What's the shortcut? What's the best way ... I can see netizens leave messages for me every time. Frankly speaking, I have been thinking about this problem and constantly adjusting my learning strategies. Tracing back and forth, the road is blocked and long. After all, English is our second language. Although there are no shortcuts on this long learning road, there are always some travelers who leave their footprints and make their voices to help us guide the way. The following is an article I reprinted in Fudan University's official website "Fudan People": Lu Gusun: Three Axes in English Learning: Miscellaneous Reading, Hard Writing and Hard Translation. If you are interested in learning English, or want to hear the experience of your predecessors, you might as well read it. Professor Lu Gusun: One of the main designers and finalizers of New English-Chinese Dictionary. The English-Chinese Dictionary, edited by the editor-in-chief, won the first prize of national outstanding achievements in philosophy and social sciences. Vice President of China Shakespeare Research Association and member of Shanghai Branch of Chinese Writers Association. "Dumb English" is not the bottleneck of learning. A while ago, the wave against "dumb English" was very high, but it was not necessarily the correct and regular guiding ideology. "Dumb English" is not the main problem we are facing today. No matter in the school classroom or in the job interview, people who speak fluent English and are quite exotic can be seen everywhere. From the perspective of today's times, English learning is for communication, but a person who has passed college education should not stop at communication. If English learning only encourages "speaking" with great fanfare, it would be a bit impetuous. Now it seems that the English learning process in the early years was almost "dumb English", and there was no opportunity for foreign teachers to practice oral English. The most common contact opportunity with foreigners is that some foreign scholars who come to our country for meetings have given us several lectures. There were not many listening materials, so a movie "Million Pounds" became a learning material that was used repeatedly at that time. Nevertheless, as long as you read more and input more, plus "sketching" and "scribbling" output methods, there is no difference between oral explanation and written explanation. Even if there is a certain distance between the two, it can be overcome in a certain way. For example, before expressing, write down all the contents to be expressed, which is an output in itself, and then recite and practice repeatedly. Now most people encourage "speaking English", but this must be done when the basic skills are solid, and on some important occasions, you should record what you say so that you can listen to it again and again after you go back. "Dumb English" is not the bottleneck of English learning in today's era, but what we really need to pay attention to is that we still need to calm down and read and write a lot to lay a good foundation for English learning. Multi-directional linguists not only seek to use English, but use English as a tool to strive for perfection and innovation. In today's society, the number of disciplines has increased to more than 4,000, showing a more and more specific and detailed trend. There are 200,000 kinds of academic works published every year in China, but the printing volume is generally small. So in this case, the half-life of various documents is relatively reduced. It used to be four to five years, but now it may be replaced by other things after half a year. Faced with such a huge amount of readable materials, many students hope that teachers can make a list of necessary reading purposes for themselves to reduce the waste of time caused by blind reading. The "book list" itself is a kind of "materialized" thing, a kind of "dead" thing, called "for everyone and for no one" Almost without exception, the general list of books starts from ancient Confucius to some modern masterpieces, and there should be no so-called frame boundary in our reading. No matter intensive reading, extensive reading or even skipping reading, we should do it in time. After all, university study is still in the "cold window" stage. Compared with compulsory reading and hard reading, selective reading and enjoyable reading, which seem to be "doing nothing", are undoubtedly better ways of miscellaneous reading. First of all, we should start with translated books, because some translated books are still worth reading. Sometimes, reading the language you are familiar with can arouse your innermost feelings and memories. Maybe you can find interesting things about your past time and childhood in the book, so as to better understand the connotation of the book itself. There are many kinds of books, including martial arts novels, lyrical landscape writing, psychological suspense, rational philosophy and so on. In the process of a lot of miscellaneous reading, the increase of reading volume brings about the improvement of foreign language technology. Moreover, the judgment of what is true and what is false comes directly from our own reading. Books help us to know ourselves, from which we can understand the most correct time to do something and all kinds of emotions in the world. Willing to "write hard" is stricter than "translate hard". In the process of reading, especially in the process of reading difficult English books, you should keep a translation at hand, read it in contrast, and even spare no effort to rewrite the English of the original book and add your own translation opinions to it. After a while, go back and rewrite, after a while, come back and rewrite, and so on, and some language idioms and translations will be firmly mastered. "Diligent writing" is based on "miscellaneous reading" and "diligent writing", in other words, "writing more". Even small things should be recorded in English. For example, keeping a diary can continue in the way of "one topic a day". In addition, writing letters or emails is also a good way to insist. Long-term persistence will turn the negative memory of some words into positive memory. After repeated use, you feel that writing in English is smoother than writing in Chinese. At the same time, it should be noted that in the process of "diligent writing", try to set a certain amount for yourself, such as one page a day, so as to ensure the quality and quantity of writing. At the end of the practice, when writing becomes a habit, the pen in your hand is there and will not be "cold". You can try to complete "diligent writing" as a task, and at the same time turn this task into fun or participate in the task. For those who love English, this process embodies a pleasure of expression, a pleasure of challenge, and a method of turning passivity into initiative. For English learners, translation is undoubtedly the most challenging job and the most satisfying challenge. Learning English well means doing a good job in translation, which is sacred. In the process of translation, you will encounter many unfamiliar professional fields, even topics that you hate very much. However, one thing must always be adhered to, that is, "I must at least fully understand more than 95% of what I have translated", which is both a respect for my translation work and a responsibility to readers. First of all, "fierce translation" requires everyone to love translation, whether it is translation or interpretation, just like simultaneous interpretation. It requires translators to have a strong desire to express themselves, and after certain professional training, they can show themselves decisively on the stage at any time. Only in this way can "thick-skinned" talents be at home in the translation industry; Secondly, it is to be loyal to the original author or the original speaker to the maximum extent. Therefore, you should be familiar with what you want to translate, or the object you want to translate is someone you know before you start writing. Translation is actually writing, but writing in tights, and writing with "looking in the mirror". It should be noted that as a translator, it is best to list both English and Chinese, or the original text, such as Russian and Chinese readers, so that they and others can find out the shortcomings in translation, expose mistakes and see themselves in the mirror at a glance. All translations should be accompanied by the original text for people to criticize and improve themselves in the face of mistakes.