My Experience of Learning English

The mail and question:

大哥。最近挺忙吧？
是这样，我昨天被告知，我可以参CET4考试，还有2个多月的时间吧。
来到大学感觉英语的学习很被动，并且也很郁闷，似乎英语能力还不如高中了。觉得你英语很棒，有没有什么经验可以分享一下？thanks
注意身体

Thanks for your email. I feel a little embarrassed about that. To be honest, my English is not as good as you thought. And that’s why I made this site to be English and practicing writing.

I’d like to share some my own experiences with you about my journey of learning English.

When I was a college student in your age, I faced the same problem as yours. I guess it is a very common feeling the current college students have. Due to my bad NCEE’s score, I had no chance to go to the top universities in China. Even worse, whilst I entered the campus, I threw away the attitude of learning in the high school and played computer games all day.I lost myself at that time. I didn’t what ambition is and what I am going to do in my life.

I was not aware of the challenge in front of me until my last year in college. I gradually realized that my poor English, my low scores and lack of technical knowledge will lead me void in my future career.

In my third year of university, I began to study hard including my English from the very beginning. I participated the programming contest and did some projects with my mentor. I even got the scholarship that year. I did whatever can improve my personal skill sets. After I graduated from university, I made a decision, that is, to leave the city I had been for 4 years, and went to Shanghai to seek better opportunities.

Having said that, it is down to your motivation. English language skills is important, and excellent English skills will give you advantages in job hunting in today’s globalised world. I know CET-4 is a very important test for college students in China, but please remember that it does not mean much in a real world English! Learning English is a long journey, not a 2-month task before the CET-4 test.

Fluent in English will give you more advantages and opportunities in your career and gain wider perspectives from people all around the world.
The method I used to get over the CET-6 was reading English magazines and newspapers, and listening to English tapes as much as possible. In addition, I love to do the following things every now and then:

1. Search around the Internet and download some interesting English stuffs such as video or mp3 file.
2. Enjoy listening to the English songs. I have almost 1 GB English songs in my laptop.
3. Enjoy watching English movies.
4. Go to the hjbbs.com and watch the Studio Classroom online video. It is a very interesting online English Classroom.
5. Read some of my favorite English blogs.
6. All of my technical documents I have to read are written in English.
7. If your major is Computer Science, I suggested you throw away all your Chinese technical books and read the original book published in English.
8. Thinking in English as much as you can. (For example, talk to yourself when you are taking a shower 🙂
9. Make some foreign friends and do language exchanges if possible.

Good luck with your exam and the journey of studying.