CHINESE is one of the hardest languages on earth. I knew that when l started out learning it ten years ago. At that time a friend of mine who had studied the language told me that the task of learning Chinese was "a five-year lesson in humility." I assumed that what he meant by this was that after five years of hard work I would have succeeded in mastering Chinese, while learning humility along the way. After five years, however, I realized the true meaning of his words: I still had not mastered Chinese, but I had definitely become a more humble person.
汉语是世界上最难学的语言之一，这一点我在十年前开始学习它的时候是知道的；当时我一个学过汉语的朋友告诉我说，学习汉语的过程是一个“五年谦卑之旅”；我当时以为他说这话的意思是通过五年的艰苦努力在学会谦卑的同时就能掌握汉语了；五年之后我才明白这句话的真正含义：我还没有掌握汉语，但毫无疑问，相比以前我已经谦虚得多了。
Now I am in China living, working and teaching English. Having grappled with Chinese for a decade or so, I also have a deep understanding and sympathy for the difficulties faced by Chinese learners of English. When I look into the face of a Chinese person struggling mightily to construct an English sentence, it's like looking into a mirror -- I see my own tortuous difficulties reflected in theirs. English is awfully hard, too, of course, if it's not your native language. Many of my Chinese friends have asked me for advice on ways to improve their English. What follows are just some of my observations and suggestions on how to better study foreign languages based on many years of hard experience studying Chinese.
目前我正在中国生活、工作、教英语；在我本人和汉语你来我往地较量了十多年之后，对于中国人学英语所面临的艰难困苦有了更深的理解和同情。每当我看着一个中国人为了说出一句像样的英语那种抓耳挠腮、山穷水尽的样子，我仿佛觉得自己面对的是一面镜子，里边照出来的就是我自己当年所经历的千辛万苦。英语如果不是你的母语，那学起来也难得很；我的许多中国朋友都曾经问过我有什么好办法能帮助他们学好英语，下面就是我在自己多年苦学汉语经验的基础上总结出来的学习外语的规律和建议。
Adopt a realistic attitude
First of al1, we all know there are no shortcuts. Despite the inflated claims of certain language teaching methods, language learning takes a long time, and requires lots of hard work. There is no magic technique, book, or tape that will solve all your problems for you. Shouting English sentences at the top of your lungs won't help; memorizing word lists is not enough; even finding an English speaking boyfriend or girlfriend won't miraculously make the process a simple one (though it's more fun than using a dull textbook). You simply must commit yourself to many years of slow, painstaking and often frustrating work. Of course, once you begin to make progress, the rewards are very great. The study of language is one of the most fascinating endeavors you can undertake, and comparing differences in Chinese and English can provide enlightening glimpses into cultures and ways of thinking. You will never regret the work you put into the goal of learning the language. But you must first do the work. As we say in English "No pain, no gain."
脚踏实地的学习态度
首先我们都知道并不存在什么“捷径”；不管有些教学法怎么自吹自擂，语言学习需要很长的时间，需要付出艰苦的劳动。不存在任何神奇的方法—— 或书或磁带—— 能替你解决所有的问题；大喊大叫英语句子帮不上什么忙；死记生词表远远不够；即便是能找到一个讲英语的男朋友或女朋友，也不可能创造一步登天的奇迹（当然这比跟着课本傻学要有意思）。你必须得下决心经历一个持续多年的、缓慢的、痛苦的同时经常会令让你感到灰心丧气的过程；当然，一旦你开始取得进步，回报也是非常大的。掌握一门外语是一种少有的让人神往的经历，对比汉语和英语的不同之处可以使你洞察不同的文化和不同的思维方式—— 你永远不会后悔为掌握一门外语而付出的努力—— 不过你首先还需努力，正像我们英语谚语所说的：“No pain, no gain（没有付出就没有收获）”。
Define your goals
Areas of language use are so varied and vast, that it is impossible to tackle them all at once. You should set realistic goals based on your particular interests and needs. If your desire is to be able to read current English newspapers and magazines, don't waste a lot of time reading Jane Eyre or Shakespeare, as wonderful as those authors are. Instead, hoard copies of Time magazine and devour them for breakfast every day. If you want to improve your English conversation, spend most of your learning time listening to and repeating dialogues, and less time reading. If you prefer British English to American English tune in more to the BBC and less to the Voice of America. If you want to improve your writing, write. Remember this simple fact: You learn to do something only by doing it. Set your priorities and stick to them.
