如何学好英文——要做到读普通英文就跟看中文报纸一样
（本文为agostic所写，转载请注明来自chem8.org)
最近，跟人聊起中国人在国外工作的表现和问题。对方是在公司工作的人，谈起中国人在公司的表现，大多数是很勤快，很卖力的把属于自己分内的事情做得很好，表现也不错。但是，因为平时沉默不出声，不能让更多人知道自己工作的重要性和贡献的多少，在评奖的时候或者在同事之间评议的时候，也就被忽略了重要性失去了提名和获得认可的机会。
说在海外的中国人英文不好，绝对是冤枉了他们。说他们不好美国式的表现方式和交流，这一点没怪错地方。英文差点，不能成为不交流的借口。要更好的交流，关键是自己在这件弱点上的心理障碍的调整做好了没有？应该说，大多数美国人对国际人士的宽容度还是满大的，否则他们也不好接受黑人的平等民权诉求。要知道，中国人在美国社会大体上的形象还是比较正面的，至少在安全方面对他人没威胁，也不会导致白人搬离中国人聚集地的境地。
那么，什么因素导致中国人的“金口难开”呢？为什么中文可以侃大山，到了英文就成了半个哑巴？如果不开口说话，怎么让人知道你在群体中的存在和作用呢？
不要怕说错话。越怕说错越不敢说，越容易说错。首先，对于自己，就得说出来，只要关键词能够说对，不要怕语法句式是否会错。说完了意识到错了，这本身就是个意识进步的过程，下回就会留意如何提高改进。
不敢说的另一个要素是因为词汇的贫乏，虽然考试没问题，专业相关英文没问题，但平时看其他英文的时间太少，词汇的变通和句式的表达太有限，仅仅限于考试英语和专业英语，留在脑中的这些东西在日常生活中是不够用的。
为什么大家谈起时政新闻，可以说得条条是道？因为花了很多时间去关注，去读，去了解，尤其很多“八股”式的文章，都能随口编个出来。那么，到了英语氛围，怎么不灵了？这是因为没有把方法移植到英语学习中来。如果对待英语的阅读能够象对待中文报纸的阅读一样，经过一段时间的投入就会获得截然不同的效果。随着阅读量的增多，语感越来越好，写出来的英语“味道”也就越美感。
那么如何去阅读更多的英文读物？如果人在国外，那比较好说，自己所在学校和城市的报纸是个非常好的媒介，因为这些内容跟自己的生活最接近。坚持读一段时间之后，会发现自己容纳了进去，越成为其中的一分子越容易读懂这些跟自己所处环境最相关的内容。不知不觉中会发现英语水平已经很“当地化”了。
此外，可以坚持看那些大通讯社的报道，包括世界新闻，体育，科技，文学，等等。
比较有名的有：
http://www.freep.com/
http://www.nytimes.com
http://www.ap.org/
只列举几个，还有很多很多比较好的英文媒体。因为在这些权威的媒体上读文章，英文大多写得非常有“味道”，跟读“中国青年报”，“人民日报”，“参考消息”等等一样的感觉。
此外，如果想在短期内提高英语，那么必须先暂时“搁置”中文的影响，也就是要尽量不要接触中文的读物，坚持在英语环境下主动去获取英语的感觉。经过这个过程，再回到双语环境下，会感觉到不但英语进步了，中文的水平也获得了促进。
其实，语言就是相通的。不要只盯着要学英语，关键是会不会用学中文的手段来学英语？公共英语的教学存在的误区就是教学方法的僵化和为学英语而教英语。怎么理解这个意思呢？学英语没那么复杂，关键是要简单些，实用些。不要把英语当作一门学问来研究，而是要当作家常便饭一样来对待，融入日常的一切活动中来。看中文报纸 vs 看英文报纸，做中文报告 vs 做英文报告，写中文专业作业 vs 写英文专业作业，等等。
但是，关键的地方还是每天要多看英文的读物来获取各种“维生素”和“微量元素”，否则必然会导致英语的“畸形”发展。
下面以这篇海伦.凯勒的报道作为结束。
作为普通英语读物，找些有点了解的背景文章来读，对提高英文还是比较有帮助。不记得什么时候学过一篇海伦.凯勒的英语，印象比较淡，但还记得些许事情。刚看到一篇有关“Newly found 1888 photo offers rare glimpse of young Helen Keller ”
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080305/NEWS07/80305065
BOSTON — Researchers have uncovered a rare photograph of a young Helen Keller with her teacher Anne Sullivan, nearly 120 years after it was taken on Cape Cod and tucked inside a family album.
