How to learn English? Experience comes first! !

Everyone must think that if you want to learn pronunciation well or correct your nonstandard pronunciation, you must of course listen to pure standard pronunciation, preferably authentic British or American pronunciation. How can this be wrong? Unfortunately, it is wrong, and just the opposite. Phonetics experts have found that adults should not only listen to standard pronunciation, but also listen to many "nonstandard pronunciations", that is, accented pronunciations. For example, English with German accent, French accent, Italian accent, Indian accent, China accent and so on, the more kinds, the better. What's going on here? The origin of this conclusion should start with the experiment of Japanese when the phonetic experts at Harvard University are doing accent research.

Do you know why the Japanese are used in the pronunciation experiment? Most people answer because Japanese English pronunciation is difficult. Then ask, then why do Japanese people have poor pronunciation? Every time I ask here, there is always some laughter in the audience, and many people reply that the Japanese have a hard tongue. In fact, the Japanese, like everyone else, have no special tongue, and the reason for their inaccurate pronunciation is their Japanese. Everyone knows that English has about 44 pronunciations (vowels and consonants), while Japanese has only about 30 pronunciations. Didn't I hear that Japanese has 50 phonetic symbols? Unfortunately, many Japanese pentasyllables are repetitive. For example, the first vowel: "Aye, Aye, Aye, Aye" is really different, but the second vowel "Kaqiku kukai" (similar to Chinese expression, please don't take it too seriously), but there is only one consonant K, and the others are spelled out by the first vowel (Ka, Ki, Ku, Kai, Ko), so there are no 50 sounds. So when the Japanese speak English, many sounds can't be pronounced. For example, the sound "Ri r" does not exist in Japanese (without ra, it is easy to be like, rai ro), so it cannot be said. Very commonly used reading and writing, the Japanese can only use lead and light to describe, using "L" instead of "R" is a typical example. So at that time, Harvard University asked Japanese who came to the United States as adults to do experiments. First ask these subjects, read and quote. You got it? Everyone can tell the difference by answering unanimously. Then ask why it's wrong. Some Japanese people say, "Our oral structures are different." Some said, "Our pronunciation parts are different from yours. Our pronunciation part is in the front and yours is in the back. " Some people say, "Our tongues are hard, but the old ones are soft." Then I did an experiment to make these Japanese people listen to many words starting with "R" or "L" (without looking at spelling). After the test, I found that everyone's correct rate was 50%. You have found the problem. You can get half the answer correctly by choosing one. Actually, you can't get it at all. Pure ignorance, the hit rate is of course half. Seeing this result, both the tester and the examinee are stupid. Because if nothing happens, it can be solved by analyzing and adjusting the position or mouth shape of the tongue; It doesn't matter if you are all wrong, just lose your head. But half of it is hopeless. Everyone thinks that you can't hear the difference between the two sounds at all, so how can you distinguish between clear pronunciation and correct pronunciation? But the conclusion has come out: the main reason for inaccurate pronunciation is not the mouth, but the ears.

In fact, the pronunciation is not accurate, mainly because the ears are not accurate. Everyone has practical observation experience. For example, some people sing out of tune. What is the reason? Is it a bad voice? No, mainly because my ears are not good, so people who sing out of tune feel quite right after singing. Why do you all say I'm out of tune? The reason is that their ears can't hear correctly and they can't hear the music themselves. If you don't go out of tune, plug your ears and sing a song yourself, and others will ensure that you are out of tune. So these Japanese who have been doing experiments have lived in the United States for a period of time and listened to standard sounds every day. Why can't they change their accents? The reason is that adults' ears are not accurate in hearing sound and have low discrimination ability. They can't hear a new standard pronunciation that is not within the scope of their mother tongue pronunciation, and they can't hear the difference between themselves and the standard pronunciation (they may feel a little different, but they don't understand the details), thinking that they have been sent to the standard, but there is still a gap. Japanese people suffer most from the lack of sound in their mother tongue. You can find a test website on the Internet where the Japanese test how much r- l resolution is left. You can try. It was fun. Students in most parts of northern China or students with standard Putonghua will get high marks).

