关于爱情，年轻人可以从很多地方得到建议——朋友、家人，最糟莫过于互联网。而目前，绝望的单身汉们都在向一名九岁的男孩学习约会技巧。

　　Alec Greven, from Colorado, is the author of How to Talk to Girls. The book, which started as an elementary school project, has become a New York Times best-seller. “I just observed around the playground how boys mess up and what mistakes they make,” said Alec. “A lot of boys made the wrong conversations。”

　　美国科罗拉多州的亚历克·格雷文写了一本名为《如何与女孩交谈》的书。这本书起初只是亚历克的一次小学作业，而现在已经登上了《纽约时报》畅销书榜的首位。亚历克说：“我只是在操场观察男孩子和女孩子在一起的时候都搞糟了哪些事情，犯了哪些错误。很多男孩子的交谈方式都有问题。”

　　Alec believes showing interest is the key to winning a girl’s heart. He said: “Your goal is to make sure she does most of the talking so then you can’t mess up。”

　　亚历克认为：要赢得女孩子的芳心，关键是要表现出感兴趣。他说：“你要做的是确保她在交谈中占主导地位，这样事情就不会搞砸。”

　　In his book, Alec suggests that men find a cool role model to base their behaviour on. “The best choice for most boys is a regular girl。” he said. Alec also offers advice for when relationships don’t work out so well. On breaking-up, he said: “You say something like, ‘I don’t think this is really going to work but would you like to be friends’。” On being dumped, he replied: “I say, life is hard, move on. If you can’t get over it, it’s ruined。”

　　在书中，亚历克建议男性要为自己的举止树立一个好榜样。他认为，“对于大多数男孩来说，最好是选择一个普通女孩。” 亚历克对于相处不顺的情况也提出了建议，比如分手时，他认为：“这种情况下应该说‘我认为我们俩在一起不合适，但能让我们继续做朋友吗’之类的话。” 如果被甩了呢？亚历克的回答是：“我会说生活就是如此艰难，继续生活吧。要抛开过去，否则你的生活就毁了。”

　　Despite his junior love-guru status, Alec says there are no ladies in his life, aside from his mother. “I’m a little too young for all that dating and everything,” he said. Alec is working on several follow-ups to How to Talk to Girls. How to Talk to Moms, How to Talk to Dads and How to Talk to Grandparents are already in the pipeline。

　　虽然身为年少的爱情专家，但亚历克说自己的生活中除了母亲还没有其他女士。他说：“约会和其他事情对我来说还太早了点。” 亚历克正计划写其他的与《如何与女孩交谈》类似的书：《如何同母亲交谈》，《如何同父亲交谈》，《如何同祖父母交谈》等都即将问世。

　　Vocabulary:

　　in the pipeline 在进行中，在处理中，在生产中