有人可以说很多门外语。会说两国语言的人被称为Bilingual（双语言者），会说三国语言的人被称为Trilingual（能讲三门语言的人）。那到底人最多能说多少门语言呢？
A polyglot or may also be called a multilingual person is a person who learns and uses multiple languages.
我们常常会羡慕能说多种语言的人，比如这样的：
Tim Doner从13岁起就开始自学各种语言，现在他可以讲20多种语言。
他的学习体验
不仅如此，据说会多种语言对“脑袋”还有好处
Learning a lot of languages is good for your brain?
总的来说，能多讲一门外语好处多多，而当你在学同一语系的其他语言时往往效率也会更高。
学同语系外语的体验
西班牙语、法语、意大利语和葡萄牙语本质上是同一种语言的不同方言。如果你学会了一门，就可以学习另外几门。
如果你学会了西班牙语，你就打开了通向文化、音乐、历史的大门，也打开了同包括美国和加拿大在内的60个国家的8亿人口做生意的大门。
如果你有雄心壮志的话，可以试试俄语，一旦掌握俄语，你或许就可以和说斯拉夫语的人沟通。
同语族的语种有一个共同的核心，那就是基本语法结构和日常生活相关的基础词包括发音（例如：我，吃，喝，好，水，爸……）是同源的，相似的。
英语的核心是日耳曼的，但是因为历史的关系，受拉丁语和法语的影响很大，脱离日常基本生活的词汇大多是拉丁词汇和希腊词根（当然是拉丁语先借用的希腊词汇）。我们学拉丁语的时候会惊叹于英语和拉丁语族的借用关系。
英语和德语词汇之间的相似，只是核心词汇，学习时可以联系起来，记得更快更牢。
单独学习词汇和语法的时候可以分析词源，联系语法相似性。但是平时学句子，提高语言能力的时候，最好不要去找翻译或联系。那是不同的频道，语感会有冲突的。
相比母语，我们在讲外语时会更加明智吗？芝加哥大学的研究发现，用外语思考时，人们往往会做出更加冷静、客观的决定；而母语使用者则更多依靠直觉。为什么会这样？
Do we make better decisions in a foreign language?（757 words）
By Michael Skapinker
Financial Times
An American friend recently told me of a reunion with the son of the German family whose home he had lived in for a year as an exchange student. My friend had spent the year acquiring fluent German, which he spoke to the family.
The reunion, several decades later, took place among a crowd who were speaking English. Afterwards, the German son said to my friend: “I never realised you were witty.” Because in German, he never was. It was too hard to joke in a foreign tongue.
witty：using words in a clever and funny way 风趣的，诙谐的
Anyone who has learnt another language will be familiar with this. We are more ponderous in our acquired language. We are slower on the uptake, having to construct each riposte in advance.
ponderous /'pɒndərəs/
1）slow and awkward because of being very heavy or large （因重或大而）行动迟缓的，笨拙的
2）If a book, speech, or style of writing or speaking is ponderous, it is boring because it is too slow, long, or serious. （书、讲话或写作风格）严肃而乏味的，呆板的，生硬的
be quick/slow on the uptake：If someone is quick/slow on the uptake, they understand things easily/with difficulty. 领悟得快／慢
riposte /rɪ'pɒst/
a quick and clever remark, often made in answer to a criticism 机敏的回答；巧妙的应对
She made a sharp/witty/neat riposte.
她尖刻／机智／巧妙地反唇相讥。
But is it also possible that we make more dispassionate decisions when thinking in a foreign language?
dispassionate：able to think clearly or make good decisions because of not being influenced by emotions 冷静的，镇静的，沉着的
Academics at the University of Chicago think we do.
Writing in the journal Cognition, they describe a well-known moral dilemma. You are watching a runaway carriage hurtling down a railway. In its path you see five people tied to the track. On your left is a large man. If you push him into the carriage's path, you will kill him but save the five. Do you do it?
推下一人救活五个人？
你会怎么选择？
dilemma：a situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between two different things you could do 左右为难，两难境地
The Chicago academics put the dilemma to a group of 800 native German speakers. About half considered the dilemma in German and half in English. Those answering in their second language were more likely to favour pushing the man on to the track.
To the Chicago faculty, this was no surprise. There have been several experiments, with similar results, about the effect of language on the track dilemma, with native speakers of English, Korean, Spanish, French, Hebrew, German and Italian.
The question the Chicago team tried to answer in the Cognition study was why the change happens when people decide in another language.
Their hypothesis was that we visualise people and objects more sharplyin our native tongue and this affects our decision-making. In particular, when thinking in our own language, we can clearly picture the large man and are reluctant to [不情愿/不愿意] push him to his death.
To test this, the 800 German speakers were asked to rate the vividness of their images of the large man and the five people on the tracks. Those doing the experiment in German reported having a clearer picture of the man than those doing it in English. There was no difference between the vividness of the images of the five other people on the track.
Why should this be? The Chicago study argues that the images we form in our minds are based on the memories we have of people and objects. Because we have more experience of people in our native language, we find it easier to picture them.
The authors concede that “other potential explanations are possible”. However, they did argue in an earlier paper that “a foreign language provides a distancing mechanism that moves people from the immediate intuitive system to a more deliberate mode of thinking”.
concede：to admit, often unwillingly, that something is true （常指不情愿地）承认
How seriously should we take this? An increasing number of people are now working in organisations that operate in English, mixing native and second-language speakers. It is certainly worth thinking about whether people seem more considered, and make more dispassionate decisions, in English than the native speakers do. The non-native speakers may seem less witty, but pay more attention to their opinions.
来源：网络
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