喝醉時，外語說得比較流利？

常常可以聽到語言學習者說他們喝得酩酊大醉時，反而可以把外語說的更流利。他們似乎認為酒精飲用與外語口語能力有直接的關連。這種說法背後到底有什麼科學理論呢？

已知的是酒醉狀態實際上對我們的學習及記憶能力有負面影響，因海馬迴（hippocampus）無法正常作用。海馬迴是大腦記憶系統中不可或缺的一部份。但另一方面，儘管酒醉會造成虛幻的感覺，有些飲酒造成的負面作用似乎能增加學習及記憶能力。舉例來說，被深度催眠的人，在學習上能夠比那些催眠程度較低的人，表現更佳。

所以飲酒能使外語說得更好，到底是怎麼一回事？實情是，當我們喝醉時， 情感過濾（affective filter）的功用會降低。換句話說就是我們會把大部分原有的矜持跟擔憂拋之腦後。因為原有的阻礙不復存在，我們就會在不講究文法規則、不擔心犯錯的情況下，以較為放鬆的態度，趴哩啪啦地說著外語。

但是可別急著把­Jack Daniels威士忌當作語言學習的秘方！這個方法有兩個壞處。

第一點，雖然你變得比較有信心開口，而且可以說得很流暢，但是你也會犯更多的文法跟發音錯誤，而且可能會造成連清醒時都改正不來的錯誤。

第二個壞處是酒醉時那種信心滿滿（或說得一口流利外語）的狀態，都不持久。如果依賴酒精當外語溝通的主要促進劑的話，那到最後你可能會要靠酒精來精通外語了！

最重要的一點是，酒精對流利外語口說帶來的正面影響，其實不完全歸功於酒精。實際上只是你對自己的語言能力產生信心。藉由口說練習或信心建立的學習系統增進語言能力，會有大過豪飲伏特加或威士忌的成效。

資料來源：Speak­ing Alco­hol: Do We Speak For­eign Lan­guages Bet­ter When Drunk? [13 APRIL 2011]

全文摘自Pan­Sci泛科學網

原文：

It is com­mon to hear for­eign lan­guage learn­ers say that they are able to speak more flu­ent­ly when in a state of ine­bri­a­tion. They seem to iden­ti­fy a direct rela­tion­ship between alco­hol con­sump­tion and their abil­i­ty to speak a cer­tain language.

It makes you won­der: is there any sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence is there to back this up?

One thing we do know is that drunk­en states are often actu­al­ly detri­men­tal to one’s learn­ing and mem­o­ry abil­i­ties by inhibit­ing the prop­er func­tion­ing of the hip­pocam­pus, an inte­gral part of the brain’s mem­o­ry sys­tem. On the oth­er hand, some types of seem­ing­ly debil­i­tat­ing states have been shown to increase learn­ing and mem­o­ry despite their seem­ing­ly illu­so­ry effects. For exam­ple, peo­ple under deep hyp­no­sis have been shown to per­form bet­ter on learn­ing tasks than peo­ple who have under­gone less­er types of hypnosis.

Why do we Speak Foreign Languages Better When Drunk?

So what exact­ly might be hap­pen­ing when you’re drink­ing that helps you speak for­eign lan­guages bet­ter? Well, in our state of drunk­en debauch­ery, we low­er our affec­tive fil­ter. In oth­er words, we tend to lose many of our inhi­bi­tions and wor­ries. As a result of this decrease in inhi­bi­tions, we also tend to wor­ry less about the gram­mat­i­cal rules and pos­si­ble mis­takes we can incur in and we adopt a more relaxed atti­tude towards ver­bal com­mu­ni­ca­tion, there­by result­ing in a more flu­id stream of words out of our mouths.

But don’t go run­ning for a bot­tle of Jack Daniels as your lan­guage-improve­ment solu­tion just yet! There are two major down­sides to this strat­e­gy. The first is that despite your increased con­fi­dence and flu­id­i­ty, you are also like­ly to make many more gram­mat­i­cal and pro­nun­ci­a­tion errors, and per­haps even ingrain­ing bad habits that will per­sist back into sobriety.

The sec­ond down­side is that any improve­ments in confidence/fluidity that may be expe­ri­enced while drunk are unfor­tu­nate­ly short-lived. If you rely on alco­hol as your pri­ma­ry facil­i­ta­tor of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, than you might end up resort­ing to alco­holism to mas­ter your lan­guage of pref­er­ence! Not a good plan.

The impor­tant les­son to learn here is that the seem­ing­ly pos­i­tive effects of alco­hol on for­eign lan­guage flu­en­cy are not due to alco­hol at all. They are due to con­fi­dence in your skills. If you build con­fi­dence by prac­tic­ing speak­ing and use a con­fi­dence-based learn­ing sys­tem such as Brain­scape, you’ll expe­ri­ence much bet­ter improve­ments in your lan­guage skills than you would from a bot­tle of vod­ka or whiskey.