Can you tell me how to learn English?

Professor Zhong Daolong and English Reverse Method

Learn English in a down-to-earth manner and be a translator for one year.

He taught himself spoken English at the age of 45 and became an interpreter a year later.

He taught himself computer at the age of 52 and became a computer writer. He has written and translated 38 books so far.

At the age of 57, he studied memory methods and was able to recite pi above 1800.

He is over 60 years old, with great enthusiasm, inspiring people's words and deeds, inspiring people's enthusiasm for learning English, and making many people embark on the road to success.

He is Professor Zhong Daolong and was once the vice-president of a university.

Why attack English repeatedly? How to get rid of "dumb English" and how to understand English broadcasting? Professor Zhong Daolong taught himself spoken English at the age of 45 and became a translator a year later. He found a way out for English learners through many examples of learning English by reverse method.

Professor Zhong, like many others, studied English hard and learned books and tapes such as 900 English Sentences and English Today. Reading a book seems to have nothing to understand, but because of poor foundation and improper methods, it took a lot of effort and little gain. In the end, I can't get rid of the embarrassing "dumb" state.

At the beginning of 1980, he learned by dictation and verbatim recording. He studied the basics for five months first, and then dictated English radio recordings every day. His dictation is primitive, with a tape recorder, a pen, more than a dozen pieces of paper, and no text teaching materials except a dictionary. If you don't understand it at first time, rewind it and do it again until you understand it completely. In this way, I accumulated 3000 hours of spare-time study in one and a half years, and finally became an oral translator. And summed up the five methods of "listening, writing, speaking, remembering and thinking" and achieved remarkable results.

Professor Zhong Daolong created the reverse method of English learning.

First of all, the embarrassment of dumb English

I didn't learn phonetic symbols in middle school. I basically followed the teacher, right or wrong. Sometimes it makes jokes. For example, the first I in Dining Hall is pronounced [i] instead of [i], but when the teacher reads it as [I], we will make mistakes and correct it later. After going to college, I changed to learn Russian. After graduating from college, I taught myself some English, so I can read relevant professional books. But I have never learned "listening" and "speaking", which is basically "dumb English".

1979 at the age of 45, I traveled to France and Germany for the first time. At that time, I was able to read professional books and periodicals that I was familiar with, and my English level was relatively high in the group. But in a foreign country, apart from the general greetings, I can hardly understand or speak, so I can't understand the technical explanation at all. For familiar professional written materials, if they are written in capital letters, they will not be able to respond at the moment, and they need to be translated into lowercase in their minds to understand them. The head of the delegation also encouraged me to be "more courageous" from time to time. In fact, where is the problem of courage? I can't understand, I can't say, and I can't understand. Where did I get the courage? When I was abroad, like all people who can't speak a foreign language, I had a note in my pocket that said, "I'm staying at XXX Hotel, please send me back." In case you get lost. At that time, I was the chief engineer and senior engineer of a design institute. When I saw this note, I really felt an indescribable feeling of being insulted. "I am a senior engineer and chief engineer in China, and I can hardly read. How can foreigners respect us? " Anger arises spontaneously. After returning home, I made up my mind to study hard and improve my spoken English.

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Second, teach yourself to translate for one year.

I asked foreigners, is it because I arrived in China that I deliberately slowed down my speech? They smiled and replied, "We have been talking at the same speed, but your hearing has improved. You think we speak slowly." I saw my progress from these experiences.

