My Ideas on Learning English
Uploaded by realturtle on Aug 28, 2002
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, distinguished judges and my dear friends!
My name is Jin Zhao, a sophomore from College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University.
Standing here, in front of so many talented English learners, I would just like to share my ideas on learning English with you all.
Last time when I was participating in this summer camp and talking about my ideas of how to learn English, I mainly discussed the importance of the cultural background of the English language. However, looking back to the past days of learning English this year, I found that I have devoted most of my time to learning new words and practicing reading.
Learning new words is fundamental in learning a language, as everyone knows, and it follows logically in learning English. The entire English language is like an edifice built on millions of words and phrases as bricks, or it's like a vast ocean composed of billions of words and phrases as tiny drops of water. Then, learning new words gives rise to learning other aspects of English, including reading, writing, listening and speaking. A person with a large vocabulary will find it easy to describe what he thinks through writing and express his thoughts freely, and most probably, he will not have difficulty in reading as well as listening. Therefore, from my point of view, learning new words is both fundamental and vital in learning English. Of course, there are many methods to learn and master the new words and everyone may choose one that best suits him or her.
As for reading, I have mentioned above that on the one hand, it requires a large vocabulary. On the other hand, it's exercise that makes one excellent in reading. Here the word exercise has various meanings, it refers to doing exercises of reading as well as reading some materials as exercising. I spent a lot of time on reading a few foreign magazines, among which there are one copy of Time, Newsweek and The economist. I read almost every piece of these magazines, even the advertisements. In the process of reading, I didn't only get to know the liveliest English language but also learn some useful new words I encountered while reading. I also chose other materials for reading, especially the foreign books of my specialty and I learned how English is used in the scientific fields. I think the materials for reading is not...