Sep 5, 2025
1.Why are we in such a rush?
When you enter a bookstore, you'll see many books with titles like "How to Speak English Fluently in 21 Days," and if you search "English learning" on YouTube, you'll find videos titled "How to Learn English in 6 Months." Whenever I see this, I always wonder: Is learning English really that easy, or are all Americans so stupid that they spend ten or more years learning their native language when it can be learned in just a couple of months? The answer is obviously no—learning a language takes time. As an old Chinese saying goes: "If you try to speed up any process, you will not be able to achieve your goal."
2.How to Master English in Ten Years?
Mastering English isn’t something you can achieve overnight, in three months, or even in one year. And by "mastering," I don’t mean just passing exams or being able to read short paragraphs. If you manage to stick with learning English for ten years in a right way, I can bet that your level will eventually match or even surpass that of an average American speaker.
And Remember, there’s no shortcut to language learning—just like in life. Although the Chinese education system often encourages shortcuts, pushing you to memorize as many words as quickly as possible, that’s not how we naturally learn a language. Have you ever memorized a list of phrases as a child? I’d guess the answer is no, and probably not even one word for most people. Did your mother give you a paper filled with short paragraphs and multiple-choice questions every week? I’d guess the answer is also no. If that were the case, your childhood might not have been very enjoyable, and you might even grow to hate speaking your mother tongue, much like how many people feel about math!
So learning English slowly. Be patient and stay focus.
3.where should I begin if I want to learn a new language?
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3-1.How can I reach a native level in listening?
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4.What is speaking?
What is speaking? It's one of the hardest parts of language learning, especially for us Chinese. By "speaking," I mean being able to communicate with people like a native speaker, not just imitate the sounds you’ve heard. Some people say that in order to speak English fluently, you must first be able to think in English. But speaking is not that complicated. You can speak English even if you can’t think in English. In fact, speaking is a process in which you express what you've heard and understood in a way that feels natural to you. So, it’s more about habit than mindset.
Let's start with a practice exercise: try to produce a sound that does not exist in your mother tongue. You will likely find that every sound you can make corresponds to a similar one in a word you already know. This is because the pronunciation in any human language is incredibly complex and encompasses almost the entire range of sounds the human vocal apparatus can produce. One could even find rough approximations of human speech in the sounds made by chickens or monkeys.
However, an infant who has not learned a language can only produce random, unstructured sounds. Similarly, a monkey cannot speak human languages, while a trained parrot can reproduce speech patterns fluently through repetition. Therefore, speaking a language is the act of producing sounds in a fixed, recognizable pattern. This requires significant practice to stabilize; without it, one can only produce random noises, like an infant or a monkey.
Beyond the physical production of sounds, to speak or to express a thought, you must have a concept or 'image' in your mind and then find the corresponding words (or rather, sounds) to express it. In other words, you must understand the meaning of the words(the sounds you've heard) before you can use them. This reveals what "understanding" truly is: knowing the correspondence between a sound and the specific concept it represents in your brain. (Remember, this concept is not a real-world picture or scenario, but an abstract construct in your mind which may have some real-world correspondence.)
Now through all of the above thought process, we understand what speaking a language truly entails, and the path to mastery also becomes clear:
1.Learn the Correspondence: Internalize the connection between the sounds of the language and the concepts they represent.
2.Practice the Patterns: Accustom yourself to producing these sounds in their correct, fixed patterns.
The ultimate goal is to become so accustomed to these patterns that you don't have to consciously remember them. While memory is a necessary tool, it should serve the higher purpose of building intuitive, automatic habit.
5.Why can I understand a language almost perfectly but still struggle to speak it?
Let’s consider what happens when we listen to someone speaking in our mother tongue. First, vibrations in the air are conveyed to our ears. Our brain then receives these vibrations and interprets them as sound (remember, there is no sound in nature—only vibration). Almost simultaneously, a related image flashes into our mind. At that point, the process of listening is complete.
But the process of speaking is different. First, we form a mental image of what we want to say. Then, we find the corresponding sounds, assemble them into a sentence, and pronounce it.
From the above, we can see that the processes of listening and speaking are exact opposites. This is why most people who learn a language primarily through listening find it very difficult to express themselves comfortably. They become skilled at converting sounds into mental images through hundreds, even thousands, of hours of practice, while largely neglecting the reverse process—which is called speaking. This also means that speaking isn't necessarily harder than listening; it just feels harder because you practice it less.
6.What is the right way to practise language speaking skills?
This reflection on speaking and listening reveals a key principle for practicing spoken language: you must intentionally and actively express yourself.
There are many ways to do this. You can chat online, comment on forums like Reddit, keep a daily journal, or talk to people in real life. It doesn't matter if your conversation partner is a native speaker or not; even speaking to someone who doesn't know the language you are learning at all can be helpful. What truly matters is the process of forming your thoughts and expressing them yourself.
However, only expressing yourself using what you already know will only make you proficient at what you already know. To become truly skilled at speaking, you must also actively improve and refine your existing knowledge.
This explains why some people who live abroad find that even if they talk to foreigners every day, their speaking skills do not improve. The reason is that effective practice is not about repeating what is wrong, but about consistently improving and refining your language use.
So, what should you do if you truly want to become good at speaking? Let us consider the listening process once again.
When we listen to a drama or the radio program in a foreign language, we receive sentences that are already 100% grammatically correct. On the other hand, when we want to say something, producing a perfect sentence on the first try is impossible. The sentence you initially create may have a poor structure and many grammar mistakes.
Do not worry about that. Expressing yourself is the most important part. But you cannot stop there. You must improve your first version of the spoken sentence. Then, speak (or rather, express) the refined version again and improve it once more. Continue this process until you feel the sentence is good enough and grammatically correct.
People who are afraid to communicate often want to produce a perfect sentence on their first try. This is a ridiculous expectation, as no one can speak perfectly from the start—not even native speakers. Furthermore, you can always find a better way to express your thoughts. Therefore, pursuing perfection is one of the most counterproductive things you can do when practicing speaking.
7.Do I need to talk to others regularly and speak often if I want to be good at speaking?
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8.Is shadowing an effective method for improving speaking skills?
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9.The Relationship Between Speaking and Reading?
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10.How can ChatGPT help to practice speaking?
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11.Do I need to learn grammar if I want to learn a language?
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12.What kind of material should I start with?
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13.Can I learn a foreign language with the help of my native language? For example, by watching movies with bilingual subtitles or using a bilingual dictionary
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14.Do I need to memorize large numbers of vocabulary?
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15.What is the purpose of our learning English?
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(to be continued)