明确目标
语言的使用领域如此宽宏博大，谁也不可能一下子把它们都列举出来。你应该根据你自身的兴趣和需求确定切实可行的学习目标；如果你希望能读懂英语报纸和杂志，那就不要花好多时间去弄《简爱》或莎士比亚—— 不管那些作品多好，道理也是一样；你应该做的是搜罗《时代》杂志，像每天必吃早饭一样坚持读下去。如果你想加强英语会话能力，你就应该把大部分学习时间花在听对话和模仿对话上，阅读的时间就应该相应减少。如果你更偏爱英国英语，那就尽可能多听BBC而少听VOA。如果你想加强写作能力，那就多练习写。请记住这个简单的原则：你能把什么事情做好那是因为你做那件事做得多。确定你的学习重点并牢牢把握它吧。
Immerse yourself
A foreign language cannot be studied in the same way that one learns how to use a computer or drive a car. Learning a language is a state of mind. A good English learner does not merely study English on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays during class. Rather, studying English must become a sort of obsession. A successful English student is reviewing vocabulary when waiting in line at the post office, practicing sentence structures while buying vegetables, contemplating past tense while riding a bus, perfecting pronunciation while taking a shower, translating dialogue into English while watching TV. The learning process must become like a constant background process. The eyes and ears are always open to English input. The learning becomes a part of your daily life as much as possible.
让英语包围你、淹没你
学习英语并不象学开车或学习电脑一样；掌握一门外语要求必须进入一种精神状态；一个好的英语学习者不仅仅是在周一、周三和周五的英语课堂上学习英语。实际上，要掌握英语必须有一种执著的精神；一个成功的英语学习者在邮局柜台前排队的时候可能是在复习词汇，买菜的同时在练习句子结构，坐在公交车上脑子里在琢磨动词的过去式，冲澡的时候在练习发音，看电视的时候边看边练习把屏幕上的对话翻译成外语。学习过程必须成为一种“后台处理”过程始终驻留在意识中：两眼和两耳随时准备接收英语的输入。学习应该成为日常生活的一部分，而且占的比重越大越好。
It goes without saying that the best way to be immersed in English is to go to an English-speaking country and live there. Unfortunately, this option is not open to most Chinese learners of English. The lament I hear most often among my Chinese friends is "If only I could live overseas for a few years!" It is true that this would speed the progress considerably. But there are ways to achieve near-immersion without actually 1eaving the country. First of all, the Chinese environment is literally permeated with English. One can hear English 24 hours a day by listening to short-wave radio or FM stations that broadcast music and information shows in English. CCTV broadcasts news in English nightly. There are countless English language publications available. English is everywhere, on packages, on billboard, on fast-food menus, at airports and train stations. It's the dominant language of the World Wide Web. If you merely keep your ears and eyes open, you can receive a great deal of passive reinforcement of English grammar, vocabulary and spelling. As far as active speaking skill is concerned, it is quite possible to create your own English-speaking environment. There are English Corners, there are email contacts and chatrooms, and here is a host of foreigners in Beijing who can’t utter a word of Chinese. The dedicated English 1earner can seek out clubs, activities and performances where such English-speaking people are likely to be, and find opportunities to speak with them.
毫无疑问，要想沉浸在英语中最好的办法是到讲英语的国家去住；不巧的是，绝大多数中国人不可能选择这条途径。我从我的中国朋友们那里听到最多的抱怨就是“我要能到国外去住几年多好啊！”—— 能做到这一点确实可以加快学习的进程；可事实上即使不离开中国也可以创造一种与完全沉浸差不多的语言环境。首先，中国国内几乎到处都有英语：短波和调频台一天24小时都在播放用英语主持的音乐节目及其他知识性节目；中央电视台每天晚上都有英语新闻；还有很容易就能买到的为数众多的英语出版物。到处都有英语：包装上、路标上、快餐店的菜单上，还有机场和火车站；互联网基本上就是英语的天下。你只要让自己的眼睛和耳朵做好准备，你就可以接收到相当多的对于英语语法、词汇和拼写的被动强化；至于主动的口头表达技能，建立你自己的英语表达环境也是完全可能的：你可以到各种“英语角”去，你可以写邮件、参加聊天室聊天，在北京还住着一大群连一句中国话也不会说的外国人，一个真正想把英语学好的人可以找到这些外国人常去的俱乐部，参加他们的活动或观看他们的表演，从而找到机会与他们交谈。
This is very different from the environment in which I began learning Chinese. By contrast, the amount of Chinese language one encounters in the United states is pretty limited, to say the least. Despite the 1arge number of immigrants in the US, American TV, radio, movies, and commerce are virtually 100% in English. In fact, America is one of the most stubbornly monolingual nations on earth. There is an old joke that satirizes this shortcoming of Americans:
从环境方面来说，在中国学习英语的条件与我刚开始学汉语时的情形大不一样；相比之下，在美国能接触到的中文是相当有限的，这是毫无疑问的。虽然美国有很多移民，但美国的电视、电台、电影和商务活动差不多100％是以英语为媒介的；实际上美国是世界上最顽固的单一语言国家中的一员。有一个老笑话是这么挖苦美国人这个缺点的：
Question: We all know that someone who speaks many languages is ca1led "multilingual", and one who speaks two languages is cal1ed "bilingual". What do you ca1l someone who speaks only one language?
