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How to improve one’s English (1): reading, reading, and more reading
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If you ask me how I became an English editor, I would first tell you about my two great English teachers in China.
I was admitted by the Shandong College of Oceanography (now Ocean University of China) as a student of Class 77, with mixed ages from 16 to 32 (or wider). We were given an English test, so the school could offer Class A to a handful of students whose English was already quite good. I only made it to Class B, but was allowed to join Class A after the summer vacation, a story I wish to tell some day. In short, I had the best English teacher in college, and again in the graduate school of Zhongshan University. Both teachers were tall and handsome, but what’s important to their students was they all insisted on one thing: reading, reading, and reading. In fact, both teachers asked us to recite every lesson from the text book! I think that practice helped me to build a solid foundation for scientific writing.
I did beg my father to buy me a brick-size tape player when it was first available, to study English. It was useful, but I probably spent more time listing to pop songs than the “New Concept,” something I never dared to confess to my dear father who actually borrowed money for the first time in his life from two old friends of his to purchase this recorder. (I just asked my father the actual cost of this “brick-size” recorder. Both my parents remember it very well, because they paid RMB300 for it and the price went down a lot two months after their purchase. To get some idea about how expensive the tape player was to my parents: it cost their combined income over two months! Hard to imagine I would do that for my son, though a new iPod is not cheap.)
In short, one must read, read, and read some more in order to write English well. If you don’t have time for novels, read news and publications in English on the topics you are familiar with. These are other people’s writing, but soon the words, phrases, and sentences will become your’s.
Rome was not built in one day, nor is one’s ability to write well in English.
https://m.sciencenet.cn/blog-306792-284088.html
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