跟讀練習: What reading ACTUALLY does to your brain - 通過影片學習英語口語
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60 句
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We've all heard that reading is good for you and have probably done a fair bit of it.
我們都聽說過閱讀有益身心，而且自己可能也讀過不少書。
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Well, most of us.
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But did you know that reading can actually change your brain?
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Today we're going to take a look at some science and talk about five ways that reading rewires your brain.
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Let's get into it.
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The internet is where most of us get our news, connect with our friends and family, and stay on top of the latest trends and memes.
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And while it's improved our short-term memory and our ability to multitask, it's also unfortunately split our attention.
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And it's not just the internet, the pace of movies is faster than it used to be, and even the music industry has seen a change with songs decreasing about 30 seconds in length over the past two decades.
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It's no wonder there's a public perception that our ability to concentrate has worsened.
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Books have a sequential narrative style with a beginning, middle, and end.
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This gives us the ability to improve our attention span by encouraging our brains to also think in a sequence.
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As a result, we spend more time processing the narrative
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and thinking about the complex layers of stories and how they all fit together.
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The act of reading increases the capacity for longer attention spans, especially in children.
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Reading has the ability to put you into a character's shoes both literally and figuratively.
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Reading fiction, specifically literary fiction, which is a bit more active than genre fiction, presses us to search for meaning
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and to produce our own perspectives on both the story itself and the complex characters they tend to feature.
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Literary fiction tends to paint a more complex picture of social interactions, and since those stories have a bigger focus on the characters over the plot,
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reading those works helps us develop complexity to the degree that we analyze the thoughts and feelings of other people, their behaviors, and our society in general.
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Literary fiction in particular pushes us to assess others as unique individuals, to withhold some of our judgment, and to think more deeply about the world and the people around us.
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Looking at the literal side of reading putting us into a character's shoes, it's been shown that reading increases activity in the brain's left temporal cortex.
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This area of the brain is associated with receptivity for language and primary sensory motor activity.
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Neurons in this region have been associated with tricking the brain into thinking that it's doing something that it's not, which is something known as grounded or embodied cognition.
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So if you're reading about a main character running away from something or someone, neurons associated with the physical act of running are actually activated.
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And this isn't a short term thing either.
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Gregory S.
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Burns was a lead researcher on a study all about this, and they found that reading stories, especially those with strong narrative arcs,
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reconfigures brain networks for at least a few days, maybe up to five.
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Speaking of networks, I had heard of the terms gray matter and white matter as it relates to the brain, spinal cord, and central nervous system,
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but I never really knew exactly what it meant or why it was important before now.
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Gray matter is the areas where the actual processing is done, and the white matter provides the communication between different gray matter areas
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and between the gray matter and the rest of the body.
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White matter-rich areas of the brain mainly consists of structures that allow the signals to be transmitted at high speeds, and it allows our gray matter to work faster.
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Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found that reading exercises, at least in children, actually cause the brain to physically rewire itself and create more white matter,
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which in turn improves communication.
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Showing that it's possible to rewire a brain's white matter has important implications for treating reading disabilities, as well as other developmental disorders including autism,
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so this is a pretty exciting discovery.
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This creation of additional white matter is necessary because that gray matter and the brain is processing a lot as we're reading.
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It's a neurobiologically challenging activity and it's like a workout for our brains.
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It's been found that all this work has the ability to improve our working memory.
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Reading involves several brain functions like visual processing, phonemic awareness, fluency, comprehension, and more.
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And research shows that reading, unlike watching or listening to media, gives the brain more time to stop, think, process, and imagine the narrative in front of us.
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All these parts of the brain have evolved for other functions like vision, language, and associative learning, and they all connect in a very specific neural circuit for reading,
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which is very challenging.
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This increased mental activity helps keep your memory sharp, very much like how lifting weights keeps your muscles toned.
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Reading and processing what's written from the letters to the words to the sentences to the stories themselves boosts overall brain activity.
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That memory boost is important to note too, because studies have found that daily reading may reduce dementia risk.
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Dementia is an umbrella term used to describe a number of neurological conditions affecting the brain.
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It's the loss of memory, language, problem solving, and other thinking abilities that are severe enough to interfere with someone's daily life.
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Researchers at Hong Kong's elderly health centers tracked more than 15,000 people over the age of 65 for five years,
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and all of them were dementia-free at the start of the study.
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What they found was dementia risk was significantly lower among those who reported daily participation intellectual activities like reading books,
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magazines, and newspapers, and even playing board games.
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The study proves that it's never too late to start.
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For people who initiated a reading regimen later in life, the impact was still significant enough to delay or prevent dementia.
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All of this seems to back up a long-term study from the University of Michigan, which found that people who read books — any kind of books, fiction, non-fiction, poetry,
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prose — for as little as 30 minutes daily over long
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periods of time lived on average about two years longer than people who didn't read.
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As always, I'll drop links down in the description box to all the sources cited in this video, and there was a ton of researching and reading of white papers
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that I did in preparation for this so I'm looking forward to my brain's additional white matter.
