我们中国人普遍的英语口语都不好，是由于我们教育制度和授课方式所造成的，我们开始学英语就是为了应付考试，放下课本之后又成了英语文盲，尤其一出国就是哑巴英语，大家纷纷抱怨，没有语言环境根本记不住。去国外读书的同学，毕竟是少数，对于中国人而言，如何为自己营造一种说英语的环境呢？这么做可能吗？

但是，我们学英文跟有没有到国外深造是两码事。

Even here in China, you can speak very beautiful English. You can learn to write English without any grammatical errors.

即便在中国，你可以写出漂亮的英语。你可以学习写出没有语法错误的英语。

换句话说，你在国内是完全可以营造一个说英语的环境的。

Quite a few people have been living abroad for quite a long time. Yet, sometimes they come back to China for a visit on vacation. The problem is that when they speak English, they still have a very heavy accent. That’s one thing. Another thing is that, when they speak English, they tend to stutter.

许多人在国外居住了许久。然而，有时候当他们回来中国度假。他们的问题是他们讲英语时还是带着很重的口音。这是其一。其二是他们说英语时往往还会结巴。

Occasionally, they will carry a lot of Chinese in their English. This goes to show that their English is not very fluent, even though they have been staying or living abroad for quite a long time. In other words, if you want to speak very fluent English, it has nothing to do with whether you have been staying abroad or living in a country where English is the native language for quite a long time. It has something to do with whether you have the ability to learn to speak English on your own. You have to build up an environment where you speak English. You yourself are the main role.

有时，他们说英语时会夹杂许多中文。这表明尽管他们已经在国外待了很长时间，他们的英文还是不太流利。换句话说，如果你想说一口非常流利的英语，与你是否在英语为母语的国家待过或居住过没有关系。那与你是否能自己学说英语有关。你必须营造一个环境，在这个环境里你要说英语，你在这个环境中就是主角。

Take me for example. I was born in China a long time ago. I’m now 68 years old. Before I was 18, I was very playful. I wouldn’t bother to study English because at that time, this language was very tough to me as far as I was concerned. My family was very poor. My father was a soldier, and my mother was what they called an illiterate(文盲). We had to run a very small restaurant. Actually, it was not called a restaurant. It was just a greasy eatery. I had to do a lot of chores. For example, I had to do the dishes. Occasionally, I would carry some food to those rich families. And sometimes, they would ask me to stay there and they would just call their daughters or sons out and take a look at me, saying: “see, if you don’t study hard, one day you will be just like the boy.”

就拿我自己举例好了。很久以前我出生在中国。现在我 68 岁了。我十八岁前，非常贪玩。我不会费心去学英语，因为那时候，英语对那时候的我来说很难。因为我家很穷，我爸爸是个军人，我妈妈是所谓的文盲。我们必须经营一家餐馆。其实那也称不上是一家餐馆。那只不过是一家小吃摊。我得做很多家务事。举例来说，我得洗碗。我偶尔还会外送食物去有钱人的家里。有时候，他们会叫我待在那里，接着就把他们的儿子或女儿叫出来看我，说：“如果你们不努力学习，就会像这小子一样。”

When I was 18 years old, I failed to pass the entrance examination for colleges and universities, so I was pretty depressed. However, I managed to enter a military academy. It was during that time that I began to study very hard. I changed myself; I changed my philosophy of life. I learned to speak English on my own. And then I had a chance to talk to a lot of American soldiers occasionally, usually on weekends. I was very thick-skinned.

我十八岁的时候，未能通过大学入学考试，所以那时候我非常沮丧。但是，我设法考进了一所军校。正是在那段期间，我开始勤奋学习。我改变了自己，我改变了我的人生哲学。我靠自己学会说英语。接着我有时候会有机会去跟很多美国军人聊天，通常是在周末的时候。我那时脸皮很厚。

This doesn’t mean that I didn’t study other courses. Because other courses had to do with journalism, they were also considered very important of course. But other than that, any spare time I would try to save for the purpose of leaning English. I began by working on my pronunciation. I tried very hard to mimic those American teachers on the big record. And then, before I knew it, I was able to pronounce every single phonetic symbol very clearly. And then I began to be able to read one word, and then two words. And then, I sounded more and more like a native speaker. I felt quite happy at that time. Gradually, I had confidence in myself. I knew that when it comes to learning English, everyone can be a talent because it doesn’t take too much talent to learn English.

这并不意味着我当时不学习其他课程。因为别的课程与新闻学有关，所以那些课程也被认为是很重要的。但是除此之外的任何零星时间我都会省下来学习英语。我从改善发音开始。我非常努力模仿那张大唱片上美籍老师的发音。接着，很快地，我能够很清楚地发出每一个音标。然后我开始能读出一个词，接着是两个词。再接下来，我听起来越来越像母语人士。我那时感到相当开心。逐渐地，我对自己产生了信心。我知道提到学英语，每个人都能是一个天才，因为学英语不需要太多天分。有关于 talent 这个词，我一会儿加了 a一会没加，不加表示“ 天赋”，加了表示“有天赋的人”。

从那之后我就开始不断练习，然后从简单的会话，进行角色扮演。之后给我带来巨大影响，能使我极大地丰富词汇量的就是I tried to read English newspapers. You know, a typical English newspaper usually contains different kinds of articles.（我试着读英文报纸。你也知道，一份英文报纸通常包含了不同类型的文章。）In this case, you can pick up a large vocabulary. 你就能累积巨大的词汇量。用 a large 修饰 vocabulary，因为 vocabulary 是不可数的。不可以说 He knows many vocabularies.我就是因为看英文报纸，勤查字典，At the same time I bothered to look up words I didn’t understand in those dictionaries. 我讲的是 those dictionaries 不是 one dictionary。

我用了很多词典，不断翻阅抄例句。And also, I bothered to jot down example sentences, as many example sentences as possible. By doing so, I was able to learn to understand and come to the conclusion that the more you expose yourself to example sentences, the more easily you’ll be able to use those words. I’m telling you the truth.（同时，我不厌其烦地抄写尽可能多的例句。这样做，我能学会理解这些句子，并得出了结论，你越多地接触例句，你越能使用出这些字词。我说的是实话。）

环境是要靠自己创造出来的。到国外念书有直接的好处，因为你直接可以接触到英文环境，但这种好处仅限于用功的、对英语有兴趣的同学。但是，后来我公费到美国留学，见到太多中国同学，上课的时候，可能因为本性害羞，都聚在一起。而我，是直接坐在外国同学的圈子里，同时，抄笔记。所以，我并不是到了美国有了全英文的环境才开始学习英语，我们可以自创一个环境，你每天听到英语，说英语、写英语。你会说，我不知道自己说的写的是否正确。

You don’t have to worry about this. With the passage of time, you naturally pick up the right kind of English. （你不要担心这个问题。随着时间流逝，你会自然地学会正确的英文。）我们小时候学习中文的时候，也没有特意学习语法，所以我在想，Grammar is important. But to begin with, when you’re just beginning to learn English, put aside the knowledge of grammar.（语法很重要。但是首先，你刚开始学习英语的时候，你要把语法知识放到一边。）然后多看多背多念英文，你会被正确的英文所影响，慢慢你就会创造出说英语、写英语的环境，而且随着时间的流逝，你会说出一口正确漂亮的英语。最后，你会有学语法的需求，比如说等你需要做翻译、同声传译的时候，尽管已经积累了很多，你发觉自己功夫尚浅，再去看语法，马上就会看得懂，正所谓是水到渠成。