我的生活海伦凯勒摘抄 海伦·凯勒自传《我的生活》第28期

海伦·凯勒自传《我的生活》第28期  

Miss Fuller's method was this: she passed my hand lightly over her face
and let me feel the position of her tongue and lips when she made a sound. I was eager to imitate every motion and in an hour had learned six elements of speech: M
P
A
S
T
I. Miss Fuller gave me eleven lessons in all. I shall never fet the surprise and delight I felt when I uttered my first connected sentence
"It is warm." True
they were broken and stammering syllables; but they were human speech. My soul
conscious of new strength
came out of bondage
and was reaching through those broken symbols of speech to all knowledge and all faith.
No deaf child who has earnestly tried to speak the words which he has never heard—to e out of the prison of silence
where no tone of love
no song of bird
no strain of music ever pierces the stillness—can fet the thrill of surprise
the joy of discovery which came over him when he uttered his first word. Only such a one can appreciate the eagerness with which I talked to my toys
to stones
trees
birds and dumb animals
or the delight I felt when at my call Mildred ran to me or my dogs obeyed my mands. It is an unspeakable boon to me to be able to speak in winged words that need no interpretation. As I talked
happy thoughts fluttered up out of my words that might perhaps have struggled in vain to escape my fingers.
But it must not be supposed that I could really talk in this short time. I had learned only the elements of speech. Miss Fuller and Miss Sullivan could understand me
but most people would not have understood one word in a hundred. Nor is it true that
after I had learned these elements
I did the rest of the work myself. But for Miss Sullivan's genius
untiring perseverance and devotion
I could not have progressed as far as I have toward natural speech. In the first place
I laboured night and day before I could be understood even by my most intimate friends; in the second place
I needed Miss Sullivan's assistance constantly in my efforts to articulate each sound clearly and to bine all sounds in a thousand ways. Even now she calls my attention every day to mispronounced words.
不过，在如此短的时间内学会讲话还是令人难以想象的。事实上，我只是掌握了讲话的要素而已。虽然富勒小姐和苏立文小姐明白我说的话，但是大部分人并不知道我在说什么，我说一百个词，他们未必能听懂一个词。这当然称不上真正的语言，就是说，在我学习了这些要素之后，其余的技能就要靠我自己去摸索了。多亏了苏立文小姐的天才之举，以及她孜孜不倦的奉献精神，否则，我是无法在学习自然讲话的过程中取得进步的。首先，要想让我最亲密的朋友们听懂我说的话，我必须要夜以继日地加强练习；其次，我需要苏立文小姐的持续帮助，就是说，让她帮我纠正每一个发音，然后再用上千种方式将所有的音节组合在一起。直到现在，她仍会在日常交流中提醒我读错的音。
All teachers of the deaf know what this means
and only they can at all appreciate the peculiar difficulties with which I had to contend. In reading my teacher's lips I was wholly dependent on my fingers: I had to use the sense of touch in catching the vibrations of the throat
the movements of the mouth and the expression of the face; and often this sense was at fault. In such cases I was forced to repeat the words or sentences
sometimes for hours
until I felt the proper ring in my own voice. My work was practice
practice
practice. Discouragement and weariness cast me down frequently; but the next moment the thought that I should soon be at home and show my loved ones what I had acplished
spurred me on
and I eagerly looked forward to their pleasure in my achievement.