Because of the improvement of English, I can also judge whether the translation in the technical lecture is correct. Sometimes translation is inconsistent with my understanding, and foreign Chinese present generally say that my understanding is correct (of course, the main function here is that I know my major, but the English level of professional translators is much higher than mine). This situation has been repeated many times. China Electronic Equipment Systems Engineering Company/General Manager of KLOC-0/982 1982 hired me as an interpreter when he visited Germany in early 1982. This is what I never expected. I replied that I couldn't do it. But he insisted that I could do it and gave me a lot of encouragement. So I made detailed preparations and drew up some situational dialogues. Such as: what you may ask when you arrive at the customs, how to answer, what problems you may have during the visit, how to translate, etc. And read the prepared manuscript to the tape recorder, and then let it out to see if it looks like it. Despite this preparation, the actual dialogue abroad is not the same thing at all. I either don't understand it or I can't speak it, which is extremely difficult. I always had a notebook in my hand at that time. If I don't understand anything, I'll write it down immediately. When I return to the hotel in the evening, I will look up the dictionary and read the conversation manual again. I must understand what I don't understand during the day before I have a rest. This event was a turning point for me, which greatly increased my self-confidence and convinced me that I could learn English well. After I can undertake the task of interpretation, I still don't relax my self-study, and I still insist on learning English every day, so as to "stick to my words" and "learn often and be new". Sometimes people will say to me, "You already speak and listen, so that's enough. Why do you spend so much time learning English? " I can only answer: "I like English". This is also a fact. For example, during the Spring Festival, other people in my family watch Spring Festival TV programs until one or two in the middle of the night, and I study English until one or two in the middle of the night.

Self-learning English, like learning other knowledge, must have the spirit of being meticulous and striving for perfection. When you encounter problems, you must go ahead and never stop until you reach your goal. As long as you don't understand, you should always worry and learn to ask whenever you have the chance. Never be satisfied with a little knowledge, but study deeply and make all the relevant knowledge about edges and corners clear. Only in this way can you learn new words every day, master more and more English knowledge and improve your level, just like primary school students learn Chinese. Here are some typical examples.

Once I heard the Khmer Rouge, I didn't understand the word red. Two years later, I once heard an article about American women's makeup, which mentioned rouge (lipstick). It suddenly dawned on me that it was the Khmer Rouge, and the question that had existed for about two years was finally answered.

Generally speaking, the medical explanation of the word "condition and state" is only "condition and state", but when describing patients with heart disease, it is not smooth to use heart condition. Later, I learned from a newly published Longman dictionary that this word can be directly interpreted as "disease".

When I heard the news of the assassination of Aquino, the leader of the Philippine opposition party, I kept hearing the word tar mac, but I couldn't find it according to the pronunciation. Later, I asked an American engineer to know that it was "asphalt macadam road", which was simplified from the word tar macadam. Another example is to record the sentence "the peace talks between LRAN and Iraq have returned to the starting point" once. Judging from the context, there is no progress in the Iran-Iraq peace talks. But the word "Fang Yi" is not in the dictionary at hand, so I can't know whether the dictation is correct or not, so I'll ask you. Later, I took the recording to a doctor who came back from Canada, and he was sure that my dictation was correct. I didn't stop there, looked for dictionaries everywhere, and finally found the following explanation about returning to the original point in the penguin English LDOMS dictionary:

Return to the beginning of a task or career because of setbacks. This allusion refers to the Ludo game. When a player lands in the wrong square, he will be sent to the first square. So we know the origin of this word. I know. It's very useful. 1On July 7th, 990, the headline of The China Journal was: Negotiations on Northern Ireland Back to the Starting Point. Another example is to hear and write the word derivatives from a program about economic news in Special English, and look it up in the dictionary, which means "derived, derived; Derivative ",I can't find an explanation related to the economy, and I don't know what it means. It was not until Ellison, an employee of Bahrain Bank in the UK, was killed that there were more reports on derivatives in various news media. I realized that the Chinese translation of the word was "derivative financial products", which refers to financial products derived from spot markets such as interest rates or bonds, foreign exchange or exchange rates, stocks or stock indexes, mainly including futures, options trading and swaps.

I pay more attention to summing up my learning experience, and I want to recall my lessons and experiences every once in a while. The learning method I adopt has no tangible teaching materials. At first, I only had sound. I have to "listen, write, speak, recite and think" at the same time to find out what the recording said. When all the recordings are written, I have a tangible teaching material, which is different from the normal "forward" method from the tangible teaching material, but is carried out "reversely", hence the name "reverse method". There are many advantages to self-learning English by using the reverse method. I have written five books, such as Slow english introduction, Essentials of Listening Self-study in English for Science and Technology, Inverse Method of English Learning, Listening Skills and Selected Words in English News Broadcasting.

