英语学习之捷径

听    Listening

As with any oral language, everything begins with listening. Our ears are the main input to our brain which receives the messages being sent. Our goal here is train our ears to develop the necessary listening skill and more importantly, our brain, the ability to receive and process the information.

对于任何一种口语来说，一切都是从听开始。我们的耳朵是大脑接收信息的主要器官。在这儿，我们的目标是要训练我们的听力，掌握必要的听力技巧；更重要的，是要提高我们的大脑接收和处理信息的能力。

There are two kinds of listening we need to develop. First the ability to hear the sounds, like when we listen to instrumental music; second is the ability to understand what we hear, like when we listen to the lyrics of a song. We will first begin with hearing the sound, the music; then we will move on to understanding, the lyrics, as our English improves.

有两种听力技巧需要我们掌握。第一是听懂声音的韵律的能力,像我们当听器乐时一样，首先要搞懂其包含的韵律和节奏;第二是理解我们所听到的内容的能力,就像当我们听一首歌想要理解它的歌词时一样。我们将首先从听声音开始，即旋律部分；那么当我们的英语得到改进时，我们再进一步理解我们所听到的，即歌词部分。

The method to improve our listening skill is to repeatedly listen to the same material a few times until you are familiar with the sounds, then move on to new material. It is important to use the material according to the proper skill level. In addition, switch to normal conversation speed material as soon as you are comfortable with learning speed material. The materials can include audio books, songs, radio, movies or TV. The best material is original English audio books because you can listen and read when you combine both together.

我们改进听力技巧的方法是将同样的材料重复地听几遍，直到你熟悉它的声音（旋律），然后改用新的材料继续往下听。重要的是要根据自己的水平选择适当的材料。除此之外，一旦你对学习材料的速度适应了，就把其更换为正常交谈语速的材料。可用材料包括有声书，歌曲，广播，电影或者电视。最好的材料是英文原作的有声书，因为你可以一边听一边阅读。

Do not be alarm if at first you do not understand what you hear. Once you begin to understand what you hear, you will also begin to train your brain to think in English. When you are confronted with a new word or phrase you will also try to figure out the meaning in English based on the context of the sentence. Once this English thinking process begins, many learning issues will no longer be issues. You now also have acquired a new skill that can greatly improve the speed of which you improve other skills. From now on the input to the brain will no longer be translated Chinese but pure English.

假如你听不懂材料的内容，也不要担忧。你一旦开始理解你所听到的东西，你也会开始对用英语去思考的大脑训练。遇到生词的时候，你也会试图在语句的背景内容中想出其英文意义。一旦这种用英语去思考的过程开始，许多学习的问题将不再是问题。同时，你还学到了一个能帮助你快速改进其它技巧的新技巧。这样子从今以后，输入大脑的再也不是被翻译成英文的中文而是纯正的英语。

This approach improves your listening, reading, and grammatical skills, and later it will help develop your speaking and writing skills.

这条途径可以增强你的听力，阅读，和语法技巧，而以后它将帮助你提高口语和写作技巧。

说    Speaking

While we improve our listening skill, we are implanting the blueprint of different English sounds into our brain. As our brain builds up this database of sounds, we will establish the ability to distinguish the different words in a spoken message. With this set of implanted blueprints, we now can recall individual sounds upon demand and pronounce simple syllables. At this point we can begin repeating simple words and phrases as we hear them. As our speaking skill develops we may only be able to communicate with simple sentences at first, but as we enhance our English knowledge the building and speaking of more complicated sentence structures will come naturally.

在我们增进听力技巧的同时，我们的大脑也植入了一张描绘英语的各种发音的蓝图。当大脑里建好这么一个声音的资料库时，我们将具备一种能从口语信息中区别不同的词语的能力。拥有这幅被植入的蓝图之后，我们现在能轻易想起单个音节的发音标准，而且能发简单的音节。在这时当我们听到简单的词语和词组时也能跟着复读。在提高口语的技巧的时候，最初我们可能只能使用简单的语句进行交流，但是当英语知识得到增强之后，更加复杂的语句结构和表达就会自然而然地建立起来。

During a normal conversation, quite often we will make grammatical mistakes. Do not be alarmed about these mistakes. This is because our brain is processing the information at a very high rate, and during the conversation there is very little time, if any at all, for us to go back and make the necessary grammar corrections.

