Name: 到底有多少種語言？ (How Many Languages Are There Really?)
Uploaded: 2024-05-28T00:06:14.000Z
Duration: 4 min 34 s

to 不定詞

If we assume that our brain picks up one new word per day and that there are a thousand languages and each one has ten thousand words, then it would take us ten million years of learning to be able to talk to each and every person in the world. But how many languages and words are there really? And how many would we need to learn to understand everything?

如果我們假設我們的大腦每天能記住一個新單詞，而世界上有一千種語言，每種語言又有一萬個單詞，那麼我們需要學習一千萬年才能與世界上的每一個人交談。但是，到底有多少種語言和多少個單詞呢？我們需要學習多少種語言才能理解一切？

未來簡單式

The story of a curious girl, Maya, will help us find out.

好奇女孩瑪雅的故事將幫助我們找到答案。

過去進行式

Maya was sitting in the schoolyard looking at yesterday's paper when a teacher walked by.

瑪雅正坐在操場上看昨天的報紙，一位老師走了過來。

The old man asked the young girl what business she had reading the newspaper, to which Maya replied, I'm trying to understand them world. To understand them world? How about learning some English first, her teacher counted. At first, Maya was just upset, but then her frustration turned into motivation and she promised herself that she would be able to she promised herself that she'd master English better than anyone, especially that stupid teacher.

老人問小姑娘看報紙有什麼用，瑪雅回答說，我想了解他們的世界。瞭解他們的世界？老師數落道，不如先學點英語吧。起初，瑪雅只是不高興，但後來她的沮喪變成了動力，她向自己保證，她一定能比任何人，尤其是那個愚蠢的老師更好地掌握英語。

Like most kids age six, Maya understood about 5,000 words, used about 2,500, and held basic conversations. Her brain had picked up more than one word a day since she was born and will continue to do so until late adulthood. From the day she began her quest, it took her another 12 years of casual conversation and deliberate practice to learn the more nuanced aspects of the language like sarcasm and irony. During that time, her receptive vocabulary grew to 20,000 words and she expressed herself with about 10,000. On her 18th birthday, she decided to visit the newly retired teacher to give him a demo of her linguistic skills. When the man opened the door, she told him that she had mastered the English language, but he just smiled, said nothing, and then disappeared into the darkness of his house. Soon after, he returned with the 20 volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary, asking Maya to read them all, adding that only then would she be able to master English. Maya accepted the challenge and started the same night. For the next two decades, she was excited to read up on ideas and meanings behind the 170,000 words that are in current use and studied approximately 430,000 old-fashioned terms.

和大多數六歲的孩子一樣，瑪雅能理解約 5000 個單詞，使用約 2500 個單詞，並能進行基本對話。從她出生起，她的大腦每天都會拾起一個以上的單詞，並且會一直持續到成年晚期。從她開始探索的那天起，她又花了 12 年的時間，通過閒聊和刻意練習，才學會了語言中更細微的部分，如諷刺和挖苦。在此期間，她的接受詞彙量增加到了 20,000 個單詞，而表達詞彙量約為 10,000 個。18 歲生日那天，她決定去拜訪剛退休的老師，向他展示自己的語言技能。當那人打開門時，她告訴他她已經掌握了英語，但他只是笑了笑，什麼也沒

Maya learned a lot of English, a lot about the world in general, and a lot about languages in particular. She discovered the top five spoken languages, which are English, spoken by about 1.5 billion people, followed by Mandarin, 1.3 billion, Spanish, 500 million, Arabic, 400 million, and French, 300 million. Maya found out that many languages are about to die, but that there are still around 6,500 that exist worldwide, and that there are close to 20,000 dialects in India alone.

瑪雅學會了很多英語，瞭解了很多世界，尤其是語言。她發現了使用人數最多的五種語言，分別是英語（約 15 億人使用）、國語（13 億人使用）、西班牙語（5 億人使用）、阿拉伯語（4 億人使用）和法語（3 億人使用）。瑪雅發現，許多語言即將消亡，但全世界仍有約 6500 種語言，僅印度就有近 2 萬種方言。

She discovered Esperanto, a newly constructed international language that's spoken by about a million people all around the world. She learned that there are all sorts of gestures and facial expressions we use to communicate preferences and feelings, and that there are a staggering 300 types of distinct sign languages, plus hundreds of programming languages and pictographic and symbolic languages. After learning all of that, Maya went back to see the teacher, not to boast about her proficiency, but to thank him and to tell him that understanding the world and everyone in it takes not only English, but truly comprehending thousands of languages and millions of words, an impossible task. But it wasn't an old man that opened the door, but a young four-year-old who, with a friendly smile, simply asked, welcome, how can help you? And Maya, despite all her knowledge, had no idea what to reply. What do you know about languages?

她發現了世界語，這是一種新構建的國際語言，全世界約有一百萬人在使用。她還了解到，我們可以用各種手勢和麵部表情來表達喜好和感受，而且還有多達 300 種不同的手語，以及數百種編程語言、象形語言和符號語言。學完這一切後，瑪雅又去找老師，不是為了炫耀自己的能力，而是為了感謝他，並告訴他，要了解這個世界和世界上的每一個人，不僅需要英語，還需要真正理解數千種語言和數百萬個單詞，這是不可能完成的任務。但開門的不是一位老人，而是一個四歲的小姑娘，她帶著友好的微笑，簡單地問了一句："歡迎光臨，有什麼可以幫您？瑪雅儘管學識

 Did you master one or maybe two? And if so, which ones? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below. If you like this video and want us to make more, subscribe to our channel or support us on Patreon.

你掌握了一個還是兩個？如果有，是哪些？請在下方評論中分享您的想法和經驗。如果您喜歡這段視頻並希望我們製作更多視頻，請訂閱我們的頻道或在 Patreon 上支持我們。