Be Confident,

                          What Other People Can, You Can Too.

Dear friends,

First of all, I wish you all a very Happy New Year. May the year 2009 bring you the best of everything.

Asked by Mr. Xu Shi Gu, editor-in-chief of English World, I am writing this article as a New Year message of the magazine to the readers. But, before anything else, as a regular reader of English World, I would like to express my heartfelt congratulation and thanks to the Editorial Board of the magazine for the wonderful work they have done to make the magazine one of the best in its kind in this country.

Many a night, retreating to my cosy private world, sitting in my bed, with the latest issue of the magazine in hand, I would read one or two articles before I go to sleep. In a way, I am addicted to the reading, and the articles h**e been pills indispensable for me to get away from the daily heavy work, to enjoy the quietness of the night.

I have good reasons to enjoy reading the articles. All the articles are carefully chosen. Not only is the English good, standard and modern, so is the content of the articles. They are either moving, or encouraging , or enlightening, or informative. Many of the articles are so beautifully written that quite a few times I was moved to tears.

The articles they choose cover anything from personal story to public advertisement, from geography and history to science and economy, from fine arts to medicine. To me, the magazine has become a source of knowledge and information. What is more, none of the article is lengthy and dragging. They are all short and brisk.

Among the many interesting stories I like best in recent issues, I especially like two. One is the story told by a taxi driver about his encounter with an old woman passenger, and the other is the article about a Japanese housewife’s endeavour to meet the environmental protection rules. They attract me from different angles.

Now, let us come back to our New Year message. Ours is 21st century, symbolized by knowledge explosion and information technology. Both are closely linked with English, the most widely used international language. One can not imagine that, the youngsters today can not speak English when they become the labor force tomorrow. In a way, to them English is a must.

But, because of many reasons, a lot of school boys and girls find English difficult to learn and as a result, many simply give up. This is absolutely wrong. In the first place, we must be confident of ourselves and believe, what other people can, we can. If Da Shan（大山）and Da Niu （大牛）can speak Chinese like you and me, why not you speak English like them. Remember two English proverbs: Nothing is impossible, Keep trying.

Secondly, my experience told me, English is not a very difficult language to learn at all. My first foreign language was Russian, which I studied in my middle school years. Compared to Russian, English is much easier. The most important thing is that you must lay a solid foundation in pronunciation, to make sure that you pronounce every English sound in the right way. Otherwise you will never be able to go further. In that case, people will not understand what you are saying, nor will you be able to understand what they are talking to you. This can be easy these days, with CD roms, TV programs, qualified teachers available everywhere.

The next thing is to read loudly, loud enough to let a whole class hear. Loud reading will help you to correct your pronunciation, at the same time , it will help you to establish confidence. Many people say they can read perfectly when they read silently, but when it comes to talking, they simply can not open their mouth. To these people, loud reading is a ready cure. With this as the basis, now you try to recite texts by repeated loud reading. When you can loudly recite, you are speaking standard English.

Vocabulary is another obstacle to many students. There can be many ways to overcome this obstacle. What I want to emphasize here is that constant review of the new words is absolutely necessary. We sometimes may forget the writing of those not frequently used Chinese characters, let alone English words. In my articles carried in the last few issues of English World, I introduced a few methods in this regard and I shall be very happy if you find them useful.

Last but not least, while you are following a text book to go further with your English study, try to find yourself something to read as supplement , something that suits your level. The reading is a review of the vocabulary learned, at the same time it is a chance to learn new words. With this, I would like to say goodbye and wish everybody make big progress in his or her English study in 2009.