美国同学讲如何学英语

爱无言

再过几个月要实习，我想学习一些slang，还有毒品药物的俗语之类的，提高下听力，于是给同学们发了一封求助信，让他们帮我推荐点电影电视剧什么的练练听力，积累些词汇。一个男同学回复给我一封长长的email。看的我哭笑不得！实在感激人家好心热情，写了这么长一篇如何学习外语的总结给我，可是看了这个真有点觉得美国人真是可爱的要死，对中国人学习英语的状况真是一点也不了解，竟然让我去看语法书......不过有一些还是很好的建议的，比如看美国人说英语时的嘴巴，大脑就会自动去学习。关于大脑用英语思维的过程，他说的也很好，还真是让我印象更加深刻的。"只要想自己要表达的意思，而不是去想英语，自动的大脑就会把英语流出来！"和大家分享。

Dear X,

I think it's great that you want to improve your English! If I may, I have a few suggestions. I spent a couple years in a different country, as have all of my friends, many of whom had to learn Mandarin or Cantonese. We all learned a few principles that apply across all languages to learn another.

The most important, and the most difficult, is to speak English ALWAYS. For me this was the hardest part while learning another language. Everyone loves their native language, and that's great. But in order to more quickly and effectively learn a new one, you must give up the old, and immerse yourself in the new. This would mean to even speak English at all times while at home with family. Switch any email or other internet services, music, movies, and other media to English. I understand that you will need to speak your native language while talking to family back home in China that may not know English, but at all other times, speak only English. For me, that meant if I didn't know how to say something, I had to go without it. It's a fast way to learn what you still don't know.

Once a day study grammar. If you don't have grammatical books, get one. And spend at least 30 minutes a day practicing concepts you already know, or learning new ones.

Watch and read the news daily in English.

Read the news out loud. Or any book. Spend at least thirty minutes a day reading out loud. It's not necessarily important that you understand it all, focus on pronunciation.

Don't settle for being understood. Have a goal to sound American. This will force you to mimic accents like a comedian does impressions. This will make it easier for others to understand, and for your mouth to learn the unfamiliar movements.

Don't translate English in your head. All words communicate ideas. If you think in ideas, and not a language, your mind will automatically understand what is said and you need not translate your thoughts into English to speak. If this is too hard right now, or you don't understand, do the next best thing. Think in English.

Watch people's mouths when they speak, this will teach your brain how to move your mouth accordingly.

If you do this, I promise you come April you will be able to speak without searching for words, or struggle to understand when people speak. I know how hard this is and will be, I did it, my family did it, and all of my friends have. The ones that did this learned everything from Spanish and Portuguese, to Russian and Swahili. Stick with it, don't get discouraged, you'll do great!

Let me know if there's anything else I can do!

Best of luck,

TM

PS I don't know what your standards are for TV and movies. Most shows with drugs and violence aren't appropriate for kids. If you can give me some idea as to what is not okay for you, I know a lot of shows I can recommend.

爱无言

呵呵，这个同学又写了个mail,才知道他竟然是摩门教徒！在秘鲁传教了两年，他姐姐在香港传教1年半，他们都是短时间学会当地的语言的！

爱无言

他推荐的剧集：

Comedy

The Office

Parks and Recreation

3rd Rock from the Sun (This is about aliens who come to live in Ohio, this might be good because they have to learn not just human behavior but local culture as well)

Modern Family




Crime Shows

Castle

Bones (this has a lot of scientific terms, but the main character isn't good with people so other characters have to teach her how to act, might be helpful because of that.)

The Finder