学习外语好处多：双语让你更敏锐

Indeed, some preliminary research suggests that people who speak a second language may have enhanced defenses against the onset of dementia and delay Alzheimer’s disease by an average of four years, as WSJ reported in 2010.
其实正如《华尔街日报》2010年所报道的，一些初步研究结果表明，会说第二外语的人可能不仅增强了对痴呆症发病的抵御能力，还将老年痴呆症的发作平均延缓了四年。

The ability to speak more than one language also may help protect memory, researchers from the Center for Health Studies in Luxembourg reported at last year.
健康研究中心驻卢森堡的研究人员去年称，具备说一种以上语言的能力可能还有助于人们保护记忆力。

After studying older people who spoke multiple languages, they concluded that the more languages someone could speak, the better: People who spoke three languages were three times less likely to have cognitive problems compared to bilingual people. Those who spoke four or more languages were five times less likely to develop cognitive problems.
在研究了会说多国语言的老年人后，这些研究者总结认为，能说越多语言对人越好，因为他们发现，说三种语言的人其产生认知问题的可能性比讲两种语言的人要小三倍，能说四种或以上语言的人出现认知问题的可能性比双语者要小五倍。

Not so long ago, people worried that children who grew up learning two languages at once were at a developmental disadvantage compared with those who focused on only one.
不久前，人们还在担心，相比成长过程中只专注学习一门语言的孩子，那些同时学习两种语言的孩子会处于成长劣势。

New research suggests that even babies have little trouble developing bilingual skills.
新研究结果表明，即使婴儿在发展双语技巧方面都不存在什么困难。

Researchers at the  University of British Columbia's Infant Studies Centre reported that babies being raised in a bilingual family show from birth a preference for each of the native languages they heard while still in the womb and can readily distinguish between them.
加拿大英属哥伦比亚大学婴儿研究中心的研究人员称，在双语家庭中长大的宝宝从一出生就显示出对其在子宫中听到的两种母语的偏好，并且很容易就能将两者区分开来。

Moreover, bilingual infants appear to learn the grammars of their two languages as well as babies learning a single language, even when the two languages are as different from one another as English and Japanese, or English and Punjabi.
此外，在语法学习方面，双语婴儿似乎能与只学习一种语言的婴儿学得一样好，哪怕这两种语言就像英语和日语或者英语和旁遮普语一样极不相同。