Scientific experiments tell us that only children's ears have a high resolution of various languages can they accurately hear the pronunciation of any language and imitate it in place, but adults can't. Specifically, most people cannot work after 12 years old, and this ability has been lost. This leads adults to simply listen to and imitate standard foreign language pronunciation in order to correct foreign language pronunciation or improve pronunciation accuracy. Because it is impossible, the most important link in how to correct adult pronunciation is to improve adult listening accuracy. Practical experience has proved that listening to various nonstandard sounds is helpful for adults to improve their listening sensitivity and resolution, so as to achieve the effect of accurate and natural pronunciation correction. What are all kinds of nonstandard sounds? For example, English is "Vehi Enthusing", French accent is "Vehi Enthusing", Japanese accent is "veli indelisding", and China accent is "Out of Switzerland-Stop for Kicking"). After a period of adaptive training to listen carefully and distinguish various accents (of course, not only listening to nonstandard sounds, but also comparing the standard sounds of sentences with their own imitation pronunciation), the listener's listening sensitivity is improved, and even the accent can be accurately distinguished from which country, and the pronunciation is naturally improved. This is a scientific way for adults to correct their pronunciation, contrary to the conclusion that everyone takes for granted.

At this point, we should not doubt this conclusion, should we? In fact, China is the easiest student to understand this conclusion. Because Chinese accent changes greatly, which is more obvious than English, the difference between British accent and American accent can't keep up with the difference between Mandarin and Tianjin dialect (only120km from Beijing). So China is very sensitive to accents. Interestingly, there is a standard pronunciation called "Mandarin" in China, but not in English-speaking countries. In the United States, the accent of any city is not the standard, and so is Britain. Londoners are not the standard, and other British people sometimes find it strange. Do you know that Londoners often omit the "H" and "T" sounds? For example, "head" means "ed" and "better" means -r), so there is no strict absolute standard in these English-speaking countries. China people should speak correct Mandarin. But by the same token, if you were uncertain when you were a child (before the age of twelve), you will have an accent when you are an adult, especially southern students, who suffer the most from inaccurate pronunciation. How should I correct my pronunciation? If, of course, everyone listens to standard pronunciation every day, can everyone correct their pronunciation by watching news broadcasts and listening to the radio every day? The result is not good. After living in Beijing for several years, has your accent changed? The result is not good (even a child can do it. How about finding someone who speaks standard Mandarin to live with and help correct it? Everyone laughed. Many people have helped their parents correct their accents for many years, but it has not worked. then what The principle is the same: listen to the accents of people from different countries and conduct comparative training. Ear sensitivity is getting higher and higher, and accent is getting smaller and smaller. This is a scientific way for adults to correct their pronunciation. In some film academies, similar methods are used to correct adult foreign actors. It's just the opposite of what everyone thought at first, and now everyone understands. Unfortunately, many English teachers don't understand this, so they always suggest that you listen to a standard sound or talk to someone. Now this misunderstanding should be corrected.

The main causes of "dumb English"

What is "dumb English"? People with zero English foundation are not called dumb English. Dumb English refers to the situation that you have studied English for more than a few years and have a certain reading ability, but your listening and speaking ability is poor or not at all. Especially those who have passed CET-4 and CET-6. Everyone has been learning English for more than ten years, about 6 hours a week, and the total amount of English learning is 3000 hours, but they still can't communicate at least. (However, it should be noted that "a certain reading ability" is actually not high. For example, if you pick up an English novel at random, you will find that you can't read a page without other tools. )

How did "dumb English" come from? People take it for granted that the answers are varied. For example, it is generally caused by "exam-oriented education". I'm about to take an exam, so I can't understand and speak. This obviously fails to grasp the causal relationship. Some people will say: it is a small number of words or words that are not used, so you should recite more words; There is also poor grammar and unskilled sentence organization. Chinglish is a grammatical problem. Therefore, we should learn more English grammar knowledge; Of course, the culprit is that there is no chance to communicate in English. It would be nice to have an English environment and communication opportunities, so I tried to find them. Many people prevent foreigners from chatting in the street. These are basically misunderstandings in learning a foreign language. What's the point?

