Marianne Ham was so excited when she recently visited Machu Picchu, the ancient Incan ruins in Peru, that she pulled out her cellphone on the top of the mountain and called her husband back home in Huntingdon Valley, Pa.She wanted to share the experience with him and described the stunning¹ views. When she was done talking，her husband, Bill, had one thing to say: "Do you have the number for the electrician?"

玛丽安娜·哈姆最近到秘鲁的古印加遗址马丘比丘旅游，在山顶上她兴奋地掏出手机，给在宾夕法尼亚州亨廷顿谷家中的丈夫打了个电话。她描述着眼前迷人的美景，想和他分享这种体验。她说完之后，丈夫比尔只回了一句话:你有电工的电话号码吗?

"It was so typical," says Ms. Ham, a 72-year-old retired² advertising³ media manager who has been married 35 years. "I was saying one thing and his mind was somewhere else."

哈姆说，这种事很平常，我说一件事时，他的心总是在别的事情上。哈姆今年72岁，是一名退休的广告媒体经理，婚龄已有35年。

There really are just two kinds of people in the world-talkers and non-talkers. Logically, ail⁴ would be perfect if the talkers married only the non-talkers But that’s not always the case, since many non-talkers are also non-listeners一they simply tune⁵ out the chatter⁶. Frustration⁷ over communication styles can be heightened in this age of technology. Now that we have more ways than ever before to communicate, some people have never felt less heard.

世界上其实只有两种人:爱说话的人和不爱说话的人。从道理上讲，如果爱说话的人和只是不爱说话的人结婚，一切就会很圆满。但情况并不总是如此，因为许多不爱说话的人同时也是不爱听人说话的人，他们会对唠叨充耳不闻。在这个科技时代，沟通方式给人带来的挫败感可能更为明显。现在，我们拥有比以往任何时候都多的沟通方式，有些人却感到前所未有地缺少听众。

I have a good friend who says I talk too much. He’s probably not wrong-I speak for far longer stretches of time than he can stand to listen. So he has a plan:He suggested, half jokingly, that we communicate by voicemail and text messages."It’s shorter that way,”he explained.

我的一个好朋友嫌我太爱说话。他说得应该没错，我一说起来就是很长时间，超过了他能耐心听下去的程度。因此他有了一个计划:他半开玩笑地建议我们通过语音信箱和短信交流。他解释说，那样话就短了。

I've got bad news for him: That's not going to work for me. But his negotiation⁸ over how we can best communicate does raise an interesting point:Non-talkers control the conversation. When they’re done listening, the conversation is over

可我要告诉他的是个坏消息:这种方法对我不管用。不过他为了更好的交流而与我商量这一举动倒是提出了一个有趣的问题:不爱说话的人控制了谈话，当他们停止倾听时，谈话就结束了。

Consider the Macalusos, of Webster, N.Y.Susan likes to talk-a lot. Rob does not. "You could be interested in talking all night, but if I’m not interested, it's not going to happen," says Rob, 40, head of a telecommunications' equipment company.

以纽约韦伯斯特的马卡卢索夫妇为例。妻子苏珊非常喜欢说话，而丈夫罗布则不喜欢说话。罗布说，你可能有兴趣整晚聊个不停，但如果我不感兴趣，那就什么也聊不起来。罗布今年40岁，是一家电信设备公司的总裁，苏珊43岁，是一名家庭主妇。

At night in bed, while Ms. Macaluso happily chats away about her day, her husband often falls asleep, despite propping⁹ himself up with pillowsand keeping the light on. On more than one occasion, after a cellphone call with him gets dropped, she has yammered away for an additional two or three minutes, unaware¹⁰ that he’s not there until he calls back on another line. And every once in a while,she becomes so exasperatedby his silence that she pretends to speak for him, in a deeper voice, just to hear some feedback

晚上，当苏珊在床上开心地聊着她当天的经历时，她的丈夫经常会手肘支在枕头上就睡着了，灯也还开着。不止一次，两人手机通话时电话断线后，她会继续说个两三分钟，却没意识到他已经没有在听了，直到他用另一个号码拨回来。每隔一段时间，她就会因为想和丈夫说话丈夫却不理她而发火。她会用低沉的声音学他说话，只是为了得到一些回应。

"He doesn't tell me to get to the point because he knows it would be a big insult,”says Ms. Macaluso, 43, a homemaker. Says her husband:“I made the mistake of telling my wife to speed up一just once. She started over and made mesit through the whole thing again.”

苏珊说，他没有告诉我要长话短说，因为他知道这么说很伤人。她丈夫说，我有次犯了个错误，告诉我妻子快点说，就一次，然后她就从头再来，让我把整件事又听了一遍。

Do women talk more than men? Not always, of course. Some men are big gabbers, just as some women are silent types. And yet, the stereotype¹¹ that women talk more than men holds pretty true.

女性的话比男性多吗?当然并不总是这样。有些男人也很唠叨，有些女性也很安静。但是，总体而言，认为女性比男性爱说话这个传统观念是很正确的。

There are environmental reasons一many men are raised not to share their feelings. But biology plays a surprisingly strong a part, as well. There is evidence that women's and men’s brains process language differently, according to Marianne Legato, a cardiologist and founder¹² of the Partnership¹³ for Gender-Specific Medicine at New York’s Columbia University. She says that listening to,understanding and producing speech may be easier for women because they have more nerve cells in the left half of the brain, which is used to process language, a greater degree of connectivity between the two parts of the brain and more of the neurotransmitter3 dopamine in the part of the brain that controls language.

