How to learn English efficiency

Basic attitude towards learning English

I often heard some people said: “Do you have some good ways to studying English?” “I don’t like reciting, can you recommend me some better ways?” “Can you tell me how to learn English well in a short time?”. If you insist the above childish idea, I advise you not to read the following, it’s wasting your precious time which should be spent on chatting with callow gossip or find another immature students whom they think would be Snow White or Prince Charming.) boy/girl students (people who have the above idea are usually immature students who surf the internet just intend to find some tediousLearning a foreign language is a hard work, you don’t need to have a huge vocabulary, you just need to have a smaller vocabulary which you can use them very efficiently. I don’t think one can learn English well in a short time. Good English must be based in hard work and patience. So I advise those hotheaded students to abandon the silly thought of finding some shortcut to learn English well in a short time.

How to learn English efficiently?

I admit that there are some good ways to learning English efficiently, but all of them are based on hard work. Almost everyone has complained “I have a bad memory, I always forget what I’ve learned easily!” I just want to ask an easy question: why do you still remember the sentences of: “good morning!”, “I love you!”, “are you a girl?” (immature boy students always ask this questions), even “ When I was young, I'd listen to the radio waiting for my favorite songs. When they played I'd sing along. It made me smile…” (oh, a long song, I admire you for your good memory). The answer is obvious, you use or see or hear them frequently. Once you have learned something new, please try to use them as frequently as possible in your talking and writing. I find in the English corner of Hongennet, people there are very enthusiastic, but what they are saying is simple words, simple sentences. I seldom see they add some new words or structures in their talking, I don’t think they have just learned so limited English expression. They just don’t have the mind of using what they’ve learned. In this case, I don’t think they can benefit from chatting in the English corner. (maybe someone can, when a hotheaded boy student just intends to find a silly girl student).

Some people said “I’ve learned the grammar for a long time, but still always make many grammar mistakes, why?”. An illiterate English person who has never learn any grammar can also speak fluent English without or very few grammatical errors, why? because he knows how to hear others’ talking. In fact, what you said was also said by other people before. What you write may also be written by others before. So I advise you to do much listening and reading, and often repeat the English from English speaker or tapes. If you keep doing that you get over the grammar problem. You will know how to put the right words in the right places in your talking and writing. Learning a foreign language just like learning to drive a car, you can’t learn to drive a car by reading the operating book. What you should do is just practicing more. Manipulating a good language ability must be based on hard work of reading, listening and writing. To remember new words, I recommend you the way of writing some articles, using the words or phrases which you want to remember. “One day a pious pregnant pilgrim was walking on the pavement with a precious pearl on her palm...” (When I was a university student, I have written some articles in which the vocabulary almost covers all the words of the dictionary. Oh, it was a hard work which took one year. After finished that work, I insist on rewriting those article once a month. Because the articles were written by me, so I can remember every word and hardly forget.)

Abandon the wrong way of teaching English Almost everyone has said: “I just can’t catch up with foreigners, they speak too fast, but if they speak slowly, I can understand them easily.” That’s another problem which is caused by a wrong way of studying English. Most people learn English by the way of translation. Once they heard an English sentence, they translate it into Vietnamese, then get the meaning of this sentence. In the same way, if they want to say something in English, they first have Vietnamese in their mind, then translate it into English. As a result, when they are talking with an English person, the process will be:

1. get a sentence from the Englishman

2. translate it into Chinese in the mind

3. get the meaning of what the Englishman want to express

4. thinking how to reply it in Vietnamese

5. translate the Vietnamese into English

6. reply the Englishman in English.

In this way how can you talk with the Englishman normally? (he, he, in fact even I can’t avoid this bad way, but thanks largely to my hard work and good English, the transfer time between each step is very short, so I can manage to talk with foreigners normally. I’m still trying to establish the English mind when using English! I think it is a long way, but I will not give up halfway.)
If you have little children who are learning English, please don’t use the traditional way of “Vietnamese to English, English to Vietnamese” to teach them. I recommend you this way, for example, if you want to teach your little children the word “monkey”, you can show them the animal or a picture of monkey and repeat the word “Monkey” over and over again without saying the Vietnamese “con khi”. In this way, you have rooted the English thought in your children’s mind, when the children hear the English word “monkey”, the animal will appear in their mind rather than the Vietnamese word “Con khi”
This is just my shallow comment on learning English. I believe there are many talents in this BBS who have better ideas about how to learn English and someone may has a God damned IQ of 160! I welcome everyone to express his/her opinions freely. As for those hotheaded people who still think there is shortcut, please don't disturb me, I’m a very busy salesman, discussing with you will waste my time which is very expensive. Time = Money

Notice: After reading this article, please don’t get an idea that Li xiao yao is an English teacher. He is engaged in foreign trade, dealing in women’s underwear, weight loss products and electronic gifts. (Is that interesting?)

(Kinh nghiem duoc copy tu Li xiao, khong nho ro dia chi website)