Let's do an experiment first. Please listen carefully when I speak a foreign language. Ready: "six five seven six eight nine four". What did everyone hear?

Six numbers, maybe a phone number.

What number is it?

"The 657. . . What what four. " This is the answer of ordinary students.

Why don't you understand? Is it the number of words? No, is it a grammatical problem? No, is it a pronunciation problem? No, what's that?

A classmate replied: You speak too fast.

But I used the normal speed. Won't foreigners tell others their phone numbers at this speed? Where can I jump slowly one by one? Normal speed. Why don't you understand?

Someone replied: I am not skilled.

I knew it ten years ago, but I don't know much about it now. Besides, even if you are unfamiliar, which word can't you understand?

A: Everyone seems to understand, but why do I feel that I can't respond? Teacher, I am slow.

Please don't say that. You are a normal person, and your reaction is normal. But I have to ask: What's your reaction there?

At this time, someone finally woke up: I was just there to react to Chinese. The first time I listened to English, I sat there and quickly converted them into Chinese in my mind. You're only halfway through.

The reason is found. Everyone used to translate there silently. But no one here turned it out. Why?

The normal speech speed is about 120 to 180 words per minute, and English is similar to Chinese. Generally, a sentence ends in two seconds, and the speech is one sentence after another. A two-second sentence, even if all the words can be understood, the pronunciation and grammar are fine, but you need to translate all the English words into Chinese to understand (let alone analyze the grammar). How long will it take? At least four or five seconds. At this time, everyone didn't hear the second sentence, and the third sentence was already halfway said. If you can't hear, how can you understand? Obstacles have been created. Short sentences (within four words) are also acceptable, such as how are you? Where are you from? No matter how fast. You can't keep up with more than four words. Scientists have done experiments: if you hear a foreign language and have to translate it in your brain, the average person can only translate it to the third word at normal speed and can't keep up. Some people can dig up four, and almost no one can dig more than four. But many sentences are more than four words. So many of our classmates always repeat simple English there without improving their English. Then I practiced very well and spun very fast, okay? The answer is: never.

But why do you have to translate in your mind? Because when you hear English, there is no concept in your mind, but you have learned the Chinese explanation of every English word. Think about it. So everyone tried to "convert" there, but they couldn't. Can you understand English directly without thinking about Chinese? What kind of state is this? The answer is simple: you must be able to think in English. To put it bluntly, you can think in English. This concept was fresh ten years ago, and now more and more people know: "The premise of any language communication is that you must be able to think in this language. If you can't do it, you will never be able to communicate normally. " This is the conclusion. Without thinking in English, you will never understand normal English and long sentences. The conclusion that English thinking is the premise of normal English communication is clear and accepted by people. There is a lot of evidence, so there is no need to argue here. But why have we studied English for more than ten years without thinking in English? You see, if every word is learned by reciting its Chinese definition, there is a problem. There is another reason: everyone may have tried to speak a few words of English. Let us think about the process of speaking English. Everyone will think of a Chinese sentence before speaking: I want to say this sentence. (Stop! It doesn't happen when people speak Chinese. When we speak Chinese, we are in the middle of a sentence, so it is impossible to know all the words in the second half of the sentence in advance. I don't know if I keep talking. So it is wrong to come here. ) Then find out all the English words in this sentence. Can we talk now? Supposedly, this is not enough. You have to organize sentences and think about grammar! What tense is used? Past tense? When will it end? Present tense? When will it be held? Future tense? Singular plural? Do you want to add s? Male, female, her? Thinking of this, 20 seconds passed and the other party had already left. So we found that even the students who graduated from the Foreign Languages Institute used the same tactics when speaking foreign languages: "I don't want grammar." I finally found a few words and jumped out quickly. "Turns out to be Chinglish. Is it because they are not familiar with grammar knowledge? Not exactly. Because there is no hurry. A large number of experiments tell us that the amount of grammar knowledge has nothing to do with the fluency or even accuracy of communication. The grammar book is upside down, but I still can't communicate, or it's a grammar mistake. There is a simple reason. From the thinking mechanism of speaking, when people speak, the brain is forbidden to think about grammatical rules. Once you think about the rules, you can't speak. Think about it. We all speak fluent Chinese. Can we consider grammar rules? Use the subject, use the predicate and put the adverbial here. . . Not at all! So is English. Therefore, grammar knowledge not only does not help the formation of English thinking, but also creates trouble.

