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Adults are getting smarter about how smart babies are.
成年人在研究婴儿有多聪明这个问题时，也变得越来越聪明了。
Not long ago, researchers learned that 4-day-old could understand addition and subtraction.
不久前，研究人员发现4岁的孩子能够理解加法和减法。
Now, British research psychologist Graham Schafer has discovered that infants can learn words for uncommon things long before they can speak.
现在，英国心理学研究者格拉哈姆·谢弗发现婴儿在他们学会说话很久之前就能够学习一些描述罕见事物的词语。
He found that 9-month-old infants could be taught, through repeated show-and-tell,
谢弗发现，一个九个月大的婴儿通过展示和陈述的方法
to recognize the names of objects that were foreign to them,
能够被教会去认知他们没有看到过的事物。
a result that challenges in some ways the received wisdom that,
这个结果在一定程度上也挑战了普遍接受的智慧。
apart from learning to identify things common to their daily lives,
因为要让婴儿能够从日常模仿学习到自己学会分辨常见事物的跨越是很不容易的。
children don't begin to build vocabulary until well into their second year.
小孩子在两岁之前，是不会自己在脑里形成词库的。
"It's no secret that children learn words,
“毫无疑问，孩子能学词，
but the words they tend to know are words linked to specific situations in the home." explains Schafer.
但是他们试图去了解的词是与家里某些特定的情景相联系的。”谢弗解释说。
"This is the first demonstration that we can choose what words the children will learn
这是表明我们可以选择孩子将要学习的词语
and that they can respond to them with an unfamiliar voice giving instructions in an unfamiliar setting."
且孩子能够在一个陌生的环境中对一个陌生的指令声音做出反应的第一个论证。
Figuring out how humans acquire language may shed light on why some children learn to read and write later than others,
弄清人类如何习得语言也许能够解释为什么有一些孩子学习阅读和写作的时间比同龄人更晚，
Schafer says, and could lead to better treatments for developmental problems.
谢弗说，这也能够帮助我们更好地应对孩子成长中的问题。
What's more, the study of language acquisition offers direct insight into how humans learn.
另外，研究语言习得恰好能够深入了解“人类是如何学习的”。
"Language is a test case for human cognitive development." says Schafer.
“语言是人类认知发展的一个测试用例。”谢弗说。
But parents eager to teach their infants should take note:
但是那些渴望教孩子的父母应该注意：
even without being taught new words, a control group caught up with other infants within a few months.
即使没有教他们新词，一个对照组在几个月内便能追赶上其他婴儿。
"This is not about advancing development." he says.
“这不是关于如何促进发展的研究。”他说。
"It's just about what children can do at an earlier age than what educators have often thought."
“它仅仅是关于孩子在早期能做什么，而不是教育者常常认为孩子能做什么。”
