2019哈佛辯論夏令營經歷分享

兩周的summer camp，Xu Zhizhen同學（2021屆）在哈佛辯論營克服了許多困難，當然也完成了從語言到辯論技巧的諸多挑戰。

The camp was a wonderful experience, the dorm, the meals, and the people… there were also many difficulties and challenges, from language to debating skills. But through the two weeks, I have become a lot better.

這個夏令營是一次非常好的體驗，宿舍、食物、還有人們······這里也有許多的困難和挑戰，從語言到辯論技巧。但在這兩周里，我收獲了很多很多。

One of our first tasks was doing research, and it was a challenging task for me. To search for a single piece of evidence, it requires reading many passages and finally, we would just cut a short sentence from them. My main problem was my reading speed, as English is a second language of mine. I struggled to read hundreds of long articles, there were a lot of words that I didn't know so I had to stop and look up their meanings, and some days I even stayed up until 1 am. But all the work that we had done turned out to be very useful later in debate rounds.

我們的首要任務之一是做research，這對我來說是一項具有挑戰性的任務。為了尋找一個小小的證據，就需要閱讀特別多的文章，到最后只是從它們中剪下一個簡短的句子。因為英語是我的第二語言，我的閱讀速度就相對很慢，看完一篇文章都十分痛苦。我掙扎著讀了很多篇文章，其中有很多生詞，我還不得不停下來查詢它們的意思，有時我甚至會做到凌晨一點。但是我后來才發現，我們所做的一切準備在后來的辯論中都非常有用。

After we finished writing our case, we started to practice debates. More and more problems came out. For instance, sometimes I was not able to understand what our opponents were saying because they were speaking too fast. Also, during my speeches, it was hard for me to speak fluently, because I had to translate what I wanted to say into English or I had to find appropriate words to express. I knew that my speech would sound very untrustworthy compared to the native speakers, and I thought no judge would vote for us.

寫完case后，我們開始練習一場完整的辯論，越來越多的問題出現了。例如，有時我根本聽不懂對方的內容，因為他們的語速實在太快。而且在我發言時我很難說得流利，因為我必須把我所想說的翻譯一遍，或者我需要找到合適的詞語來表達。我能感受到我說話的時候和美國本地人相比是不太可靠的，因此我猜想大概沒有人會投票支持我們。

But still, debate was not just about fluency, being good at English and being aggressive, the contents play a very important role. How you respond to opponents’ questions, what evidence you could provide, and how persuasive your points are?could also be considered by the judge. I was happy to find out that the judges, especially the good ones, would care more about what the debater said instead of comparing who was more confident. We have seen people who are not native speakers won native speakers, so just prepare well, and leave it to the judge to judge.

但辯論不僅僅只是關于說話流利、擅長英語或具有攻擊性，內容也起著非常重要的作用。你如何回答對手的問題，你可以提供什么可靠的證據，并說服評委為你投票同樣重要。我發現評委，尤其是專業的評委，會更加注意辯論者所說的話，而不是比較誰更自信或者誰聽起來更占上風。我們親眼見證過也親身體會過來自其他國家的選手戰勝美國本土選手。所以只要做好充分的準備，剩下的就可以交給裁判判斷了。

And finally, it was a great time to meet other people. There were a lot of friendly people from all over the world, and it was very interesting to know more about them.

最后，summer camp是一個能遇見許多不同類型朋友的好機會，有許多來自世界各地的同學們，和他們交流是十分有趣的。