Therefore, we find that "translation" and "grammar" not only do not help to improve communication ability, but hinder English thinking. But you can see that the words translation and grammar are familiar, because that's how we have learned English for so many years. For more than ten years, both in class and self-study, the method used is called "grammar-translation method", and English is called translation-grammar method. This method is a systematic foreign language learning method established by the British when they studied Greek and Latin hundreds of years ago. They learn the target language by studying its grammatical structure and the translation of words in their own language. For example, when everyone is learning this sentence:

This is a cat.

This is a cat.

Subject predicate quantity object

Pronoun verb indefinite article noun

This sentence is the simple present tense.

declarative sentence

third-person singular

Table structure department

. . . . sound

I feel dizzy. When I was a child, I thought that my mother didn't teach me to speak Chinese like this. Poor foreign children. Later, I found out that foreign children don't learn English this way, while children in China learn English this way, which is our regret. )

Later, I learned that this method is widely used in learning foreign languages all over the world, and the results are similar: you can master some foreign language knowledge, but you can't communicate. After a long time, everyone throws away all the knowledge you learned before. It's best to know that class brothers in other countries have also suffered.

Therefore, the "grammar-translation method" is obviously problematic, and many countries have long given up. However, in some countries, mainly China and Britain, there are still some defenders of grammar translation. I will analyze its deep-seated problems according to other scientific basis in later chapters. Now I have to make a decision first.

As for the view that some people think their English is out of date, there is no need to argue. English in textbooks is not out of date, and no matter which national language, decades of changes have affected the incomprehensible level, just individual words.

The problem of English environment

Isn't it nice to have a foreign language environment? Like going abroad. Answer: Very wrong. This article is the one that China misunderstood the most and suffered the most.

There are many international students and immigrants going abroad now. Before you went abroad, most of your English was not good, but everyone thought so: you will naturally understand it when you go abroad, listen to it every day, be forced to speak English, and become fluent in a few months. Of course, I heard that some people are bad, it must be because they have been in the circle of China people. Everyone says that overseas Chinese in Chinatown may never speak English. I don't live in Chinatown. I'll find a foreign landlord to live with and have a chance to practice with him more. But when I went abroad, I found that everyone really didn't live in Chinatown, because Cantonese was spoken there and I couldn't understand it. In Chinatown, I also speak English with people in China. Although people usually greet you in Cantonese first, when they find that there is no response, the two sides begin to communicate in English. Fortunately, the only purpose of going there is to buy food and deal with it, but it feels very funny. Everyone is obviously from China, and they have to speak a foreign language. During my stay abroad, many people actually learned Cantonese, including me. (But don't get me wrong, China people can learn Cantonese quickly in Cantonese environment, which is completely different from the principle of learning English, but they are not actually learning a foreign language. The similarity is too high, and everyone's language thinking is the same. A few months is enough. People who can speak Spanish can learn Italian quickly because it is too close. Without studying, the two countries can speak their own languages and communicate with each other. The foreign language that Marx learned in three months is similar to this situation. )

