If not this year, then next

Reader question:

I am Alice, a Chinese girl who only worked for more than one year. Right now, I’m planning to get a translation certificate, which requires an extensive grasp of expressions and sentences on economy, business, life-related or up-to-date news, a hard-to-get one. As I understand, this requires a large scope of knowledge and deep understanding both of Chinese and English, which is beyond me right now. I try to learn through other ways too, but it turns out improvements are coming in slow. I know translation is a process that takes patience and time, but the fact is, I’m desperate about improving my English ability or enlarge my English scope within one year.

Could you give me some advice or guidance on this matter?

My comments:

Thanks, Alice, for writing.

I don’t always reply to general-question letters such as yours because, one, general-question letters such as yours are too many – I won’t have a life if I attempt to answer all of them.

Secondly, there’s not much interesting to say. For one thing, with general questions, one always feel one is somehow missing the target and failing to hit the bull’s eye, as they say, and as you know I prefer hitting the bull’s eye every time. In other words, I like to be direct and to the point. Besides, anything one says ceases to be interesting after you say it for the umpteenth time in reply to a general question on improving one’s English.

However, the very fact that there are many general-question letters coming in makes it imperative for me to address them now and then, every once in a while.

And so here we are. Let me make a few points.

First of all, a caveat. I’m happy to share a few ideas with you but I don’t want to impose any of them on you – because I know fully well that what I take as sacred might not be the case with you. One man’s potion can be poison to another man, or woman in your case. Therefore, take what you can and disregard the rest.

Second – and this is the true – I don’t know anything about hasty improvements in English. In fact, I only know one way and that is the hard way. It takes time and honest effort, but more on that later.

Third, which is really an important point to note, your English is pretty good (you must have been doing things right). Considering your age and young career, I cannot think of anything lacking on your part, except perhaps in the patience department. This will be the focal point of our discussion today.

We live in an age of rags-to-riches stories dominating the news every day and billionaires seem to be getting younger and younger. In this environment, youngsters like you become very impatient – both with yourselves and with the world around you. That is understandable.

But one has but to be patient when it comes to language learning.

Actually, what I want to say to you is two-fold. First, there’s not a whole lot one can do to improve one’s language skills. Unlike getting rich via an IPO, mastery of a language doesn’t happen as often and never overnight. Language learning is not like playing the lottery either, or getting hit by lightening. Those things happen quickly, if they do at all. Language learning is, as you say a slow process. There are young Gates and Zuckerbergs emerging through billions of people once in a great while – not often at all if you come to really think about it – but language masters do not come around that often, nor as young. That is because, as you pointed out, you need a whole “scope of knowledge” in order to speak effectively – and that takes time, too.

I know this first hand. I have been studying English for more than 30 years and I often feel inadequate today. In fact, I feel more inadequate today than when I was at your age, one year out of school and 12 months into a job. Back then, I was so full of myself that I didn’t know that I could know better. Today, I know it’s really a slow process. It’s one word a day, one idea a time thing. It’s an everyday, every month, and every year phenomenon. So therefore, got to take your time and take it easy.

Where your goal of acquiring the translation certificate is concerned, you don’t have to worry, either. Certificates are for the average people. They are actually easy to achieve. If you don’t believe me, check with the exam results every year. Every year, people pass those exams and earn all sorts of certificates. They do.

You will get your certificate, of which I am certain. This is an easier goal to accomplish. All you need is keep working hard and take it easy.

In other words, stop being desperate. Being desperate is a great enemy we all have, in one way or another. And desperation often works against us, not for us even though sometimes it may seem that way. Desperation is often what prevents us from getting the very thing we’re after. Tell a boy (since you’re woman), for instance, that you love him and are desperate of having him love you back and I assure you, more often than not, you’ll scare him off. It’s true the other way around as well.

Being disparate works against us because it invariably drives us to trying to make short cuts and cut corners. Cutting corners is not about being solid good. It’s trickery and make believe. If a boy chases you, for example and desperation drives him to stalk you every hour of the day, what will happen? His thinking being, of course, if he sends you a flower once a week, he may get your full attention in six months; if he sends you a flower every day of the week, then he can quicken the process seven-fold.

Now, you tell me if such a strategy works on you.

On the other hand, if he be patient, he may have a better sense to do what’s right by you, i.e. showering you with loving attention when you need it while ignoring you when you want to be left alone. In the meantime, he keeps doing the things that will make him a capable, responsible and attractive man. Now, tell me, if he does this, won’t he have a better chance with you in, say, six week’s time?

