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At first glance, Bella Devyatkina, from Moscow, Russia, is your typical carefree, playfulfour-year-old, but ask her a question in Russian, English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese or Arabic, and you will be shocked by her articulateresponse.

来自俄罗斯莫斯科的贝拉·德瓦特基乍一眼看去与典型的4岁小朋友并无二致，无忧无虑，爱玩爱闹。但如果你用俄语、英语、法语、西班牙语、德语、汉语或阿拉伯语来问她一个问题，你就会被她伶牙利齿的回答震惊到了。

Bella made headlines in Russia a few days ago, when she appeared on a TV talent show, where she spoke seven different languages without a prominentaccent, stunningboth the judges and millions of viewers. Since then, a YouTube video of her performance went viralonline, transforming the four-year-old polyglotinto on overnightinternet celebrity. She has since been invited to appear on a variety of television programs where moderatorsand other guests conversed with her in several of the seven languages she is fluent in, and she always understood their questions and answered accordingly.

几天前，贝拉上了俄罗斯各大媒体的头条，因为她参加了一档电视真人秀，在节目中，她讲了七种不同的语言，还没有什么口音，评委们和几百万观众都惊呆了。此后，她的表演视频在YouTube上迅速走红，让这位只有4岁的“语言家”一夜之间成了网络红人。后来，她又被邀请参加了各种电视节目，主持人和其他节目嘉宾用她能熟练掌握的七种语言中的几种来和她对话，她总是能够听懂大家的提问，然后做出相应回答。

So how does a four-year-old girl learn so many languages in such a short period of time, when most people spend years struggling to become fluent in just one foreign language. Bella’s mother, Yulia, said that she and her father started teaching her English when she was just two years old, and after noticing her interest in the language and the easewith which she picked up everything, they decided to gradually adding more languages to her schedule. They hired native tutors for each new language, and by the time she was three and a half years old, she was already speaking two languages. She mastered two more, in the next six months.

那么，一个4 岁的小女孩是如何在这么短的时间内学会这么多种语言的呢？毕竟，大多数人数年苦学，才能熟练掌握一门外语(课程)啊！贝拉的母亲于莉亚说她和孩子的父亲从贝拉两岁就开始教她说英语了，他们注意到贝拉对语言很感兴趣，而且什么都能轻松学会，所以决定逐渐在她的课程表中加入更多的语言。每学一门新语言，他们都会聘请一位当地外教。贝拉两岁半时就已经能说两门语言了，后来的六个月中，她又掌握了两门新语言。

Yulia Devyatkina claims that Bella now spends about six hours every day studying foreign languages, from 10 in the morning to 1 p.m. and again from 5 p.m. to 8 in the evening. Upon hearing this, many people have accused her parents of strippingher of her childhood, but they insist that the classes are all structured as fun games that she genuinelyenjoys. As far as Bella is concerned, she is playing, not studying.

于莉亚·德瓦特基那说贝拉现在每天用6个小时学习外语，从上午10点学到下午1点，再从晚上5点学到8点。很多人听说之后都指责家长剥夺了贝拉的童年，但是于莉亚和丈夫坚持说每门课都是由贝拉真心喜欢的好玩的游戏组成的。在贝拉看来，她在玩耍，而不是在学习。

But while most of the world has been shocked by the young girls ability to speak six foreign languages, Russian neuropsychologistAnna Semenovich reminds us that in 19th century Russia, speaking several foreign languages was common for children of royal families.“In pre-revolutionary Russia, if a child from a noble family couldn’t speak three-four languages by the age of five or six, it was a shame to take him out. ”

但是，当世界上大多数人都被小女孩能说六种外语的才能感到震惊时，俄罗斯神经心理学家安娜·赛门诺维奇提醒大家：在19世纪的俄罗斯，对于来自王室家族的小孩来说，说好几门外语是稀松平常的事。“在革命前的俄罗斯，如果一个孩子出身高贵，到了五六岁却不能说三四门语言，大人都不好意思带他出门。”

The neuropsychologist says that we can only say that Bella Devyatkina has some truly special abilities in 15-20 years. “I want to wish this girl good luck, but the public needs to understand that the path to true genius is a thornyone. That’s why most prodigies don’t reach their full potential。”

这位神经心理学家说，只有再过15－20年，我们才敢说贝拉·德瓦特基那真的拥有特殊才能。“我想祝这位小女孩好运，但公众需要理解，通向天才之路是布满荆棘的，这也是为什么大多数天才儿童没有把他们的天赋充分发挥出来。”

Still, many argue that the fact that Bella has managed to become fluent in languages belonging to three different groups: Indo-European (Russian, French, English, Spanish, German), Semitic (Arabic) and Sino-Tibetan (Chinese), which means they are very different and lack structural similarities, is simply mind-blowing.

尽管如此，仍有很多人争辩说，无论如何，贝拉已经熟练掌握了分属3个不同语系的语言：印欧语系（俄语、法语、英语、西班牙语、德语）、闪族语系（阿拉伯语）和汉藏语系（汉语），也就是说这些语言非常不同，结构上也没有什么相似之处，贝拉能说七种语言绝对是令人叹为观止的。