I usually live in an English environment, live in a foreign family, work, attend cram schools, and watch English TV and newspapers. But after a few months, even a year or two, I found out why my English is still so poor, I can't understand it, I can't speak it well, I can only speak some simple words in daily life, but I still can't speak it well. Of course, in foreign countries, from not being able to speak to speaking, this level has passed. I dare to speak abroad for two weeks because I am forced. Once you dare to speak, you will no longer have psychological obstacles. But it's been two years, how come it's still those few words? What happened to the English environment?

If you surf the Internet now and type the words "Top Ten Secrets Only Knowing Abroad" into the search engine, you will see that the first one is "I find that you can't learn English naturally in an English environment."

Let me help you analyze it. Very easy to understand. For example, some students live in foreign landlords' homes and think that they can learn English through communication. Get up in the morning and say hello to the landlord:

Lao Zhong: Hi, good morning! Is it useful to practice this sentence? I have already met, and I don't need to practice abroad! )

Foreigner: Good morning! Isn't it a nice day? Do you have any plans for the weekend? Hey, I got it all. That's great. )

Lao Zhong: Stay at home. I wanted to say something, but I didn't think of it at the moment. This sentence is still right. Maybe there's something wrong. Anyway, everyone understood and nodded straight, and there was no objection. )

Foreigner: All right. Did you know that a raccoon was trapped in the dustbin last night? I heard voices and called the police. Then they came and called the vet. A vet shot a tranquilizer gun at its ass from a tree, aha, right on the bull's eye! Nice shot. Nevertheless, it took them an hour to save the poor bastard …

I was dumbfounded this time. In ancient Chinese, it sounds like this ... Last night ... Garbage? Heart sounds ... off ... Razer, and ... . What do you mean by "no"? No Foreigners can't speak Chinese. Maybe it's a word with the same pronunciation as "not" in Chinese. Next is an hour ... pouring ... butter? I didn't understand, so I said awkwardly, see you later. I went back to the house. Imagine, can you understand it after listening to it a few times? Even after listening to it several times, I understand some connections. I heard many difficult noises, such as raccoons, trapped people, garbage bins, veterinarians, tranquilizers and bull's-eyes, so I still don't understand. Then listen more, such as repeating tranquilizer, tranquilizer, trann-qui-li-zerr a hundred times! Can you understand? Everyone knows it won't work. So you don't know more by listening more.

Take an extreme example. Don't you want a foreign language environment It's good. I'll find you one. I find some Arabs to communicate in the office. You come every day and listen to them for eight hours every day. I'll come to you three months later and ask you how many Arabic words you know. Many people understand at this time: "I don't understand a word." Because the foreign sounds you hear are all called "invalid input" by linguists, or I call them "invalid sounds", because they are not much different from the noise you hear, because they can't understand. Therefore, listening more is not easy to understand, and there are strict conditions for understanding. We will focus on what strict conditions are needed later, so let's not be busy yet.

Look back at the old middle school just now. If the landlord foreigner has patience, explain the head office to us. Ok, let's see how he should explain the concepts of veterinarian and tranquilizer. Don't forget that he can only speak English. Of course, when he finds you have difficulty in understanding, he will try to change the explanation method from difficult to easy. Ready, go: "Veterinarians, veterinarians, veterinarians, you know, practicing veterinarians, um, animal doctors!" " People who listen are more dizzy. Why, what, what doctor? Or do you like animals? Is he fierce? The following is even more puzzling: "tranquilizer, ehh, a drug that can upset animals." You know, you put this medicine in the magazine in the dart, and then you shoot it out of the gun, knock down the target, and, uh, pass out. Darts, darts, arrows … Oh, for God's sake, forget it. You take care of yourself, man. "