Answer: An American.
问：我们都知道能讲几种语言的人被称为“multilingual（懂多种语言的人）”，一个能讲两种语言的人被称为“bilingual（通两国语言者）”，只能讲一种语言的人被称为什么呢？
答：美国人。
Since I was intent on learning to speak Chinese, I was forced to create my own Chinese linguistic “environment” in the all-English American environment. How did I do this?
当时我已经下定决心要学会说汉语，所以我只好在那个全英语的美国环境里创造我自己的汉语语言环境；我是怎么做到这一点的呢？
I bought whatever Chinese tapes and videos I could find and listened to them over and over again. I had conversations with my Chinese friends, and, with their permission, I would tape our conversations. Then I carried around a Walkman and listened to these tapes relentlessly. I would ask them questions, then ask other Chinese the same questions to see what different answers I would get. Every night I went to bed listening to these tapes. For $400 I bought a small satellite dish with which I could pick up a few Chinese-language satellite broadcasts, and I would watch these whenever I could get a clear signal. I would invite Chinese friends over to watch the broadcasts and help me understand them. In this way, I was hearing and speaking Chinese for up to 4 or 5 hours a day. If I could accomplish that in the monolingual American environment, it should be much easier for dedicated learners of English here in China to do the same thing.
我一碰到汉语磁带或录像带就买，然后就一遍接一遍地听；我在跟我的中国朋友们交谈的时候会征得他们同意，把我们的谈话录到磁带上；然后我就挎着随身听把这些磁带走到哪儿听到哪儿；我经常向我的中国朋友们问问题，问过一个人紧接着又问另一个人，看看他们给我的答复有哪些不同；每天晚上我都是边听磁带边慢慢入睡的。我还花400美元买了一个小卫星电视接收机，有了它我就能收到几套汉语节目了—— 只要信号还说得过去我就会不停地跟着往下看；我还经常请中国朋友来一起看这些节目，有问题好请教他们。这样努力的结果是，我做到了每天听、说汉语4到5个小时。要是我在单一语言的美国环境里可以做到这一点，一个全心全意想学好英语的人在中国也可以做到，并且还要容易得多。
Don't get discouraged
Language learning can seem so slow and incremental that often people get discouraged. There are seldom sudden breakthroughs or dramatic leaps in improvement. For this reason, it's important not to get discouraged, but to take heart from the tiny improvements you notice in your English. Keep at it. Read, listen and speak every day. Don't worry if you don't understand everything you encounter. It is not a waste of your time to listen to something or read something that you really don't quite understand. In time, you will. Learning English involves a long process of simply absorbing and getting the "feel" of the language. What some people refer to as "thinking in English" really just refers to the stage at which you have absorbed enough words, stock phrases, sentence patterns and idioms in English that they bubble up in your mind automatically when you encounter any situation. If you keep working steadily, you will find this happening more and more. It won't happen all at once, however, so don't lose heart.
不要灰心
语言学习的进程是如此缓慢，学习者能看到的进步也只是一点一滴，所以人们经常会感到灰心丧气；语言学习中极少有什么突破性的进展或大幅度的水平提高，因此，不要轻易感到绝望，要尽可能地从每一点小小的进步中看到自己的成绩，从而保持一个上进的心态，继续朝着你的目标努力。坚持每天听说英语，如果不能听懂你接触的所有内容，请不必感到烦恼，如果你花时间读或者听了什么材料却没有完全搞清楚它的意思—— 你并不是在浪费时间：当你听和读的量足够多的时候你会完全把意思搞清楚的。学习英语需要有一个很长的吸收的过程，在这期间慢慢地“感受”这种语言；有些人所说的“用英语思维”实际上指的就是当你吸收了足够的词汇、常用的短语、句型和成语之后，一旦碰到某个场合相应的语言材料就自然而然地浮现在你的脑海里—— 这样的一阶段。如果你不断地学下去，你会发现这样的情形出现得越来越多；可这不是一件在很短的时间里就能完成的工作，所以千万不要轻言放弃。
Don't become complacent
It has been my experience that most English language learners reach a certain level of fluency and then almost stop improving. Once they reach a level where they are understood for the most part and can communicate with some degree of success, they become lazy and self-satisfied -- they "plateau" at a functional level and pretty much stay there the rest of their life. If you want to avoid this, it is important that you constantly monitor yourself when you speak. Each time you say anything in English, there should be a little "goblin" inside your head asking things like "Does this sound like a native speaker would say it?" "Is that the correct tense to use in this situation?" "Why does that vowel sound wrong?" "How could l improve my intonation?" etc., etc. Be very critical of your own errors and shortcomings. And don't become too smug when other people praise your English. There is always room for improvement.
