Stolen Moments / 偷來的片刻

Before the Internet Age, we knew that the short blocks of time that life provided to all of us … waiting for an elevator, on hold on the phone, on a subway … could be used very effectively to accomplish, cumulatively, a lot of learning. Barry Farber, founder of the Language Club and author of How to Learn Any Language, referred to these as “Hidden Moments”.

早在網際網路時代來臨之前，我們就已知道生活中有許多瑣碎時間是能夠善加利用的，像是等待電梯、在電話中被要求稍候、搭乘地鐵等等… 。若能有效率地運用這些時間，累積起來能夠用它們完成大量的學習。 「語言俱樂部」創辦人及《如何學會任何語言》之作者貝瑞‧法柏 (Barry Farber)，將這些瑣碎時間稱為「隱藏時間」。

More recently, in articles about e-learning, short blocks of time during which mini-lessons on mobile, wireless devices could be used have been referred to as “Stolen Moments”.

最近幾年，在有關數位學習的文獻中，這種可以讓我們用手機或無線上網裝置做短暫學習的零碎時間被稱為「偷來的時間」。

While these terms actually refer to the same thing, I prefer the more recent one. Why? Because the Internet in general and smart phones in particular take that time and those opportunities from us. If we let them.

這兩個名詞事實上指的是同一個東西，不過我個人較偏好近幾年流行的這個。為什麼呢？因為假如我們沒有好好掌控這些瑣碎時間，常常就會將它們浪費在網路和智慧型手機上，而錯失很多可用來學習的時間和機會。

It’s important to remember that, before we chose (and it was indeed a choice) to assign such a wide variety of unnecessary tasks to our short blocks of time, we previously recognized those blocks of time as valuable opportunities for learning. Those tiny blocks of time, properly used, were significant and beneficial.

我們必須記住的是，我們早先就已知道瑣碎時間是珍貴的學習機會，但我們卻仍(刻意地)選擇將這些時間花在各種不必要的事情上。 那些瑣碎的時間如果有善加利用，原本是可以發揮很大功能和帶來很多好處的。

So every time you check your email for the 5th time in an hour, every time you chat on Skype or Line about nothing in particular, every time you check Facebook, every minute you spend trying to figure out the current level of Candy Crush, you must remember that you’ve made an exchange. You’ve made a choice to learn less, and learn less effectively.

因此，當你在一小時內查五次電子郵件、用 Skype 或 Line 這些軟體和別人閒聊、不斷去看臉書網頁、想著如何能破解 Candy Crush 目前這關時，你必須記住你已經選擇犧牲你的時間。你選擇了不用這些時間來學習，而導致你的學習較沒有效率。

And if you’re regularly making that kind of choice, you really need to re-think the reasons you gave yourself for making the effort to learn English, and whether the long-term goal of that effort is more or less important than satisfying the need to click “Refresh”.

假如你經常做那樣的選擇，你真的必須重新思考自己學習英文的理由，以及滿足此時此刻按下「重新整理」來看最新網頁的欲望是否比你學習英文的最終目的來得重要。