The photograph, shot in July 1888 in Brewster, shows an 8-year-old Helen sitting outside in a light-colored dress, holding Sullivan’s hand and cradling one of her beloved dolls.
Experts on Keller’s life believe it could be the earliest photo of the two women together and the only one showing the blind and deaf child with a doll — the first word Sullivan spelled for Keller after they met in 1887 — according to the New England Historic Genealogical Society, which now has the photo.
“It’s really one of the best images I’ve seen in a long, long time,” said Helen Selsdon, an archivist at the American Foundation for the Blind, where Keller worked for more than 40 years. “This is just a huge visual addition to the history of Helen and Annie.”
For more than a century, though, the photograph was hidden in an album that belonged to the family of Thaxter Spencer, an 87-year-old man in Waltham.
Spencer’s mother, Hope Thaxter Parks, often stayed at the Elijah Cobb House on Cape Cod during the summer as a child. In July 1888, she played with Keller, whose family had traveled from Tuscumbia, Ala., to vacation in Massachusetts.
Spencer, who doesn’t know which of his relatives took the picture, told the society that his mother, four years younger than Helen, remembered Helen exploring her face with her hands.
In June, Spencer donated a large collection of photo albums, letters, diaries and other heirlooms to the genealogical society, which preserves artifacts from New England families for future research.
“I never thought much about it,” Spencer said in a statement released by the society. “It just seemed like something no one would find very interesting.” Spencer has recently been hospitalized and could not be reached for comment.
It wasn’t until recently that staff at the society realized the photograph’s significance.
D. Brenton Simons, the society’s president and CEO, said the photograph offers a glimpse of what was a very important time in Keller’s life.
Sullivan was hired in 1887 to teach Keller, who had been left blind and deaf after an illness at the age of 11/2. With her new teacher, Keller learned language from words spelled manually into her hand. Not quite 7, the girl went from an angry, frustrated child without a way to communicate to an eager scholar.
While “doll” was the first word spelled into her hand, Helen finally comprehended the meaning of language a few weeks later with the word “water,” as famously depicted in the film “The Miracle Worker.” Sullivan stayed at her side until her death in 1936, and Keller became a world-famous author and humanitarian. She died in 1968.
Jan Seymour-Ford, a research librarian at the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, which both Sullivan and Keller attended, said she was moved to see how deeply connected the women were, even in 1888.
“The way Anne is gazing so intently at Helen, I think it’s a beautiful portrait of the devotion that lasted between these two women all of Anne’s life,” Seymour-Ford said.
Selsdon said the photograph is valuable because it shows many elements of Keller’s childhood: that devotion, Sullivan’s push to teach Helen outdoors and Helen’s attachment to her baby dolls, one of which was given to her upon Sullivan’s arrival as her teacher.
“It’s a beautiful composition,” she said. “It’s not even the individual elements. It’s the fact that it has all of the components.”
This 1888 photo released by the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston shows Helen Keller when she was 8 years old, left, holding hands with her teacher, Anne Sullivan, during a summer vacation to Brewster, Mass., on Cape Cod. A staff member at the society discovered the photograph in a large photography collection recently donated to the society. When Sullivan arrived at the Keller household to teach Helen, she gave her a doll as a present. Although Keller had many dolls throughout her childhood, this is believed to be the first known photograph of Helen Keller with one of her dolls. (AP Photo/Courtesy of the Thaxter P. Spencer Collection, R. Stanton Avery Special Collections, New England Historic Genealogical Society-Boston)
(AP)
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本帖最后由 agostic 于 2008-3-6 04:02 编辑 ]
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