94024777
Here’s some bullshit i wrote in 20 minutes for our schools english newspaper.
Enjoy
Improving your english
Besides, �Do you like to eat Chinese food?,� and �Do you have a girlfriend?,� one of the first questions I get asked in China is �What should I do to improve my English?� I find this a very difficult question to answer. For one thing I am a native speaker. I learned English when I was a baby, so my experience cannot be of any help to you. I also feel that the questioner is looking for an answer that will make learning Chinese easy, but there is no simple solution. Only through hard work can one master a foreign language.
However, different ways of studying English do yield different results. If you sit in your room and memorize every word in the dictionary, you will know a lot of English. If you try to talk to an English, you will find it quite difficult to communicate. Imagine a Chinese person that never spoke in natural sentences, but only rattled off unrelated words. You would think he was crazy. This is what you would sound like to an English speaker, if you study English only by memorizing words.
Another way of studying English is to read many English books. This method is much better than just memorizing words, but it still has it�s drawbacks. Of course reading English books will improve your reading ability, but it will also help build your vocabulary, and improve your writing. This is because it is easy to remember new words that you read in a story, and if you read a book that has good writing in it, you will learn how to write well.
The drawback of this method is that it does not improve your speaking. When you write something, you have lots of time to pick the correct words, and you can check to see if you have used the proper grammar. In speaking you have none of these luxuries. You most come up with the proper words to express your feelings on the spot. You must know the proper grammar instantly. The only way to learn these skills is to practice your speaking. By this I do not mean sitting by yourself and saying English words. You must speak to other people.
�But I do not know any native speakers to talk to!� I hear you lament. This is a problem, but it is not hard to overcome. While it is useful to talk to native speakers, it is not essential to learning English. Wit so many Chinese people and so few native speakers in China, you will be lucky if you can get to talk with one for ten minutes. Don�t despair, there are many Chinese people very eager to speak English. If you want to learn English go out find like minded students and all of you will learn English quickly.
Everybody studies English for different reasons. If you only want to pass a test, maybe memorizing a dictionary is a good way to do this, but you won�t be able to communicate with anyone. If you want to be able to write and read, than reading many English books is a good idea. But I think the goal of any foreign language student should be to communicate with people who speak that language. To do this you must practice that language with other people. In the end that is the only way you will truly master English.