学了英语，却说不好英语。
到底因为英语太BT，还是自己太懒？是时候掰哧掰哧这事了。

我们不妨把镜头拉得远一些，跳出外语学习，来看看我们的母语是怎样“习得”的。“习得”的英文说法是acquire，跟“学会” （learn）不同。我们自己在很小的时候，从不会发声到牙牙学语，从第一次说出来“妈妈”“爸爸”，到能够小大人似的说得头头是道，我们所做的是在把说话变成习惯，这就是“习得”的过程。“习得”之后，是“自然”的表达：我们说母语的时候通常不会边说边考虑句子的结构、用什么词等等，母语的表达已经成为了我们自己的一部分。
借助语言学家们的研究，我们可以从母语习得中获得很多关于语言学习的启示。语言学家告诉我们：
说不好英语，真的不是你的错。
要搞清楚这是怎么回事，我们先来补充一点点背景知识。
All children acquire language in the same way, regardless of what language they use or the number of languages they use. Acquiring a language is like learning to play a game. Children must learn the rules of the language game, for example how to articulate words and how to put them together in ways that are acceptable to the people around them. 
首先，语言学家们认为，所有的孩子在习得语言的时候，无论习得哪一门语言、习得几种语言，采用的方法都相同。学语言，就像学着玩游戏。要学会玩游戏，离不开学会游戏的规则。所以当我们在学着玩“语言”这种游戏时，就得学会“语言”游戏的法则。比如：怎样说话，才能口齿清楚；怎样把单词组合排列，才能说出别人听得懂的话来。
接下来，我们观察一下儿童是怎样习得语言的。即儿童学习语言的策略。
All human beings, young and old, follow two kinds of learning strategy. One, drawing on physical ability, is that we learn in stages (we make sure we can walk before we run). The other, drawing on intellectual ability, is that we generalize from past experience (if you see an insect that you never saw before and that looks like a cockroach you're likely to think it may be a cockroach). 
事实上，所有的人都遵循两种学习策略，无论年长年幼。一，利用身体能力，按阶段学习，比如先学会走，后学会跑。二，利用心智能力，归纳过往经验，比如当你看到一只从未见过、但很像小强的虫子，你会觉得它应该就是一只小强。
那么儿童是如何习得发音的呢？
The basic insight that we gain from children's developing pronunciation is that there are difficult sounds and easy sounds, and difficult and easy distinctions between sounds. We can tell which are which by looking at what children do, because children cannot articulate what their vocal tracts are not developed enough to tackle yet. We can for example safely conclude that, for the 'fis-phenomenon' child above, the sound at the end of the word fish is more difficult than the sound at the end of the word fis. 
儿童对发音的习得，首先一点：有些发音更难、有些发音较容易；有些音与音的差异难以辨认、有些容易辨认。这一点通过观察儿童就可以很容易发现，因为有些声音在发声通道发育不完善的时候就是很难发好。比如有个孩子老是把fish说成fis，而大人要是跟他说fis来逗他，他又会说大人说错了。换句话说，他知道fish的正确读法，只是自己还没有能力把fish读对。相比之下，读fis对于他就容易得多。
Children start using speech sounds when they start babbling. The sounds that they use in babbling are easy sounds and these will be the sounds children will use in their first utterances too. Children usually replace difficult sounds with sounds that are easier for them to articulate, or they may drop difficult sounds altogether. They may call Sam 'Tam', for example, and they may want to 'pee' potatoes with a potato-'peewah', or ask you why strawberries are 'wed' and not 'boo'.
儿童做发音练习，是从“牙牙学语”开始的。（顺便说一下，中文成语“牙牙学语”十分形象地描绘了孩子咿咿呀呀地学大人说话的样子） 这时发出的声音是比较容易发出来的声音。到儿童第一次说话的时候，也会先发这些声音。在遇到难发的声音时，他们也会用容易发的声音代替，或者干脆不发出来。比如会把Sam叫成Tam，用 potato-“peewah” 来 “pee” 土豆，还会问你这草莓为什么 “wed”。
Although sounds tend to be acquired in the same order across languages, we should keep in mind that different children may find different sounds easier or more difficult: each child will have their own individual learning strategies. The important thing is that there is progress in their development. Children's spontaneous play also shows a progression from gross to sophisticated control over their body: they usually start by hitting toys, and hitting things with toys, because it's easier to do this whilst fine motor skills have yet to be acquired.
