Wang Qiang reads English stories 3 (audio tape)

Author: Bao Fanyi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-04-01
Features: Learning a language is a very effective way to acquire a way of thinking, if not the only one. Any language learner who cannot grasp the mindset of people who use this language will find the tool alien to them, not belonging to them. English has three levels. The first is textual English, such as magazines, movies, and radio. This type of English is external to you—it is initial. If Chinese students, following traditional learning methods, devote all their energy to mastering textual English, even if they master a lot, it will still belong to others, not to themselves. At most, they become mere storage devices. Although it is true that "reading three hundred poems of Tang poetry makes one a poet without writing," that's correct. You might only be able to "recite" them, but I don't believe you can become a Li Bai or Du Fu. The second level, which I call "thinking-in-English," means that since it is a tool, you must use it. Before using it, you must think about what you want to achieve, how to use it, how to express it, and what effect it will have. You must conceptualize it in your mind. This process has been replaced by habits and thus ignored for native speakers, but for us, if we break it down carefully, it exists. It is essentially a training in mental response, which is imitation practice, familiarity with creation—it is practice that leads to skill, turning the impossible into the possible. If you do not organize your thoughts from the perspective of mindset and ensure that people with such a mindset fully understand your expression, then your foreign language will forever remain "foreign" and cannot become a tool that serves your expression. The third level of English, which I call "action-oriented English," refers to the actual English expressed, which involves whether rhetoric, tone, and intonation align with the other person's mindset. Only when these three levels of English are combined in a three-dimensional way and mutually support and permeate each other can you truly see the level of your English.