法語拼字大賽閉幕 新任冠軍“目不識丁”

New French-Language Scrabble Champion Doesn’t Speak French

Host： To win the French World Scrabble Championship you’d think you’d need to speak French， right？ Well， the winner of this year’s tournament， held in Belgium， does not. He’s Nigel Richards， a New Zealander based in Malaysia， who speaks no French， though he’s apparently a Scrabble legend. Stefan， you’ve written about this Scrabble 1）virtuoso， Nigel Richards. What makes him so 2）enigmatic？

Stefan Fatsis （Reporter）： What makes him enigmatic is his personality， and he’s got this big long beard that goes down to about the middle of his chest. He’s perceived as a sort of 3）reclusive figure in Scrabble. He approaches the game in a very， very different way than most players. He just plays and then he’s done. Most players will sit around after a game and try to resolve where the mistakes were， what the best play might have been， why they lost or why they won. Nigel sort of sits there 4）placidly， game is over， he’s done lookin’ at it， he’s ready for the next game. But what really makes him different is this inexplicable 5）mental acuity—the ability to， to ingest and memorize hundreds of thousands of words in English， and now in French.

Host： Does he have a photographic memory or something？

Stefan： Well， when I interviewed him a long time ago， before he was a championship player， he actually talked to me about that. For him it was looking at each page of the dictionary and creating a photographic image of what was on the page， and then recalling in his mind， the boldfaced words. All that matters is the order of the letters. And Nigel described to me how he would go on these long， long bike rides and he would bring up in his brain an image of the page that he wanted to review， and then he would go to the next page and the next page. He’s the sort of person that can say， “Oh yes， I learned that word， and it was on page 832 of that dictionary.”

Host： But he must somehow memorize how the word is pronounced， right？ Because if a word is said in French， you know， how do you connect how it’s pronounced to what you see on a page？

Stefan： I don’t think it matters. And， in the case of the French dictionary， I don’t know how Nigel learned the words. My 6）hunch is that he looked at the words， 7）sans definitions， and just memorized the letter strings， because when you get down to it， Scrabble is not a game about language. You don’t need to know definitions， you don’t need to know， um， anything. It’s certainly helpful to know how something’s pluralized， but ultimately all that matters is that you know the order in which the letters go. There have been great Thai Scrabble players who barely speak English， and have won a world championship or two， and done extremely well in English-language tournaments. So it is not a function of your native speaking ability. It’s a function of being able to process the order in which the letters appear in particular words. Is this string of letters acceptable or is it not？

Host： Is there big money in the professional game？

Stefan： You know， I wouldn’t call it big money， but it’s money enough. You’re not gonna get rich playing Scrabble， but that’s not why Scrabble players play. They play because they love the thrill of， sort of， decoding the language and mastering this wonderful strategic game.

主持人：要想贏得法語拼字世界錦標賽，你肯定覺得你要會說法語，對吧？今年的比賽在比利時舉行，而這一屆的冠軍不會說法語。他就是奈杰爾·理查茲，一位馬來西亞籍的新西蘭人。盡管他完全不會說法語，但他顯然是拼字界的傳奇人物。斯特凡，你曾撰文介紹奈杰爾·理查茲這位拼字大師，他的高深莫測體現在什么地方呢？

斯特凡·法特西茲（記者）：他的神秘源自他的性格，還因為他長著一把幾乎垂到胸前的大胡子。他被視為拼字界的隱士，其參賽方式與大多數選手非常不一樣。他只是參與比賽，然后就完事了。大部分選手在比賽后都是無所事事的模樣，試圖找出錯在哪里，最佳拼法應該是怎樣的，為什么自己會輸掉或是贏得比賽。而奈杰爾只會平靜地坐在那里，比賽結束了，他已經看夠了，該準備下一場比賽了。但真正讓他與眾不同的一點在于，奈杰爾擁有一種令人費解的精神敏度——這種能力讓他可以吸收并記住成千上萬的英語單詞，現在連法語也不在話下了。

主持人：他采用的是圖像記憶法之類的技巧嗎？

斯特凡：呃，我很久以前采訪過他，那時他還不是錦標賽選手，他確實跟我聊過這個問題。對他來說，這種記憶法就是瀏覽字典的每一頁，在腦子里生成一幅關于頁面內容的圖像，然后在回憶時重新回想那些粗體單詞。字母順序才是關鍵所在。奈杰爾對我說，他會騎車溜達很長一段路，在腦海中調出要回顧的那一頁圖像，接著回想下一頁，再下一頁。……