chinese and took a little bit longer to get up to native.

特別棒的是我在六個月內能說流利的中文，不久后，我達到了中文母語者的水平。

But I looked around and I saw all of these people from different countries struggling terribly with Chinese, I saw Chinese people struggling terribly to learn English and other languages, and so my question got refined down to: how can you help a normal adult learn a new language quickly, easily and effectively?

但我看到周圍那些來自不同國家的人在為學習中文苦苦掙扎，中國人在為學習英文或其他語言苦苦掙扎，因此我的問題便細化到：怎樣幫助一位正常的成年人更快、更容易和有效地學會第二門語言。