读书笔记 | 比单词量和语法更重要的是

"如何提高词汇量？” “语法不好怎么办" 是我被问过的最多的问题之一，我也写过一些文章有关词典的使用和常被忽略的小词.

刚刚读完了葛传椝先生的《向学习英语者讲话》，37篇文章，感触颇深。葛老对英文学习的踏实和专注是我们每一个语言学习者值得学习的榜样。英语语言变化虽快，不过葛老的这些谆谆教导依然是有效的，靠谱的 -- 尽管我在一两个问题上有不同的看法。

葛老在此书谈到了与单词和语法有关的话题，我贴在这里，附上我的评论，分享给你。

Something More Important Than Enlarging One's Vocabulary

“How to enlarge my vocabulary?" -- this is one of the commonest questions that I have been asked. True, the average Chinese learner of English has a very limited vocabulary, but I think he has something more important to do about his limited vocabulary than to enlarge it. He has yet to know many more words before he can master English. Nor can he master English till he has acquired a better understanding of most of the words that are in his vocabulary.

For he may think he knows a word when he does not really know it. By knowing a word I mean knowing its true sense instead of merely knowing one or more of what we call its Han equivalents. Take the word "student". Very often it is misused and misunderstood by those who call all schoolchild students and take offense at being called students of English simply because they are no longer at school. As a matter of fact, a schoolchild is not a student, but one who studies English is a student of English though he may be an old man and may have already written many books on it.

知道一个词的中文翻译不代表我们真的懂了这个词。而且很多时候中文翻译是很confusing的，例如"time difference" 和 "jet lag”都被翻译成了“时差”，但是此时差(caused by time zone)非彼时差(a tired and confued feeling); 例如"traffic"和"data"都被翻译成了是流量 -- 当你说“我手机没流量了”，你可能会说"I ran out of traffic" -- doesn't make sense!

葛老也推荐可以通过“读字典”来掌握这些common words and phrases. 不仅要读字典并且还要"make your own dictionary of usage", 把自己有疑惑或者觉得有趣的无聊的词句记录下来，最好还要把这些词句做成一个topic dictioanry -- 这样对写作和口语用词的准确性是非常有帮助了。

李笑来老师在他的《人人都能用英语》中也提到了相似的方法。公众号“众筹词汇实验室”(Word_Matrix)也是这种方法的践行者，大家可以参考。

We are apt to neglect common words. Apart from the possibility of misuse and misunderstanding we are apt to neglect their various senses, or rather idiomatic uses.

很多词汇是无法和中文完全对应的，因此一个词的中文翻译很大程度上会限制我们对词的理解。例如我们都知道"society"是“社会”的意思，看这句话:

The old man enjoys the society of young people.

Holidays are a time to enjoy the society of your family.

这里的society是"being with people" "companionship"的意思。因此，对于很多词, "do not try to translate them. Just commit to memory. They will often come in useful when you write. They will help you to write more idiomatic English."

葛老说: "You should use no construction, no form of expression, and no combination of words, that you have not seen in your reading." “you cannot possibly write a good one if you have never read any"

我们之所以不自信，怕说错怕写错一句话，是因为我们没有听过或者读过这句话。闭门造车必然会读起来很奇怪。如果你不确定你写的对不对，多查查字典。或者，一个技巧: google一下你写的这个句子，看看有没有人写过同样的或者类似表达，或者更好的表达方法。试一试Google Ngram Viewer

Many of the ideas and thoughts you often have occasion to express have already been expressed by others before you. Read any page in any book carefully and you will perhaps find some expressions that will help you to say things. Many such expressions may seem to you to be too simple to deserve much attention, but the fact is that you cannot invent them, one can you use them unless you have noted them.

看下面这个句子:

He was rich to live on luxury.

这句话对吗? 有没有读过 "he was rich to" "on luxury"这样的句子？ 或者是不确定？

正确的句子是: He was rich enough to live in luxury.

“Grammar does not help you much in writing. It tells you what is right, but it does not tell you much about what is wrong. When you have seen a certain construction in your grammar, you try to make use of it in your own writing. Possibly you have made no mistake, but it also possible that you have made a mistake."

因此，我们要read widely and carefully. 对于英语学习者来说“language is the main thing!" 读书当然可以是for pleasure, 但是如果想通过读书来提高英文，那就要更加注意语言而并非内容 -- 因此我么要读进口食品包装袋的英文，或许就可以学到几个准确的有趣的表达；我们要读《经济学人》; 读Quora, Wikihow; 读一些有趣的较新的东西-- 一般人真的没有必要去读文学名著。“your chief reading matter must have been written far less than a hundred years ago, a few weeks ago if possible, must have been written in simple English, and must have been written by an Englishman or an American."

读的时候要read aloud, 感受一下"the spirit of English", 而且可以帮助我们记忆 —所谓的“语感”的培养。

回到单词上来

Take the word "read", which you of course think you know very well. But do you know all the senses (or uses) as illustrated below?

Can you read dreams?

The baby cannot read the clock.

He is reading her thoughts.

The sentence reads like a paraphrase.

Don't read too much into the text.

The thermometer reads 68 ºC

If not, you can hardly yet be said to know the word "read".

我写过一篇有关如何背单词的文章如何背单词, 其中我拿"walk"这个词举例:

例如一个很简单的词 “walk”, 小学生的词汇.我会想到: 要注意walk 和 work的发音；遛狗的话要用walk the dog; 以前使的那种随声听叫Walkman; 口语中常用walk someone through来表示"带某人熟悉一下 ”；walk over someone指的是中文里“让某人骑到你头上"的意思; 说到做到的实干派可以说"walk the walk"对应的是"talk the talk". 热播美剧行尸走肉叫Walking Dead. Walk还有一种用法是做名词, all walks of life, 形形色色的人。--从基本的意思，到抽象，到“鬼才晓得为什么这么用”的用法.

总结葛老的这本书的几个关键方法:

1.read widely, read carefully, read aloud.

2.不要闭门造车。要用你见过的，确定的，正确的英文。去模仿，去拿来主义。"Use no word that you are not sure you have seen used by standard authors, and to consult your dictionary in cases of doubt."

3.搞清楚小词，别因为这个词很简单就觉得不屑一记. 正是这些常用的词才是实用的，地道的。自己会用才是学到手了。"A word is not your own until you can use it correctly

4.别把“口语”和“写作英语”分的那么开。好的英文和句子长短，用词是不是高大上没有绝对的关系。用法符合习惯，逻辑清楚是首要目标。

最后值得注意的是不仅要学“好英文”，也要学“坏英文” —“bad English means bad grammar, bad spelling, bad usage, and bad pronunciation. All these things form an interesting and useful study. Without a good knowledge of these one will miss much in modern literature and will fail to understand any uneducated Englishman or American one man has occasion to have anything to do with.

顺便打个广告,回复「报名」查看 “how to use F word”的微信口语课。