I have taught in aggregate over10,000 student-hours of English in China, Thailand, Hong Kong and Costa Rica, in small towns or cities, school classrooms or playgrounds, and street corners or coffee houses. The concept of “English corner” is especially well known in China. It means that if there are foreigners in some corner, say of the park or in a coffee house, they are fair game to engage in the practice of verbal English. All a foreign looking person has to do is smile at some young person passing by, and suddenly he or she has company. These new friends strike up a lively conversation and the chats can range from the simple, what is your family like, to complex even philosophical/religious themes, as the chat flow goes.

我在中国大陆、香港、泰国和哥斯达黎加的小镇或都市，教室或操场，街角或咖啡屋讲授了超过10000学时的英文。“英语角”这个词在中国众人皆知。它的意思是如果在一些公园或者咖啡屋的角落有几个老外，他们自然而然成为英语口语练习的目标。老外要做的就是对着路过的年轻人微笑，他或她一下子就会有了伴。新朋友热烈交流，随着谈话深入，话题也从简单的“你家咋样”进展到复杂的哲学、宗教主题。

In fact, this approach is so effective that I transported this “system” to Cincinnati, where we have hundreds of scholars from China coming to observe at the very famous Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. Many of these observers know English reading and writing, but have very little chance to practice spoken English, especially if they live in cities with very little contact with the English-speaking world. And many people really don’t realize that spoken English is quite different from textbook English taught at school: even the simple verbal “let’s go” is actually very different from the textbook “we are going to the…,” so the visitors are often surprised and puzzled by the difficulty they experience. So by bringing together many English-speaking locals sitting in the cafeteria of the Children’s Hospital, we replicate the English corner of China right here in America!

这种方式如此有效，我把它移植到辛辛那提，这里有成百的来著名的辛辛那提儿童医院访学的中国学者。大部分学者英文敏于读写，讷于言，尤其是和英文世界交流甚少的城市的学者。很多都没有意识到英语口语和学校教的书面英语有很大不同。甚至简单的口语“let’s go走”就和书面语“we are going to the 我们去….”就有很大区别，所以学者经常被他们所经历的感到讶异和迷惑。因此召集一些说英文的当地人坐在儿童医院的咖啡屋，我们把中国的英语角复制到了美国。

I always encourage people to just talk, talk, talk, and very soon they can. Americans especially are really not very good at grammar(!), but we like to talk. And we also are very quick to catch the gist of a conversation without having to catch every word. All the foreigner needs to do is to keep talking, and the American quickly understands what he or she is talking about, even though the English might not be really that good. The specific words also might not matter that much, because in most conversations, all you really need is for people to understand in general what you’re talking about! Then for complicated subjects, many Americans know to slow down and go over each word more carefully. Definitely no one really cares about your grammar, and it’s only your old fussy grammar teacher back in China (or his or her image in your brain) that really cares (smile).

我总是鼓励他们说吧，他们很快就说开了。美国人并不精于语法！，但我们爱讲。我们不需要领会每一个字就能快速抓住谈话要点。外国人只需不停的说，尽管英语不是那么地道，美国人也能很快知道他们说的内容。特殊的词也不是那么碍事，因为大多数的谈话，你所希望的是让人总体上理解你在谈什么！复杂的题目，许多美国人知道讲慢点并仔细重复每一个词。没有人真正关注你的语法这一点是肯定的，只有你在中国的吹毛求疵的语法老师（他们的相貌浮现你的脑海）才真正的关注语法（微笑）。

I grew up with many Chinese languages coursing around me, even though I did not really learn written Chinese except in a very rudimentary sense. I heard Chaozhou from the maid at home, from some relatives, and by attending a Chaozhou church, so I became quite verbally fluent in that. I heard my father talking to his relatives in Hakka, though I did not speak it then. I heard my schoolmates speak in Cantonese and I began to speak well in that. I heard occasional preachers speaking in Mandarin, although I never spoke it until I came to Cincinnati and discovered many people from Taiwan speaking in that language.

尽管我除了点点浅显的感受我并没有真正学习过汉字，但我的成长过程却沉浸于汉语的多种方言里。从家里的女佣、一些亲戚、潮州的教堂那里听闻了潮州话后，我也能流利的说潮州话。尽管我那时不会说客家话，但我听到我父亲用客家话和亲戚交谈。我听到我的同学说广东话后，我也开始学说广东话，后来说得很流畅。我偶然间听到牧师用国语布道。直到我来到辛辛那提发现很多来自台湾的人说的是国语我才开始学说国语，之前我从未说过。

All of these childhood language exposures were imprinted in my mind, and since I am both brash and willing to talk, I learned all these spoken languages simply by talk talk talk. In fact, I even learned my father’s native language Hakka from Thailand born nieces that lived with us, since they liked to chat in native Hakka with my wife Esther. So four spoken languages in Chinese were essentially acquired by boldness and chatting! And my fluency in verbal English is obviously importantly derived from my American born mother, who only spoke in English, even though I grew up in Asian Hong Kong.

幼时的语言接触给我留下深刻印象，因为我敢说爱说，仅仅通过不断的说我学会了这些方言。实际上我是从和我们住在一起的泰国出生的侄女那里学会了我父亲的本土语言客家话，因为我的侄女们喜欢用客家话和我的太太Esther 聊天。正是通过大胆的说我基本学会了四种不同的汉语方言。我的流利的英语口语显然主要缘于我美国出生的妈妈，尽管我生长于香港，我的妈妈却只会英语。

Whether it is teaching English in a country village in China or Thailand, or having an English corner in Cincinnati, I always emphasize that the main thing is for the non-English speaker to just really talk, talk, talk in English. That way by forcing yourself to speak in English, you really do speak in English, “sooner or later.” There really is no other way to learn to speak but to just keep talking. It’s like learning to swim, you just have to swim, swim, swim! And you can have a lot of fun doing that, so jump in and talk.

无论是在中国、泰国的乡村还是在辛辛那提的英语角教授英文，我总是强调对于英语非母语的人而言最重要的是放胆去不断的用英文说。通过迫使你讲英文，或早或迟你就会自然而然的讲英文了。除了不断的习说，别无他法。正如学习游泳，你只有在水里不断的扑腾扑腾才能学会。在习说的过程中有无限乐趣，来吧！说吧！