Communication is over. Regardless of whether the communication is pleasant or not, let's analyze it carefully. Is it helpful to improve English ability from the conversation just now? It can be said to be almost zero. It is nothing more than communicating with "real people", saying a few simple greetings that I knew a long time ago, understanding a few words but not knowing what others are saying, and nothing, from "I don't know" before to "understand" at least after listening. As we just discussed, what we don't understand is "invalid voice", which is like listening to Arabic radio and never understanding it. At this time, the compatriot understood another thing: it is unrealistic to explain English in English. In fact, everyone has long understood this truth, just going abroad to prove it. Have you all looked up the Ying Ying dictionary or double solutions? I have heard people speak English for a long time, and it is more accurate to explain English. How good it is to check and study! I came across a word, so I looked it up in Ying Cha English Dictionary, and found that there were some unknown words in the explanation. Check the explanation again, and something will go wrong soon. Many readers have Ying Ying dictionaries, right? I can assure you, after checking it twice, I will put it on the shelf and never touch him again. Let's stop laughing and analyze the reasons.

What happened to this new mainland compatriot? Not to mention that the landlord has lost interest in communicating with you since then, and you don't need to communicate with him every month. Just put the check in his mailbox on time. Soon, as soon as the shortest lease came, my brother moved away. It's not that I'm embarrassed to meet the landlord, but that the rent of foreigners is more expensive than that of China people (China people don't pay much attention to decoration, so they often don't invoice cash, so they give you a discount). Since you can't practice English, why don't you go? I also have a headache: I ordered an English newspaper when I first checked in. I haven't finished reading the first half of the page, and books have been piled up for a week. Please unsubscribe quickly.

At this time, friends who have gone abroad with the same experience have come to the conclusion that the real foreign language environment is too difficult for me to adapt to, so it is difficult to learn. What should I do? Students who go to Canada are really lucky. The government has prepared English training courses ESL courses for all new immigrants. "Small class pure foreign teacher." It used to be considered expensive in China, but it is the most ideal study condition, but it is actually free in Canada. An English-speaking teacher and several students communicate in English every day. It's not only free here, but also lunch. Close the sail! Not only do you have to pay for meals, but you also have to pay the bus fare to and from class every day. Not only do they have to pay the fare, but some remote provinces also have to pay. As long as you work full-time for one month, you can go to the government to collect hundreds of Canadian dollars (thousands of RMB). It is really happy to have such a country and government. And I have to go regardless of the meal. English is very important. So everyone enthusiastically signed up. Come to the classroom happily every day to exchange English with teachers and classmates.

But then something happened: two weeks later, many students from China stopped coming. Most of China's classmates are very clever, and they soon observed this problem. I was very excited when I first came to class The teacher introduced herself: "Hi! How are you? My name is … I'm from Canada. Nice to meet you all. " ; The students got to know each other and began to communicate. But soon the students found that after two weeks, they didn't learn a few "new things" that they didn't know before. Still can only understand those simple everyday expressions. One day at lunch, the teacher said it was "spaghetti" and the word was recorded as "macaroni" But two weeks is too slow and two years is not enough. I might as well go home and recite the words by myself. As soon as I listened, I advised them: then don't go. At least you can speak English with the teacher! Who are you looking for at home? You can't always talk to people on the street. These students disagree: speaking more English is more problematic. Because we find that when we talk about it, we are all talking about what we used to say. Those who can't talk are all talking nonsense there, and the more they talk, the worse they get. In the past, many students thought that it was better to have the opportunity to speak more, but now they understand that what they can't say will not change automatically in a foreign language environment. For example, a classmate wants to say that she brought a family photo with plastic packaging. Not to mention plastic packaging, not at all. Someone suggested: can you say a simple form? She said, "I put plastic on my photo." Can foreigners understand it? Of course. So English communication is realized, and people continue to say to you: Oh, what is the picture? Simple English can also communicate and even cope with most trivial things in life. But has your ability to speak English improved? Zero effect! So it is not good to "say more at will". This is an output process. I don't have it in my head yet. What can I output? So I dropped out of school. (The poor Canadian teacher keeps calling and begging China students to go back. It's not that I like them, but that the students in class will be laid off less by the government. )