不要自满
我的亲身经历使我知道有这样一种现象：绝大多数英语学习者在达到一定的熟练程度之后，他们的进步就停止了；一旦他们感到在大多数情况下都能把自己的意思表达清楚，与外国人的交流使他们多少有些成就感的时候，他们就开始犯懒了，对自己的水平心满意足了—— 他们的语言能力达到了一个“高原期”，也就是停滞阶段，所以这也就是他们英语水平的终结点了。如果你不想落入这样的俗套，那就有必要在说英语的时候不断地检查自己、监视自己；每当你开口说英语的时候，你的脑子里应该总有一只“小精灵”在不断地给你提出诸如此类的问题：“一个母语是英语的人会这样表达这个意思吗？”“这里用的时态对吗？”“那个元音怎么有点不对劲呢？”“我怎么才能把语调搞得更好些呢？”等等，等等。要尽量注意自己的错误和缺点；当别人夸奖你英语好的时候不要太沾沾自喜—— 山外有山，人外有人。
Keep a sense of humor
A prerequisite to success in speaking English, or any foreign language, is to have a sense of humor. In order to make real progress, you have to be the kind of person for whom "face" simply doesn't matter so much. This is because speaking a foreign language, especially in the beginning stages, is intrinsically a "face-losing" activity. You will inevitably say things that will make people smile or even snicker. Often you will feel like a small child, or worse, a complete idiot. This is inevitable, and the only thing to do is to swallow your pride, laugh along with them, and continue improving. If you are the type who is easily humiliated, or feel your dignity is violated when someone laughs at your mistakes, then you are not likely to learn English well.
保持良好的心态
要想说好英语，或者任何其他外语，具有良好的心态是一个先决条件。为了取得真正的进步，你必须做到不把“面子”看得太重；这是因为说外语—— 尤其是在初学阶段—— 本质上就是一件让你“丢人现眼”的活动。你会说出不少让别人听了感到好笑的话来：不管人家是咧着嘴笑还是捂着嘴笑，都是不可避免的事情；你经常会感到自己好像就是一个小孩子，或者更惨—— 有时简直就是个不折不扣的笨蛋。这是躲不过去的，你所能做的只能是让你的自尊受点委屈，最好是能跟着他们一块儿笑笑，然后继续努力；如果你的天性就是害羞得厉害，或者别人因为你说错了什么而笑话你的时候你就感到自己的尊严受到了侵犯，那你能学好英语的可能性就不是那么太大了。
I know this fact well from my experience learning Chinese. Though my Chinese acquaintances on the whole were very complimentary and encouraged my budding efforts to learn Chinese, it seems I was constantly making a fool of myself. The four tones of Mandarin are very difficult to master, and my early efforts at speaking usually resulted in gales of laughter from the Chinese I spoke to. I felt like the "real me" could never emerge from the barrier of my awkward Chinese. Only after many years of feeling flustered, confused, inept, and even downright stupid, did I finally make enough improvement to carry on a "real" conversation, and even now I find myself making ridiculous mistakes that make my Chinese friends laugh out loud. I am now so thick-skinned that such incidents hardly bother me at all.
因为我有学习汉语的经历所以我才知道这个情况；虽然当时和我打交道的中国人总的来说都很客气，并且对我学习汉语最初的努力都持鼓励态度，可我总是觉得自己仿佛是在耍猴一般：普通话的四声好难掌握，我最早试着张嘴说汉语的时候经常让听我说话的中国人笑得上气不接下气；我感到“真正的我”似乎永远也走不出那蹩脚的中文在我周围制造的藩篱。只是在多年以后，经历了狼狈、困惑、无能甚至是彻头彻尾的愚昧折磨之后，我才终于取得了足够的进展，能像模像样地交谈了；不过即使是这样，我有时也发现自己会犯一些让我的中国朋友笑出声来的错误。我现在的脸皮厚得很，这样的情形对我已经无所谓了。
In this day of international trade and the Internet, mastering the "universal language" of English is more important than it ever was. Yet learning a foreign language is more than just a tool for doing business or carrying out international projects- The study of a foreign language is also the best way to deeply understand other cultures, and ultimately to understand yourself and your own culture. Only in this way can we all come to realize an important truth: that deep down we are all the same, and looking at those from another culture is merely looking at our own selves in a mirror.
在当今国际贸易和互联网普及的时代，掌握英语这个“通用语”比以前任何时候都更重要了；不过学习一门外语并不仅仅是掌握一个做生意或完成国际合作项目的工具—— 学习一门外语也是深入理解其他文化并且最终了解自己和自身文化的最佳途径。只有这样我们才能最终认识到一个重要的真理：在内心深处我们都是一样的，当我们面对另一种文化的时候，只不过是在观察镜子中的自己.