在一般的谈话期间，我们会经常犯语法错误。千万不要为这些错误而觉得恐慌。因为我们的大脑正在一个十分高效的情况下处理着信息，而且在谈话期间我们只有十分少量或者根本没有时间回过头去纠正那些必要的语法。

There is one major area fellow Chinese English students will need to address, and that is the habit of speaking Chinese-English (Chinglish). Traditional teaching teaches us how to “translate” English, but it did not teach us how to think in English. Since everyone is already accustomed to translating, one will think of the Chinese meaning first, causing the mind to “speak” in Chinese every time, then exporting the Chinese thoughts into translated English as one speaks.

有一个中国英语学习者将必须解决的大问题，而那是＂中国式英语＂的会话习惯(Chinglish)。传统的中国英语教学教我们如何先“翻译＂英语，但是它没有教我们如何使用英语去思考。由于大家已经习惯于先翻译，一个人会首先在大脑里影射出中文的意思，造成每次头脑里都会先使用中国话“讲话＂，然后再翻译成为英语的情况（而这种情况往往给我们造成很多困饶甚至是各种各样的错误，即“中国式英语”的现状）。

读    Reading

After we developed our listening and oral communication skills, the next natural progression is developing the reading skill. Since the brain already has been implanted with the sound and speech pattern blueprints, acquiring the reading skill then becomes a simple task of pairing the blueprints with the text. As we read, we “speak” the sounds in our brain which further allows us to “hear” what we are reading. This development is then in fact a development of three skills at once in the brain: reading, speaking and listening. This is even truer when we read the text out loud. Reading will also begin to sound similar to self oral communication as we improve in speed.

在我们发展听和说的交流技巧之后，下一步自然就是阅读技巧了。既然头脑里已经有了声音和言语模式的蓝图，那么获取阅读的技巧也就成为了一种把声音与正文想对应起来的一种简单任务。在阅读时，我们会在头脑里“讲话＂，这就会更进一步允许我们“听到＂我们所阅读到的东西。事实上这是一个在脑子中同时发展三种技巧的过程：阅读，口语和听力。特别是在我们把课文大声朗读出来的情况下。这样，只要在速度上有所提升，阅读就像是自己在与自己对话一样。

写    Writing

When we first begin learning how to listen to English, we are exposed to simple English for the first time. When we speak English for the first time, we begin using simple sentence structures utilizing simple grammar. When we read stories, we are further exposed to different sentence structures and grammatical syntax. When we write in English, we can also utilize the same approach by starting with simple structures and advance to complicated structures.

开始学习英语听力时，我们首次接触到简单的英语；说英语时，我们开始也是利用简单的语法和句子结构。阅读故事时，我们则会进一步的接触不同的句子结构和语法规则。在应对英语写作时，我们也能利用同样的方法从简单的结构开始学习，然后才是结构的复杂化。

It is true that when we speak we often make grammatical error which we often ignore. With writing we can not ignore those errors as writing is about expressing our ideas correctly so the reader can understand what has been written. This can only be done by using proper grammar rules. A good practice is to review what has been written and correct any grammatical errors. Improper grammar will present a situation where it will be difficult for the reader to understand the ideas the author tries to convey. When in doubt, it is best to use simple but grammatical correct sentences that convey the correct idea then complicated grammatical incorrect sentences that convey the wrong idea.

事实上在说话时，我们经常会忽略文法上的差错。而在写作时我们没办法忽略那些错误，因为它必须是对我们的想法的正确地表达，这样读者才能理解作品里的意义。这只有恰当地使用好语法规则才能做到。不断地检查并矫正文法错误是一种很好的习惯。不恰当的语法将会给读者造成一种困难，使其无法理解作者所要表达的想法。在不肯定的时候，使用简单而文法正确的句子来传达正确的信息比用文法复杂但不正确的句子传达错误的信息更有效。

A Chinese English student must restrain from using the Chinese-English translation thinking process that he is accustomed to. This will prevent you from writing proper English sentences right from the start because you are thinking with Chinese grammatical syntax.

身为一个中国的英语学习者必须学会控制已经习惯了的汉英翻译思考过程。因为你思考的是中文文法的句法, 这一问题会从学习的开始阶段就对你的英语写作产生阻碍作用。

[续] - [英语学盟] 英语学习之捷径

作者：天眼Jimmy
校对: Bubbles
初版: 2007-10-14

Posted with permission