At this time, everyone came to another conclusion: Oh, it is useless to talk nonsense with foreigners abroad. Everything you say is affirmative and everything you hear is understandable. What you don't know is hard to understand, and you can't say it or say it. We understand now that when we go abroad, we must teach ourselves English. This article on the top ten secrets of going abroad came to a similar conclusion. How do you study systematically?

At this time, there is no need for foreign teachers in small classes, so we organized large classes and invited teachers to teach foreign languages. The requirement for this teacher is that he must be able to speak Chinese. Of course I can speak Chinese, so I was invited to be a teacher. I have taught English in a pure English environment in Canada because I can speak Chinese. That sounds interesting. I used to go to church to teach China on weekends. They usually have classes in the classroom after church meetings (many people are not very religious and go there to meet), and the classroom is free. As soon as I give them a class, they think that learning is "effective", because English is no matter how complicated, you must also understand it in Chinese. I can teach in English, but people don't listen. I'm not like ESL As soon as Chinese is used, everyone is happy. Once a student asked me an English sentence (I can't remember which one) and asked me what it meant. I asked him where he heard it, and he said it was in ESL class. That foreigner has been saying this sentence. After listening for two weeks, he can recite it, but he doesn't know what it means. I asked him why he didn't ask the teacher. He said yes, but the teacher is a foreigner. Explain it to him in English, and he can't understand it. This goes back to the problem of explaining English in English. Many students think this is right, such as using Ying Ying dictionary. Of course, it's right, but experience tells us that it's not realistic when the English foundation is relatively low, because English explanation is difficult for them to understand. Only high-level students can use it. Therefore, foreign English environment is very effective for students with high English level. Then I explained it to him in Chinese, and he replied, "Well, that's what I mean!" " The problem that I didn't understand in the first two weeks (invalid pronunciation) took only two seconds to understand. Because knowing the meaning is effective. So everyone asked questions and asked me words and sentences that I didn't usually understand. No matter how complicated the sentence is, as long as it is explained in Chinese, it will be understood. But the reader has found another problem: isn't this still using translation? Yes, the consequence is that it is difficult to form English thinking, and you will not be able to react when you return to the natural environment.

The common people also generally understand that foreign adults learn foreign languages very slowly. For example, not only China people, but also many immigrants from other countries abroad. They have lived in America and Canada for a long time, and their English is still poor. Everyone is used to it. Now these people also come to China to do business or work. I think we have seen more. The US government is also very familiar with this and hopes to solve this problem. As we all know, it takes five years for a green card holder to apply for American citizenship. The American government found that most immigrants' English was still poor after more than five years, so it tried to encourage English learning by modifying the immigration policy. The government proposes that if you get a green card, you can speak English fluently and pass the exam in four years, and you can get citizenship in the fourth year. However, American language experts rose up against it, calling the government stupid. Most people obviously can't learn English for five years. If you reward others with good English, why not let others learn English? They said it seemed that everyone was hungry. You should try to feed everyone, not reward the fattest one. This responsibility was put on USA-Today in 2005, but this policy was not implemented later.

How long does it usually take adults to speak a foreign language fluently abroad? Foreign language experts have done in-depth research and found that if the foreign language environment can be maintained (you can't shrink into your native every day), then the time to achieve fluency needs to be divided by 6. In other words, if you go abroad at the age of 30, it will take five years to be fluent. Therefore, many students in China who have gone abroad for graduate studies and worked for more than 5 years may be fluent in English. However, we find that many immigrant students have been abroad for more than five years, and their foreign languages are still poor because of their poor foundation at first and it is difficult to maintain a foreign language environment.