香港畢業生英文差?Really?(英文blog)

一段新聞說香港畢業生英語差，誘發我寫這一篇英語blog，

and so my story  begins , although I far too remote from being as a fresh graduate.

But as it was ,the time when  I first entered into my secondary school life, I found out my english was barely  up to standard   even for a normal secondary school ( not an elite one) .

 I endeavour  to read more novels , memorising words from Oxford Dictionary, quotations and speeches of famous people, watching BBC ( CNN was not the prevalent channel in my school days).At that ages, i always related difficults vocabulary and clumsy phrases with good english and i was so complacent with my bookworking. Indeed I was wrong .

Thanks to the mentorship  of my english teacher ..: " You must  not only learn  to write in english , but to think in english as well"

Also, I felt gratitude to my school principal , who was  a foreigner priest and a native english speaker.  The  great deal of  unequivocally  english dialogue with him accomplished me not only " think in english, but able to  speak fluently  as well"

Of course it take time, for you  can never apprehend  what Shakespeare , Goethe,or Dostoevsky think  of even you look up for every words in u dictionary. For these masterpieces, you can hardly read between the lines ....until u grow old enough.

Nowaday,  you can hardly find any   youngster   in HK to do the above tiresome bookworks. .Talking with a foreigner become a nightmare to them , often with lisp and stammer. Like  as what the newspaper says , simple wording  like " fantastic ", " ironic" is not known by these fresh graduates. Playing with their PSP, NDS, X Box360 or Wii become a substitute for masterpiece novels. Online casual  chatting with freinds , using  " Mars Language " instead  of face to face scrupulous conversation  with native english speakers. Words and languages replaced by animation. Lord know how they can practise better english themselves.

Lack of common sense is also one of the major  drawback of youngster, for instance, they dont know Alan Greenspan is 格林斯潘 cause they seldom tune to english news channel. Never heard of Churchill, mistake 丘吉爾 a relative of 丘凱敏,王爾德(Oscar Wilde)  become brother of 王敏德，of course, they cannot distingish   Monet 莫內from  Manet馬奈。

I always consider languages a piece of art. Be it grandiose русский язык , romantic français,callous Deutsch  or fusion Italino and grandiloquence chinese. Even years after my graduation, i never feel content with what i learn and never  halt myself in learning, dreaming one day I can make  wisdom speeches like those celebrated parliamentarian eg Winston churchill, Martin Luther King, Chris Patton.........

Awful chinglish in china  is   something i can never live up  with . It sends shiver up my spine.  However, phrases below   I find out are more laughable than disguising.

 " Care for life. Do not fun water=珍惜生命,切勿嬉水","Slip carefully =小心滑倒"," If you are stolen , call the police at once=如有失竊,請即報警","The visitor stop =遊客止步"," Enter the mouth=入口","the front not opened section road=前面路段仍未開放". "expensive sun multiples by  a duty  a police to pay=貴陽乘警支隊"," strictly forbid toward window to throw to throw a product=嚴禁向外拋扔物品", " please take good personal luggage請你帶好隨身物品".............Jesus christ!!!!

Here come more teasing phrases like "do not touch yourself=請勿碰店內物品"," Prohibit against penetration =封路改道". For God's sake , do not ask me the exact  meaning of the phases if u do not know.

So one suggestion I can give to fresh HK graduates is if they intent to improve their english standard , you need to use the language to learn the language . Reading, writing , arguing, speaking, talking-anyway you can use the language.Godspeed you all!

Thanks to the creation of blogging. Beside expressing my feeling,  I also can have the opportunity  to use it to  write all kind of  sentimential essays, literatures, arts , cats etc and thereby polishing  my writing skill which I can hardly  come across in my daily business correspondence.

Last but not least, I owe a compliment to those who have patience in finsh reading this blog, In return , i recommend a few books i adore . 1) Not quite a diplomat, by Chris Patten , although the  EC politics  maybe a bit far too boring for Hongkongnese.2)  Empire of Word by Nicholas Ostler , talking about language history 3) A prisoner of Birth   by Jeffery Archer . facscinating adventure novel  like Monte Cristo of Dumas, Jeffery  almost became British Prime Minister if not for his scandal, and a better novel than Harry Potter as recommended by 陶and  concurrent  by me.4) The Shakespeare Secret  by J L Carrell , a book yet to be deliver from amazon , the only available source in HK .

Time up! 30 minutes elapse before i finish this blog..

 One inspiration make me write this english blog is , from newspaper , candidates of HK take more  than 2 hours to write less than 200 words. If this is the case, it may prehap need   a few thousand years for them to finish off writing the whole series of Harry Potter.