There's no way I can make it to fluency ( Part two of my language journey)

It seemed to be working. I understood more. And the more I understood the more I wanted to know about this language. But that one particular day made all the difference. I <s>had</s> agreed to meet up with a friend from Turkey. I was both thrilled and nervous. Because I was going to use what I had learnt to <s>commucinate</s> communicate with my friend!

As we sat down with our ice creams and fries, my friend started asking my plans <s>about</s> for the upcoming summer holiday. ( I was in the first year of college at the time.) I understood what he was saying, but I had no idea how to describe my plans in English to him, so I started <s>translated</s> translating my plans in my head from Chinese into English. I stammered on a few words here and there hoping that he would understand. He looked confused and suggested using Google translate if it was to difficult for me.

When I got back to school, I started contemplating what had gone wrong. What part of my language learning methods had gone wrong resulting in my inability to speak? There's no way to make it to fluency if I continue using my current methods.

I went online to see if there <s>'s</s> was (there's=there is/there has) any information that I could use. There it was! A <s>n</s> video explaining how to be fluent in your target language. After watching the video, I realized I had made a major mistake. I had simply been memorizing and matching some Chinese/English terms. Whenever I saw English words, I thought about their Chinese meaning, and whenever I tried to speak in English I just went blank. This obviously wasn't going to get me anywhere.

After I had done some research about language learning, I decided to learn English <s style="color: rgb(230, 0, 0);">,</s><s> all in</s> using only English instead of in Chinese. I had already had some basic vocabulary under my belt, surely it wasn't going to be difficult to learn English with <s>my already-existed</s> the English vocabulary that I already knew.

Miss Zhao

Miss Zhao is one of my teachers, she was my teacher in her early twenties, that was 23 years ago. I don’t know why she always remembered <s>s</s> me, my name and even which subject I was good at. Maybe she <s>doesn’t</s> didn't only remember me but also others as well. I think she has a good memory!

These are some fragments about her:

On 2019.11.5 she told me, “there is a good sunshine in Changsha today!”—from our WeChat record.

On 2020.4.17 she said, “life is so hard, but I still appreciate it”—from her WeChat moment.

On 2020.4.20 she told me, “single is one kind of life style, but you should believe in love!” — from our WeChat record (you know I’m still <s>a </s> single at my age.)

On 2020.4.30 she was gone [...she passed away/ ...she left us], because of terminal cancer. She left this lovely world, got rid of the painful illness from that moment.

As a teacher, she taught me a lot, not only in class, but also in my life, and still encouraged me after my graduation. I think there always is a teacher that leaves an impression.

This is my Miss Zhao. Now I just want to <s>speak</s> say to her, "I really appreciate that you are my teacher, and I believe in love still, I love you and miss you. You are my Miss Zhao forever."

A <s>Verity</s> Variety of Homes

The word home often refers to a place where people live. You live in your home with your parents, kids or other relatives. The place where people live is often called a house or an apartment which includes <s>ing</s> several purpose <s>d</s> built rooms <s>:</s> like living room, bedroom, master bedroom, bathroom, dining room, study and etc. All those rooms help people live there comfortably.

In rural and downtown areas, the houses often have a courtyard where trees, bushes and flowers grows. If there is a swimming pool available, it will be nicer. Some older (more polite this way. Can also say : Some seniors/ retirees like living...) people like living in countryside because of the large open space and good environments. When it comes to a city life, it gets impossible to enjoy playing or reading in a big wonderful yard decorated with lovely plants.

Animals need homes to survive as well. But the places where animals live often have special names. A fox or rabbit commonly digs a hole in the ground as its home is called a burrow; a bear is lazier, not like foxes and rabbits, it just finds a cave or huge crack in a slope of a mountain to shove in to hibernate, which is called a den; meanwhile, the home of a swarm of bees is <s>named</s> called a hive; a lodge is a beaver or an otter's home; birds live in their nests or in tree holes.

Some animals just live in their habitats without ceilings, floors and even walls. A spider makes a cobweb as its home to stay and trap its prey.

See, a home can even <s>can</s> be just a strand of silk. All homes are called shelters. Shelters help <s>s</s> (if you want singular : A shelter helps...) people and animals keep safe and live cozily. No matter how simple and rough the home is, it is always the place we love and like to go to. So do these animals feel the same way about their homes.

About Chinese Characters

I would like to say <s>the</s> that Chinese Characters are just like <s>the</s> LEGO blocks. Each of them has its [their] own meaning, and they will have a new meaning <s>while putting</s> when you put them together. So the more Chinese Character you learn, the faster you can build your own pyramids. Nowadays as time goes by, <s>and it's very frequent</s> there is more and more interaction between people, <s>and</s> between nations, and between races. It's coincidental that the "Chinese pinyin system(also called Chinese phonetic alphabet )" occurred after the May 4th Movement in China. Later it <s>'s</s> spread all over the country to help eliminate illiteracy <s>, and</s> . Further more it also <s>provides</s> made it more convenient for other people who are interested in Chinese in other countries and regions in the world to learn Chinese.

Doubt About Learning English

Sometimes I feel, the more <s>much</s> I learn, the more I just feel it's a problem of learning. <s>,</s> but I can't integrate with that myself (this part not very clear to me. I'm guessing maybe you wanted to say—But I can't understand the reason for that/ But I can't reconcile the reason for that) . And even though I just also feel we are divided [different]. I ask myself why other people can learn and grasp a language<s> soon</s> so quickly? Is it really talent? Maybe, but it may be more effort <s>s</s>.

I think learning English from a Chinese background is quite tough. Just like it is really hard for me to learn Chinese too. :)

A Summary of a Ted Talk(2)

Thank you for reading my passage. I would be grateful if you could point out my mistakes.

In this video, the speaker, Nigel Marsh told us how to achieve a work-life balance. 

To lead in, Nigel started <s>with</s> by sharing his experiences of working too much as well as that of relaxing too much, which signalled [...which resulted in...] his failure to achieve <s>the</s> good work-life balance. However, through 7-years of working, he had managed to do that. And he shared four insights about how to make work-life balance work <s>with</s> for the audience. 

  Firstly, to make headway on this issue, we need to concentrate on the core problem, which is that certain job and career choices are fundamentally incompatible with being balanced in work-life [...incompatible with being in a good work-life balance relationship]. Back in reality, people merely concentrate on trivial matters such as dress-down Fridays or paternity leave, which almost can’t help solve the problem at all.

  Secondly, we individuals rather than governments or corporations are responsible for how we lead our lives. The DNA in all the commercial companies determines that they would try their best to make the most out of us. So we ourselves have got to take the initiative to set and enforce the boundaries in our life. 

  Thirdly, have a good grasp of scale when deciding how to strike a balance between work and life. On one hand, you can’t fancy working only 6 hrs per day and relaxing in the time remaining [...relaxing the rest of the time]. On the other, putting off having a life until retirement is also too much. So there’s got to be a middle way [more common : middle path/ middle ground].

  Fourthly, to be balanced, we need to cover many aspects including intellectual, emotional and spiritual ones. Nigel showed a counter-example of his friend trying to achieve the balance by simply going to the gym, which is far from enough. Covering all bases is easily deemed challenging. In spite of this, we could start <s>from</s> small and progress from there. Nigel shared a story of himself with his son Harry to prove its possibility. 

Achieving a work-life balance step by step not only improves people’s <s>life</s> quality of life but also helps transform the way our society defines success.