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　　Here’s another human trick.// Suppose I asked you/how many penguins you see.// I know how you’d answer.// You’d go,/“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.”// You’d count them.// Having number words in your language/opens up the whole world of mathematics.// This little trick gives you a stepping stone/into a whole cognitive realm.//
　　Some languages don’t have number words.// In fact,/people who speak these languages don’t count,/and they have trouble keeping track of exact quantities.// For example,/if I asked you to match a certain number of penguins/to the same number of ducks,/you would be able to do that by counting.// But folks who don’t have that linguistic trick/can’t do that.// Languages also differ/in how they divide up the color spectrum.// Some languages have lots of words for colors.// Some have only a couple of words:/“light” and “dark.”//
　　Languages also differ/in where they put boundaries between colors.// For example,/in English,/blue  can cover all shades of blue,/but in Russian,/there isn’t a single word.// Instead,/Russian speakers have to differentiate/between light blue, goluboy,/and dark blue, siniy.// So,/Russians have this lifetime of experience/of distinguishing these two colors in language.//
　　The difference/in how languages categorize the color spectrum/has important consequences.// When we test people’s ability/to perceptually discriminate among these colors,/we find that Russian speakers are faster/across this linguistic boundary.// For example,/when you have colors shifting slowly/from light to dark blue,/Russian speakers will have a surprised reaction in their brains,/whereas English speakers won’t.//