Since I decide to learn English, of course I have a dream. I wish my English could be achieved to the same level of Chinese. Is it possible to learn a foreign language to native level in China? It’s meaningless to talk about learning English in English-speaking countries because most of English learners can’t afford that.

Baby can master a language quickly, generally speaking, adult is much smarter than baby, why is it more difficult for adult to master a foreign language? Learning several languages since childhood, of which some experts said was bad for brain development.

What’s the difference between my Chinese and English? Writing something in Chinese, I feel I’m just with unconsciousness and never have to worry about making mistakes. I can write something in Chinese with total freedom. When I write something in English, I always worry about making mistakes and aware of the so-called writing style and I never get the pleasure of expressing myself freely in Chinese.

Though I’ve been learning English for 16 years, I rarely learn it seriously. During my entire six years of middle school, I never read any English novels and only read several Bookworms, which are abridged edition of English classic. Like most of my fellow students, I indulged myself into so-called English grammar, which was just like breaking a beautiful vase into pieces and then enjoying every single piece instead of a whole vase. I only knew several western names, no need to say western culture.

During college, I had a lot of dreams and never thought of learning English. After graduation, most of my dreams were broken like soap bubble and I had to take a technical job. In my spare time, I went outside with my friends to enjoy life; however, there was always emptiness in my heart. Then I decided to change my working environment from Ningbo to Shenzhen. To be honest, Shenzhen is a nice place for me. After graduation, gradually I find it’s really hard to achieve something. As for technical level, I’m only so-so.

After work, I rarely learnt technology. Thinking of my own miserable life, earn a little, live in a little room…I liked watching South Korean TV drama instead, in which there were beautiful girlfriend, nice car and villa, romance instead of living pressure…Everything there was amazing. One day, I woke up suddenly and found improving my own life was much important than envying others. After all, it was only TV drama. I had to deal with foreign customers daily in work, so learning English seemed to be a natural choice.

Originally I lived in Fuguang Village, which was surrounded by hills. In the year 2008, I had neither books nor computer. After work, I had nothing to do and often read near a bookstand. The boss was dissatisfied because I never bought a book from him. I had no choice but read something as usual even though I knew he was staring at me. I didn’t know there was a big library nearby then. By the way, I had an Oxford Dictionary for me to read.

In 2009, I brought my computer from home to Shenzhen, but there was no chance for me to surf the Internet. So I chose to read e-books instead and often felt bored. Sometimes I watched TV drama such as Romance of Three Kingdoms and Water Margin. When Liu Bei sighed he was old and still achieved nothing and Song Jiang sighed he was over thirty and still achieved nothing, I sighed too. I was growing older and older and still achieved nothing. Thinking of my college classmates, someone got girlfriend, someone got rich and powerful family background, someone got good job… I got none of those things and sighed with empty hands. Instead, I had to work carefully to earn a little to support myself.

In 2010, by accident, I knew University Library. After that, though everything about me was still the same, at least I could read books. What’s more, there were so many original English books there, which I never found in my college library, after all, the UT Library was owned by three famous universities of China. It was opened for everybody in Shenzhen.

Before I learnt English seriously, I thought my English wasn’t bad. After reading several books, I felt my English was horrible and found there was a learning bottle neck. Though I learnt English again and again, I found I had made little progress. The only progress was that I could judge the quality of English writing.

Finally I thought of my youth, when I read books for pleasure and never thought of getting something from it. Maybe I can read English books for pleasure too, anyway, hope I could make a little progress at the same time. I’m also a little curious about what kind of status I will achieve on English.