人们常说小孩子学外语最厉害，但这并不是说成年人就该放弃了。我们向TED字幕翻译计划的多语使用者请教了掌握一门外语的秘诀。他们的方法可以提炼成7条基本法则：

1. Make language-learning a lifestyle change. Elisabeth Buffard, who in her 27 years of teaching English has always seen consistency as what separates the most successful students from the rest. Find a language habit that you can follow even when you’re tired, sick or madly in love.

1. 让外语学习成为你的生活习惯。伊利莎白·布法尔德教了27年英语，她一直认为正是习惯使得成功的学生从其他人中脱颖而出。培养学习外语的习惯，能让你不管累了、病了还是堕入爱河了，都会去学习。

2. Get real. Decide on a simple, attainable goal to start with so that you don’t feeloverwhelmed. German translator Judith Matz suggests: “Pick up 50 words of a language and start using them on people — and then slowly start picking up grammar.”

2. 投身于真实语境。从定一个简单、可实现的目标开始，那样你就不会找不着方向。德语翻译朱迪思·马茨建议：先找50个外语单词，用它们来跟别人交流，然后慢慢地学习语法。

3. Play house with the language. The more you invite a foreign language into your daily life, the more your brain will consider it something useful and worth caring about. “Use every opportunity to get exposed to the new language,” says Russian translator Olga Dmitrochenkova. Label every object in your house in this language, read kids’ books written in it, watch subtitled TED and TEDx talks, or live-narrate parts of your day to an imaginary foreign friend.

3. 和语言玩过家家。你越多地让外语进入日常生活，你的大脑就越会认为它有用并给予关注。“利用好每一个接触新语言的机会，”俄语翻译欧嘉·迪米特罗肯科娃说。用那门语言做成标签贴在家里的每一样东西上，读用那门语言写的童话，看有字幕的TED演讲，或者跟你想象中的外国朋友讲述一些一天里发生的事。