Learning by Practice

By Cai Zhizhong

To b e t t e r a d a p t t o immigrant life, the first problem one may encounter is the language barrier.Many people have bought into the same fallacy, namely that, after more than ten years of learning English, when it comes time to engage in conversation with the non-Chinese speaking world they will stammer and stutter out of fear of making mistakes, being ridiculed and losing face.

If a foreign expat living in China asks for directions in broken Mandarin on the streets of Beijing, the native speakers will just encourage him to say a few correct words so that they can understand what he means and help him. Who would laugh at his kindergarten Mandarin?

Likewise, it is just normal for a Chinese person to speak barely passable English when they go abroad. Who would ever make fun of them for it?

I am good at self-study. When I was in school, my teachers wanted us to “learn to practice.” But I’ve always extolled an ethic that I believe is more effective, which is to “learn by practice.” No one would ever forget an expression they have used before. The same principle that applies to learning math also applies to learning a language—if you’ve used it you will never forget it.

B e f o r e I e m i g r a t e d t o Vancouver, the only English phrases I could say were “thank you” and “bye bye.” But I firmly believed in the method of“learning by practice.” If you want to learn a language, you’d better move to the place where that language is spoken, as it is more effective to learn language through daily use.

New immigrants who have just moved into a community had better not wander around alone;otherwise neighbors may mistake them for illegal immigrants and call the police.

So walk a dog around the

適應移民生活，第一個遭遇的就是語言問題。很多人學了十幾年英文，遇上外國人，結結巴巴，不敢開口說英文，怕自己說得不正確，被人家笑話，這是嚴重的錯誤觀念。

我們走在北京街頭，一個老外用很不通順的普通話，跟我們問路，我們只希望他多說幾個正確單詞，以便了解他真正的意思，然后再幫助他，誰會笑他的普通話說得不順溜呢？

同樣，一個中國人在外國，英文說得不正確，是再正常不過的事，沒有人會笑話我們。

我擅長自學，上學時，老師說“學以致用”，我總認為，學習不是“學以致用”，而是“用以促學”，這才是有效的學習方法。一句話，我們用過了便永生難忘，學數學、學語言，都是如此。

移民溫哥華之前，我只會說Thank you和Bye bye。但我深信“用以促學”，學習語言必須要到當地，在生活中學習，才會事半功倍。

新移民剛搬進一個小區，不要一個人四處亂逛，鄰居不知道有新移民入住，會引發他們的疑慮，誤以為是偷渡客，從而報警。

所以，要牽一只狗，到小區周邊散步遛狗。

看到隔壁加拿大鄰居，便對她說：“Hi.”

鄰居太太回答說：“Good morning.”

走到第二家，又說：“Hi.”

第二家鄰居太太說：“Good morning.”

Good morning復習兩三遍，發音正確之后，走到第三家改說：“Good morning.”

第三家鄰居說：“Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

走到第四家，又說：“Good morning.”

第四家鄰居說：“Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

Beautiful day復習發音幾戶之后，遇到下一戶鄰居，便改說：

“Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

“Where are you from?”

“I am from China.”

“Where do you live?”

“I live there.”手指著自己的家。

鄰居興致大開，想交你這個新鄰居，因為詞窮，你只好說“Sorry，bye bye”，趕緊閃人回家。這樣，neighborhood.

When you see a Canadian neighbor next door, say hi to her.

She may reply back, “Good morning.”

Then go to the next house and say hi again.

Your second neighbor may also reply, “Good morning.”

Practice “Good morning” two or three times and make sure your pronunciation is correct. Then walk to the third door and say“Good morning.”

Your third neighbor may reply,“Beautiful day isn’t it?”

Walk to the fourth door and say“Good morning” again.

Your fourth neighbor may also reply, “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

Practice the pronunciation of “beautiful day, isn’t it?” a few times, and when you meet the next neighbor, say:

“Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

“Where are you from?”

“I am from China.”

“Where do you live?”

“I live there,” you answer,pointing to your home.

Your neighbor might take an interest in you and want to make friends, but due to your limited vocabulary, you will have to say “Sorry, bye bye,” and go back home. You walk your dog every day, all the while learning English in the process. Gradually,your ability in the language will develop.

If you want to learn any l a n g u a g e, o f c o u r s e y o u need to master a very large vocabulary. But before learning that vocabulary, you should understand the truth of memory:You don’t just store away what you memorize into your brain for safekeeping; you should be able to retrieve it when necessary.

The human brain is like a locked drawer—it takes time to locate the key and insert it into the drawer before you can take out what you need. The real problem comes that there are one million keys to the drawer, so the real pain in the neck is finding the one you want.

The right memorization technique is to remember how to take what you need out, rather than how to put it in.

As you can imagine, if there are one million keys to the drawer,the bigger the key is, the easier it is to find. Similarly, a string of words is easier to memorize than a single word. Therefore,connecting words and meaningful phrases to imagery is an excellent way to learn vocabulary.

I read an article about visual memory when I was young that said memorizing five nouns that are unrelated to one another is very difficult, e.g., soy sauce, salt,watermelon, shirt and bathtub.But they are much easier to memorize if we combine them into a single ridiculous image—a person wearing a shirt is bathing in a bathtub filled with soy sauce.This is the effective method of image memory.

Using this technique it only took me three months to learn Japanese. To learn English, you don’t need to memorize words by rote. Just create images in your brain and memorize them, this way it will only take a few minutes to learn a long string of English words. ◆ (From The Genius and the Master, China CITIC Press.Translation: Chen Jiani)每天固定一趟散步遛狗時學習英語，時間久了，慢慢學會幾句英語。

學習任何語言，當然得背大量單詞，在背單詞之前，要先想通記憶的真理：記憶不是要記進去，而是要用時取得出來。

人的大腦，有如存放東西的抽屜。把鑰匙放進抽屜，要用時，便能取出來。問題是，抽屜已經有100萬把鑰匙，鑰匙一放進去便找不到了。

正確的記憶方法是：記住取出來的方法，而不是記進去。

可以想象，抽屜里放100萬把鑰匙，鑰匙越大串，越容易找到，記憶英文單詞也一樣，單詞聯結得越大串，越容易記住，僅僅一個單詞，反而不容易記牢，因此，背誦英文單詞，要用圖像串聯記憶法。

記得年輕時，看到一篇關于記憶的文章，我們很難記住醬油、鹽巴、西瓜、襯衫、浴缸五種完全不相關的名詞。如果我們把這五種物品組合成一幅荒謬的畫面——一個人穿著襯衫，坐在浴缸里用醬油洗澡，就很容易記住，這就是有效的圖像記憶法。

我學日文，只花三個月；學英文，根本不需要背單詞，只要用畫面思考，畫面記憶，幾分鐘內，就可以背一大串英文單詞。