我过英语关(转)

zbz

编者按：学好英语绝非易事。不仅我们中国人深有此感，世界上任何一个英语为非母语的人在没有英语语言环境的情况下学英语也是如此。本文中的波兰青年是个学英语的成功者。他的英语学习经验很值得我们借鉴。


Q:Who are you?

A:My full name is Tomasz P. Szynalski, but people just call me Tom. I live in Wroclaw, Poland. I study business administration and computer science at the Wroclaw University of Technology. In the past few years, I have worked as an English-Polish translator and as a web designer. Recently, I became webmaster at Antimoon.com.

Q:How did you learn English?

A:I started learning English when I was 6 years old. For 8 years I learned English the way everybody does -- by going to English classes. It was awfully ineffective. I did everything that the teachers told me to do: the homework assignments, everything. But I didn' t get any results. At least, no impressive results. I mean, I was always one of the best students in class. Still, reading English texts took me a long time, I made lots of mistakes when writing, my pronunciation was bad, and I could only speak English very slowly. Eight years of sacrifices, and these were the results...

　　It got a little better because of... computer games. When I got my first PC in 1991, I started playing lots of adventure games. I especially loved LucasArts(then called Lucasfilm) games, such as the Indiana Jones and Monkey Island series. Playing these games, I would read a lot of English sentences, and after some time I gained a little " grammar intuition." When I did well in a local English contest for 14-year olds, I thought that adventure games had taught me more than English classes. You see, I would often " feel" the right answers in grammar tests, while other students had to remember dozens of grammar rules. But my English was still pretty bad.

　　In 1993, I got into the best high school in Wroclaw. It has a special program with a lot of English classes. I owe a lot to the people I met there, both students and teachers. My first two years in high school were very important for my English. My English teacher, Mr. Janusz Laskosz, gave a lot of good advice, especially on pronunciation and vocabulary. My brilliant friends, Wojtek Dzierzanowski and Michael Ryszard Wojcik (who is my partner at Antimoon now), were both fantastic English learners. I didn' t want to be worse than them, so I studied harder, and my English improved.

　　Following the advice from Mr. Laskosz and the example of my friends, I made some good decisions during my first year in high school. I learned English phonetics1, started using English-English dictionaries, listening to recordings and watching English-language TV, and talking to native speakers every chance I got. The result: I improved my pronunciation, I was no longer afraid to speak English, and I could understand spoken English quite well, too.

　　During the summer vacation of 1994 I started reading books in English, mostly novels. I would learn a lot of new words from these books, but I had terrible problems memorizing them. I had to look up the same word many times, which was quite annoying. I realized I needed a way to remember all this vocabulary. It was a breakthrough for me. I started noting down2 words from the books that I read. I would come back from school, and then sit for an hour or two and noted down new words and added them to my collection. In two years, my collection had grown to 3,000 English words.

　　In late 1995, I got on the Internet, and soon started to write E-mail in English. It was excellent writing practice -- something I had lacked before. Around 1997, Michael and I decided to use English to communicate. (We still do.) Another good decision, which improved my ability to speak English.

　　Today, I think I use English more than my first language. Certainly there is no big difference between using my first language and using English. Over 90％ of my E-mail is written in English. Most of my reading (websites and books) is in English, too. Speaking is no problem. I can go to any English-speaking country and communicate easily.

Q:What has English given you?

A:I am addicted to English. I love the language, and I love using it. I like writing English sentences, speaking English to native speakers, reading books and the Web, watching American movies, and so on. I like the intellectual challenge of using a foreign language. When I learn something new about English, I feel I' m getting better and more powerful.

　　There are some things I am especially proud of. During my trips to England and America，I was taken for a native speaker a few times. It felt great! In 1998 I took part in a national English competition for high school students. I was 7th in the country. In 2000, I got first place in a similar contest for college students. I have translated two computer books (Using Windows 98 and C Primer Plus) from English into Polish, and have done many smaller translations, too.

Ameliazhang

thanks a lot.
some time ago my friend told me that it was good for your english to log on the net and communicate with people in english.I tried since then,I found it was true.