Easy Learning

    Sudents should be jealous. Not only do babies get to doze their days away, but they’ve also mastered the fine art of learning in their sleep.

    By the time babies are a year old they can recognize a lot of sounds and even simple words. Marie Cheour at the UniversityofTurkuinFinlandsuspected that they might progress this fast because they learn language while they sleep as well as when they are awake.

    To test the theory, Cheour and her colleagues studied 45 newborn babies in the first few days of their lives. They exposed all the infants to an hour of Finnish vowel sounds—one that sounds like “oo”, another like “ee” and a third boundary vowel peculiar to Finnish and similar languages that sounds like something in between. EEG ¹recordings of the infant’s brains before and after the session showed that the newborns could not distinguish the sounds.

    Fifteen of the babies then went back with their mothers, while the rest were split into two sleep-study groups ². One group was exposed throughout their night-time sleeping hours to the same three vowels, while the others listened to other, easier-to-distinguish vowel sounds³.

    When tested in the morning, and again in the evening, the babies who’d heard the tricky boundary vowel all night showed brainwave activity indicating that they could now recognise this new sound. They could identify the sound even when its pitch was changed, while none of the other babies could pick up the boundary vowel at all.

    Cheour doesn’t know how babies accomplish this night-time learning, bunt she suspects that the special ability might indicate that unlike adults, babies don’t “turn off” their cerebral cortex while they sleep. The skill probably fades in the course of the first year of life, she adds—so forget the idea that you can pick up tricky French vowels as an adult just by slipping a language tape under your pillow. But while it may not help grown-ups, Cheour is hoping to use the sleeping hours to give remedial help to babies who are genetically at risk of language disorders.

词汇：

vowel /"vauəl/ n．元音

Finland /"finlənd/ n．芬兰

Finnish /"finiʃ/ adj．芬兰的；芬兰人的；芬兰语的

Newborn /"nju:bɔ:n/ n新生儿；adj新生儿的

cerebral /" seribrul/ adj．大脑的

remedial /ri"midiəl/adj．补救的

cortex /"kɔ: teksf n．皮层

注释：

1.    EEG = electroencephalogram /"i,lektrəuen"sefələgræm/：脑电图

2.    two sleep-study groups：两个睡觉时的学习小组

3.    easier-to-distinguish vowel sounds较容易区分的元音 

Finnish vowels are easy to distinguish.

A:Right B:Wrong C:Not mentioned

易行车 easy running car

“Please take it easy，madam”的中文译法是“（）”。

A:把它带走，夫人 B:别走，夫人 C:别着急，夫人 D:你可以走了，夫人

Although the first part of the book is easy, the rest ______.

A:are difficult B:has proved difficult C:is supposed difficult D:have been found difficult

Although the first part of the book is easy, the rest ______.

A:are difficult B:has proved difficult C:is supposed difficult D:have been found difficult

Although the first part of the book is easy, the rest ______.

A:are difficult B:has proved difficult C:is supposed difficult D:have been found difficult

Although the first part of the book is easy, the rest ______.

A:are difficult B:has proved difficult C:is supposed difficult D:have been found difficult