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本課的詞彙與口語要點
這節 B2 級別的口語課以影片“What reading ACTUALLY does to your brain”為素材。 影片中反覆出現的詞有：reading, brain, fiction, gray, dementia。 這段影片共有 60 個句子、1088 個單詞可供跟讀。 講話部分時長為 5:23。 說話人語速較快，每分鐘約 202 個詞，會出現較多連讀和弱讀。 83% 的單詞屬於英語最常用的 3,000 詞，其餘的詞建議在練習前先學一下。
影片中的重點詞彙
影片中最難的 15 個單詞，附發音和釋義：
| 單詞 | 發音 | 釋義 |
|---|---|---|
| dementia 名詞 | /dɪˈmɛnʃə/ | 痴呆 /痴呆, 失智症 |
| researcher 名詞 | /ˈɹiˌsɝ.t͡ʃɚ/ | 研究員 /研究員, 研究者 |
| neuron 名詞 | /ˈn(j)ʊɹɑn/ | 神經細胞 /神經細胞, 神經元 /神經元 |
| cognition 名詞 | /kɑɡˈnɪʃ.ən/ | 認知 /認知, 認識 /認識 |
| embody 動詞 | /ɪmˈbɒdi/ | 體現 /體現, 表現 /表現 |
| excite 動詞 | /ɪkˈsaɪt/ | 激動 /激動 |
| figuratively 副詞 | 比喻地 | |
| fluency 名詞 | /ˈfluːənsi/ | 流暢 /流暢 |
| withhold 動詞 | /wɪθˈhoʊld/ | 據為己有 |
| worsen 動詞 | /ˈwɝsn̩/ | 使……惡化 /使……惡化, 使……變壞 /使……變壞 |
| neurological 形容詞 | /nɝəˈlɑd͡ʒɪkəl/ | 神經學上的 |
| comprehension 名詞 | /ˌkɑmpɹɪˈhɛnʃn̩/ | 理解, 瞭解 /瞭解 |
| cortex 名詞 | /ˈkɔɹtɛks/ | 皮質 |
| temporal 形容詞 | /ˈtɛm.pə.ɹəl/ | 世俗的 |
| sensory 形容詞 | /ˈsɛn.sə.ɹi/ | 感覺的 /感覺的 |
影片中出現的短語動詞
| 單詞 | 釋義 |
|---|---|
| look forward to 動詞 | 期待, 嚮往 |
影片中的語法
說話人最常用的結構，並附上影片中的原話：
| 結構 | 影片中的用法 |
|---|---|
| 現在完成時 have/has + 過去分詞 — 過去發生但與現在仍有關聯的事 | have probably done · has seen · has worsened |
| 被動語態 be + 過去分詞 — 強調發生了什麼，而不是誰做的 | been shown · is associated · have been associated |
| 定語從句 who / which + 從句 — 補充說明人或事物 | fiction, which is · not, which is · those who reported |
需要注意的發音
說話人用了 8 次縮略和弱讀形式，例如 we're, didn't, I'll。請按聽到的簡短形式來說。
- “sh” 和 “zh” 音: dementia /dɪˈmɛnʃə/, associative /əˈsoʊ.ʃi.ə.tɪv/, cognition /kɑɡˈnɪʃ.ən/, implication /ˌɪmpləˈkeɪʃən/, comprehension /ˌkɑmpɹɪˈhɛnʃn̩/
- 長單詞——注意重音位置: associative /əˈsoʊ.ʃi.ə.tɪv/, neurological /nɝəˈlɑd͡ʒɪkəl/, implication /ˌɪmpləˈkeɪʃən/, initiate /ɪˈnɪʃ.i.eɪt/, developmental /dɪˌvɛləpˈmɛntəl/
中文母語者容易讀錯的音：
- /v/ — 不要讀成 /w/，上齒輕觸下唇: associative /əˈsoʊ.ʃi.ə.tɪv/, activate /ˈæktɪˌveɪt/, developmental /dɪˌvɛləpˈmɛntəl/, evolve /ɪˈvɑlv/
- 詞尾子音 — 要讀清楚，後面不要加母音: associative /əˈsoʊ.ʃi.ə.tɪv/, excite /ɪkˈsaɪt/, phonemic /fəˈniː.mɪk/, withhold /wɪθˈhoʊld/, cortex /ˈkɔɹtɛks/
- /r/ 和 /l/ 的區別: temporal /ˈtɛm.pə.ɹəl/, neural /ˈnʊɹəl/, literal /ˈlɪt(ə)ɹəl/, umbrella /ʌmˈbɹɛl.ə/
如何用這段影片練習
- 先完整聽一遍影片，不要開口，記下不認識的單詞。
- 先用 0.75 倍速逐句跟讀，熟練之後再回到正常速度。
- 錄下自己的聲音並與原聲對比，特別注意 dementia, researcher, neuron 這類單詞。
什麼是跟讀法？
跟讀法 (Shadowing) 是一種有科學依據的語言學習技巧，最初開發用於專業口譯員的培訓，並由多語言者Alexander Arguelles博士普及。這個方法簡單而強大：您在聽英語母語原聲的同時立即大聲重複——就像是一個延遲1-2秒緊跟說話者的影子。與被動聽力或語法練習不同，跟讀法強迫您的大腦和口腔肌肉同時處理並模模擬實的講話模式。研究表明它能顯著提高發音準確性，語調，節奏，連讀，聽力理解和口語流利度——使其成為雅思口語備考和真實英語交流最有效的方法之一。