Episode Details

Close your eyes and think about the future. Do you imagine it to be in front of you or behind you? Maybe your timeline is vertical, with the future below, and the past above? Linguists such as Lera Boroditsky believe that the language you speak might influence your perception of time.

闭上眼睛，想象一下未来。你会觉得未来在你的前方还是后方？也许你的时间线是垂直的，未来在下方，而过去在上方？像Lera Boroditsky这样的语言学家认为，你所说的语言可能会影响你对时间的感知。

She highlighted that in English, we see time on a horizontal line.

她指出，在英语中，人们会把时间看作一条水平线。

The past is behind us, and the future is ahead.

过去在我们身后，而未来在我们前方。

We can see this in phrases like 'forward thinking', and 'ahead of schedule' that we use for the future, and 'back in the day' and 'behind the times' for the past.

这一点可以从英语短语中体现出来，例如描述未来时会说“forward thinking（超前思维）”和“ahead of schedule（提前于计划）”；而描述过去时则会说“back in the day（过去那些日子）”和“behind the times（落伍、过时）”。

However, not all languages reflect this perspective.

然而，并不是所有语言都采用这种时间观。

For the Aymara people in the Andes mountains, the word for future means 'behind time'.

对于安第斯山脉的艾马拉人来说，“未来”这个词意味着“在时间后面”。

Work by Nuñez and Sweetser revealed that when gesturing, the Aymara people point backwards when talking about the future, while English speakers gesture forwards.

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