Since then, I have often told others how to learn English, especially since 1990. I have often helped people at all levels to learn English, and have a further understanding of the problems they encounter in their study and the advantages of the reverse method.

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Third, I learned it in China.

Some people think that I learn English because I often go abroad. Actually, I learned English before going abroad, not after going abroad. Of course, in foreign countries, there are good objective conditions for learning English and the possibility of learning English well. However, we still have to make our own efforts to turn the possibility into reality and make full use of the favorable conditions. Many people go abroad again and again, but they don't learn English. I became a translator when I went abroad for the second time. As a matter of fact, as far as I am concerned, I sometimes learn more English every day in China than abroad. Because there is a lot of routine work to be done abroad, especially as a translator, there is more routine work and there is no more time to sit down and learn English. In China, you can learn a lot of English by studying for five or six hours every day. A colleague once thought I was studying English abroad. Later, he went to Holland with me, and when he saw me listening to tapes every day abroad, he said, "So that's how you learn English."

Some people only see the result of my relatively high English level now, and don't understand how hard-won this achievement is. So it is easy to think that I am smart and have a good memory, so I learned English. In fact, memory is not innate, but acquired ability. I can cite three words to illustrate how I study English through hard work. One is my leader when I was working in Shenyang. Seeing me forget all about eating and sleeping, studying hard day after day, he said to me, "To study like you is to touch God." The other is a staff member of China Electronic Equipment System Engineering Company. She always sees me doing dictation when she passes by my office on her way to work every day. She was very moved and said, "I have never seen anyone who studies English as hard as you." The last one is my wife. When she saw that I was free to learn English, the tape recorder kept ringing and said, "Why are you so stupid? Can't you learn after studying for so long? " In fact, isn't it a glorious thing for others to say that I am smart? Why don't I just say, "Yes! It is easy for me to learn English. Listen to tapes and write tapes when you have time, and learn unconsciously, so that others will think that I am really smart enough. Because that's not the case. A person who read the first book "People in Special English" said to me, "You should not write out the actual difficulties of learning English by yourself truthfully, but write it simply so that readers have the confidence to learn. "I didn't accept his suggestion, because the question of knowledge is a scientific question, and nothing is false. I want to make the difficulties of self-study real enough for readers to be fully prepared.

Moreover, practice has proved that it is more beneficial to estimate more difficulties than to estimate less. If you estimate more difficulties, you will be down-to-earth and will not be lazy to seek success. If you underestimate the difficulty, you will work hard quickly and give up halfway in a short time. I have studied English hard. Here are some concrete examples: insist on dictating 20 pages of A4 paper every day, never stop until you reach your goal, and make up for it if you are late for the meeting at night. From1980,65438+10, 3 1 to 1983 in February, I transferred to Beijing, and wrote a cabinet of dictation records for three years. I used a ballpoint pen (I put the used pen core in the pen container to learn English at that time) and listened to 9. So I often say to others: "Words are difficult". This is from the heart, no exaggeration.

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Fourth, the level was not high at first.

Some people think that when I started dictation, my English level was already very high and I learned it. Actually, it's not like this. The first news transcript I dictated in June1980 65438+1October 3 1 is as follows (the words in brackets are incomprehensible):

Iran's foreign minister accused Canada of helping six American diplomats escape from Iran. He said that this action violates international law and may lead to worse treatment of 50 American hostages stranded in Tehran. The foreign minister warned that Canada would have to pay for its actions. 1On February 4th, when Iranian militants occupied the American Embassy in Tehran, the six American diplomats fled. The six diplomats hid in the Canadian embassy for 12 weeks. They left Iran with Canadian passports a few days ago and returned to the United States on Wednesday. In Washington, the State Council once again called on Iran to release the remaining American hostages in Tehran. The statement said that they must be released before efforts are made to improve relations between the United States and Iran, and the host has been detained for eight days.

A * * * has only 10 records, and the new words are:

Such as condemnation, diplomat, violation, treatment, hostage, escape, embassy, belligerence and capture.

Write it out and recognize it, but you can't hear it:

Worse, call, improve, contact and so on.

This shows that my English level was not high at first. I'm afraid most people who graduated from middle schools and universities are much higher than my level at that time.

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