Of course! And if not in six weeks, then six months.

If not this year, then next.

That’s the whole point.

So therefore, I’m telling you to keep doing things that will make you good. Exams, like boys, come and go, and like crops, they are there every year. If you don’t have this year’s crops to fully satisfy your heart’s desire, then it will happen the next year, or the year after.

So long, that is, as you don’t shirk. The sun never shirks, therefore flowers bloom every spring.

When you are young, of course and when things seem to be happening so fast around you, you don’t dare to feel this way. I understand. At your age, you feel that you cannot afford to pace yourself and let nature takes its course. You feel like forcing the issue and make things happen now, like other youngsters do.

Well, I tell you this, all things happen for a reason and they are all relative. More haste often means less speed. At any rate if I tell you right now that getting the certificate next year may probably be better than getting it this year, you will say “Nuts!”

You will say “Nuts!” and I won’t argue with you either. I understand. What I am saying is, so long as you keep doing what makes you good, i.e. learning one or two useful phrases on business, “life-related” (what’s not life-related?) and “up-to-date news”, in two years’ time, you’ll become a better translator than you will be at the end of this year – because you’ll have mastered more phrases and expressions in two years than in one. It’s simple math.

Of course, getting the certificate one year sooner does seem to have a lot of advantages. It will make you feel good, among other things. But in the long run, it may not be so good. Getting it early may give you the false sense that you’re there, that you know everything there is to know and that you don’t need to work hard any more. In the long run, such feelings may not be so beneficial, obviously.

Well, obviously it’s difficult to get a youngster like you to think these over in terms of the long run. But the long term is there, just as the short term is. You cannot avoid it. Cannot avoid either. You have both and you’ve got to balance them.

If you tell me that can only see the short term for now, that is OK. I understand, because you haven’t seen anything long term yet. All in good time.

I, on the other hand and relatively speaking, have seen some things long term and, tell you what, I find that, today, I can no longer stand anything done for the short term. I prefer values that are wholesome and sustainable to anything that’s tricky and short-lived. Doing things that make you solid and good is what’s sustainable. Utilizing tricks to achieve short-term goals, such as learning tricks at TOEFL schools that help you memorize, say, “Choice C is the right answer whenever you don’t understand the sentence at all” in a multiple choice test are tricks aimed at short term goals. They are not helpful to you in the long run (and are probably not true in the first place).

Because, simple math again, in the long run, when all things are considered, two years’ of good effort is more than that of one year’s.

Alright, that all said, I do have and want to share a few tiny language learning tips with you.

1. Learn something every day – learn a bit of English every day. Actually, learn very little every day. Not too much. That way you’ll never tire of it.

2. Follow your hobbies in English. If you love tennis, read tennis reports via, say, Yahoo!Sports instead of from reports on Sina.com in Chinese. For one thing, Chinese reports are often late or erroneous, or both. Via English, you can follow your hobby while picking up English expressions at the same time. This is killing two birds with one stone, as the saying goes.

3. Listen to audio books and watch English-language films on DVD. Movie language is colloquial and up-to-date, especially slang-wise. Besides listening utilizes more sensory faculties than reading – that’s why older people go on about how they learned more tuning into the radio in the old days. Today, television makes them numb and dumb. Besides, listening to English saves your eyes from reading small texts in the book.

Or from the computer or mobile phone.

That’ll be all for now. Knowing that indigestion is a common problem for kids also, I will stop right here.

Notice that this is aimed at making you good, solid good from all around, overlooking whether you get your certificate this year or not.

Thing is, by doing what it takes to be good on a continuous basis, you can afford to overlook the short term goals. I mean, if you’re prepared to work hard consistently for two years to get what you want, you’ll probably get it in one year. That’s because nature works wonders if you let it work. When it sees your intention, it answers your call without fail. If you put in honest work, your goals will fall, like dominos, seemingly by themselves.

If, that is, you play your cards right. Always care to put in the honest work and not to try to be clever – by cutting corners and seeking shortcuts.

Ultimately, nature takes its course. Try as you may to speed things up, they won’t. Not by a bit. They seem to have sped up sometimes – but that’s just an illusion.

Indeed, night falls when the day is done, and vice versa, and not a minute too soon.

Not a minute too late, either.

For now, enjoy your day today.

About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.