I’ve been learning English for 20 years. The more I learn, the more I find my English is poor, however, at least I can express myself freely on both speaking and writing now. I’d like to share with my English learning experience with my friends here, if by accident, you find something useful to you, I’ll be very happy and contented.
Until my graduation, I didn’t learn English seriously and my English level was just so-so. When I worked in Ningbo, I was only 21 years old and had nothing to do. For the first time of my life, I lived alone outside of Hubei province. I always wished I could work for all seven days in a week, because I didn’t even have a computer or a TV to entertain myself in my own shabby room. I didn’t know how to cook and had to eat in the company. The only book I carried with me was a small dictionary edited by Liu Yuecheng and it was bought by me during my senior high school.
I rarely went outside during weekend, so I just bought several steamed buns and lay in bed all day in a daze. Sometimes, when I was bored, I took the small dictionary to read. Generally, rarely someone could read dictionary, but I could. I could read dictionary all day without feeling bored.
I didn’t know what I would do in the future. I just had this kind of life for a whole year. The room I rented was among rubbish, when you came home, you would find feces by animal or human everywhere. You could know what kind of people living around me without saying.
One night, after I returned from work, I read my small dictionary as usual. When it was nearly twelve o’clock, I turned off light and went to bed. In my dream, I felt someone coming in. Suddenly I awoke in a shock and found all my valuable things were stolen. I couldn’t go to sleep for the rest of night. It was weekend; I didn’t have money, so I just went to the company to have dinner instead.
All my friends were so happy and contented with their lives. They drank, sang and danced as long as they were available. Originally I tried to have this kind of life too, but I hated it.
So I just learnt technology during work and English after work for two years in Ningbo. I had one real friend Bo, who came to Ningbo 10 years ago and struggled to achieve success. I usually went to his home to feel the family warmness.
After I had read dictionary for two years, I still found my English was too bad. Why? Maybe it was because I thought of other things too much and couldn’t focus myself on one thing. I thought of success, wealth, love and so many beautiful things in life, but never thought of how to get them. Dear friends, I sincerely hoped that you could have one dream and pursue it heart and soul. There was no need to think of things after success to waste your time, you just needed to walk until the end of your road to realize your dream, and everything would be ready for you. If you still couldn’t understand, you could read the autobiography of Wang Baoqiang. I had wasted too much time on meaningless thoughts; however, there was no need to cry over spilt milk.
During one Spring Festival, I came to Shenzhen for the first time and just continued this kind of life in Shenzhen until now. I began to read English novels and found most of which were really boring, so I changed my method. I began to read the English edition of four great classical novels of China. After that, I read the English edition of works by Lu Xun and Chairman Mao. Language was just a language, culture was just a culture. There was really no need to be familiar with western culture at first, because your English language skill wasn’t good enough; you had to learn language under familiar culture. Actually, all languages in the world were the same. I just read history and literature in turn to be familiar with western society.
About listening, I’ve listened to Friends for 5 years. There was no need to listen to other things. After I listened to Friends again and again, I could understand other things naturally. About writing, at first, I was afraid I would make mistakes, what’s the big deal? As long as you could express yourself clearly, you had not need to worry. After all, there was no one going to shoot you to death if you made mistakes. Just thought of the sentence ‘Long time no see’, this was common even for native speakers.
I usually received foreign guests in the company I was working now. I just spoke everything in my head without hesitation. I didn’t think Crazy English was useful, but the spirit of Crazy English was nice. If you could speak things such as “Shout what shout?” in public, surely your English would become fluent sooner or later.