这种现象有其环境原因，许多男人从小到大接受的教育就是不和他人分享自己的情感。但是生理原因也起到了非常重要的作用。心脏病专家玛丽安娜·莱加托是纽约哥伦比亚大学性别区分医学合作研究协会的创建者，也是《为何男人健忘而女人念念不忘》一书的作者，她表示，有证据表明，女性和男性的大脑对语言的处理方式是不同的。她说，女性更容易倾听和理解谈话，也更善于谈话，因为女性的大脑左半球有更多用于处理语言的神经细胞，大脑两个半球之间的连接程度更高、大脑中控制语言的部分还有更多的神经递质多巴胺。

Although the ability to understand and process language diminishes in both men and women as we age, it does so earlier for men (after age 35) than women (post-menopause). Women also get a boost of oxytocin, the feel-good hormone¹⁴,when they speak to others, and estrogen enhances its effects. While men get this,too, testosterone blunts its effects. "This makes sense from an evolutionary¹⁵ point of view一men can't defend their families if they are burdened with high levels of a hormone that compels them to make friends of all they meet,”says Dr. Legato,author of "Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget.”"Thus, men in their prime with high levels of testosterone are the least likely to be interested in social exchanges and bonding to others.”

尽管男性和女性理解和处理语言的能力都会随着年龄的增长而降低，但男性(35岁以后)的能力比女性(绝经后)降低得更早。女性和别人说话时，催产素的分泌会增加，这是一种让心情愉快的荷尔蒙，而雌激素会进一步促进它的作用。尽管男性也会分泌这种物质，但肇酮却会降低它的作用。莱加托博士说，这可以从进化论的角度来解释—如果男性背负着高荷尔蒙水平，迫使他们和遇见的所有人交朋友，那他们就无法捍卫自己的家庭。因此，年轻时梁酮水平高的男性对社会交往和人际关系最不感兴趣。

Of course, we don't need scientific studies to tell us that men and women communicate differently. Ask Taylor Keeney about his "word imbalance" theory."Some women generally have a word quota¹⁶,”says the 44-year-old pilot from Apex,N.C. "They have to say so many words to their significant other per day.”

当然，我们不需要科学研究来告诉我们男性和女性的沟通方式有所不同。44岁的泰勒·基尼来自北卡罗来纳州的埃佩克斯，是一名飞行员，他有一套自创的“语汇不均”理论。他说，女性通常都有一定的语汇份额，她们每天必须和自己的另一半说上许多话。

Simply for ease of accounting¹⁷, he puts that number at 1,000 words per day.Men, he says, generally are capable of hearing about 750 of these words. That is,once the woman hits 750, the man’s eyes glaze¹⁸ over. She then goes into "angry storage mode,”saving words for the next day. This cycle can be repeated indefinitely, with the woman storing up words until she gets a chance to say them.

为了便于计算，他将这个份额定为每天1000个词。他说，男性通常能听到这些词中的大约750个。也就是说，一旦女人说的词达到750个，男人就会变得目光呆滞。然后，她就会进人“愤怒的储存模式”，把话留到第二天再说。这种循环会无限重复，女性会把话留起来，有机会的时候就会说出来。，

"It is not pretty and can end badly for all concerned," says Mr. Keeney. Phrases like, "You never listen to me" or "We never talk anymore" are uttered.Men give the "I just got home and all I want to do is relax" as a defense¹⁹. Not good.

基尼说，这一点也不好玩，往往会以伤害彼此的结局收场。女性会说出“你从来也不听我说”或“我们再也别说话了”之类的话。男性则会回敬她“我刚回家，只想好好放松一下”。这样很不好。

Mr. Keeney has come up with a solution: texting. "Something as simple as a text of‘DCA LUMU’(Landed in D.C., Love You, Miss You) or `GMB’(Good Morning, Beautiful) are fast but very effective at letting your partner know that you are thinking of them," he says. "And all words count against the word quota.”Mr.Keeney’s wife of three years, Margit Sylvester, agrees一to a point. "It has to be both quality and quantity,”says Ms. Sylvester, 39, an executive assistant.

基尼找到了一种解决方法:把要说的话写成文字。他说，像DCA LU MU(飞机到华盛顿了，爱你，想你)或GMB早上好，宝贝)这样简单的文字能够很便捷地让你的伴侣知道你在惦念她。基尼结婚3年的妻子玛吉特·西尔维斯特非常同意他的看法。39岁的西尔维斯特是一名行政助理，她说，你说出来的每个词都会占据语汇份额，所以你必须同时注意质量和数量。

So what’s the answer? Should talkers befriend only talkers? Perhaps the best solution is to find someone who exactly complements²⁰ your talking style. So, for example, if you like to talk 75% of the time, you need to find someone who is comfortable listening 75% of the time and talking only a quarter of it.

那么，答案是什么呢?爱说话的人只能和爱说话的人交朋友吗?可能最好的解决方法是，找到一个恰好与你的谈话方式互补的人。比如，如果你喜欢花75%的时间说话，那么你就需要找到一个愿意花75%的时间倾听，而只会25%的时间说话的人。