不同的语言中，发音习得的次序是相同的，总是先易后难。当然，我们也要看到不同的孩子感到困难的发音可能不同：每个孩子有自己的学习策略。只要能有进步就好。孩子对身体的掌控从粗放到细致，这对于口腔和声带也是一样，从而影响到发音。
（关于身体掌控的发展，可以从儿童游戏中看出来：小孩子一开始拿到玩具的时候，只会敲打玩具、或者用玩具敲打别的东西。这是因为在孩子精细运动能力发展不够的时候，像敲打这样的动作会比玩玩具的动作容易。）
This is also why in virtually all languages the baby-words for 'mummy' and 'daddy' sound very similar. It's not that the children 'know' the words for mum and dad, it's simply that these are the kinds of words that children can say (they say them to us, to the cat, to their toys, to themselves), but parents decided to believe that the children are calling them 'by name', and so reinforced the children's use of these words to them from time immemorial! 
一个有趣的现象：基本上所有语言当中，妈、爸（mummy、daddy）的发音听起来都蛮像的。并不是说孩子天生就会叫妈、爸，而是因为这两种发音是孩子特别容易说出来的。他们其实也会对着别人、对着猫啊狗啊、玩具啊、对着自己，叫妈、爸，但是家长们更愿意相信孩子是在叫自己，进而鼓励孩子多喊妈、爸。这种反馈机制带来的结果，往往孩子最早说出来的声音中一定包含了妈、爸。与此同时，当妈、当爸的人也获得了很大的满足感。这种古老的模式，延续至今，仍然强劲有力。
Vowels (the sounds usually spelt a, e, i, o, u in English) are easier than consonants and are generally learned first. This is because vowels are the sounds that carry, and that we therefore perceive most clearly. If you want to shout for someone named Eve or Archibald you prolong the vowels in their names, not the consonants. 
下面我们看一下元音和辅音的分别。元音（比如英语中的a、e、i、o、u）比辅音要容易很多，也最先学会。一个原因是，元音通常传播得远，从而被清晰地听到。比如说，你要喊Eve这样的人名，就会拖长名字中的元音e /i:/，而不会拖长辅音/v/。
So children are likely to go through some stage where all or most vowels are target-like in their speech, but all or most consonants may still be funny. Since consonants are no piece of cake for developing mouths, it becomes clear that words containing several consonants in a row are young children's worst nightmare. English is particularly child-unfriendly, in that it has words like splash, with three consonants at the beginning, or like texts, with four at the end (the letter x represents two sounds, 'k' and 's'). 
所以说孩子们有可能在某个发展阶段，已经能把元音发得很到位，但辅音听起来还是怪怪的。辅音对嘴的要求比较高。如果遇到多辅音串联，对孩子更是像一场噩梦。英语中有很多这样对小孩很不友好的词，比如splash，开头有3个连续辅音/spl/，或者像texts词尾有4个连续辅音/ksts/。
If your child is bilingual in a tricky language like English and a straightforward one like Hawai'ian, where only single consonants are allowed before vowels, you shouldn't be surprised if she sounds right in Hawai'ian much earlier than in English. Or if a proud Hawai'ian parent tells you that his monolingual children started 'speaking much earlier' than all the English monolingual children he knows. It's the languages' fault, not the children's. 
让我们假想，有个小朋友碰巧在习得双语的环境中，同时习得两种语言。一种语言是比较复杂的语言比如英语，一种是比较简单的语言比如夏威夷语。夏威夷语一共只有13个字母，包括5个元音、8个辅音。而且元音前面只放一个辅音，比如会有pa、la，但不会有pla。
你会看到，这个小朋友很小就能把夏威夷语说得就有模有样了。这一点毫不奇怪，因为夏威夷语中困难的语音就是比英语要少的多，特别是那些困难的辅音。所以，如果你认识说夏威夷语的家长，她会跟你说孩子多早的时候就会说话了，远远早于说英语的孩子。和说夏威夷语孩子相比，说英语的孩子习得语言就是会慢很多。但千万不要认为这是孩子的问题。这是英语的“错”，不是孩子的“错”。
This same strategy also accounts for why children leave out certain words and not others in their utterances. They may say things like 'Mummy big glass table' but not 'My on if the'. These are two quite different types of words, the former being more salient to children because they carry stress in connected speech, and therefore much easier to perceive and produce.  
我们也可以理解，为什么孩子说话的时候会省略一些词、保留一些词。比如会说“Mummy big glass table”但不说“My on if the”。这里有两种不同的词，前面这种词小孩子会觉得更明显、更突出，因为在连续说话当中，这些词是重读的，从而更容易被听到、再复述出来。
以上就是语言学家发现的小孩习得母语时使用的策略和习得过程，尤其是发音。现在你该明白说不好英语的原因了吧。一方面，与身体的发展和练习有关；另一方面，与语言本身的复杂性有关。通过理解这些要点，我们在学习说英语时，就更能抓住要点、设计方案，更科学、更有效。
Reference:
http://linguistlist.org/ask-ling/lang-acq.cfm
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