A Whole New World

Sometimes, I cannot believe that I have already left my own country land and come to this strange island for more than a month. What even depresses me more is the news that I have to wait a whole year till my returning to my hometown again.

The life here is quite different from that I had before. The most troublesome thing is the change of language. When I got used to express everything in Mandarin during so many years, I am not surprised to find myself keeping getting into embarrassment with the month open but no word in the brain.

That gives me a lot to think about. What is the difference between the Mother Tongue and a Second Language? How can children learn a language so fast while adults usually cannot or have to spend huge amount of time to succeed?

For me, I am really into reading. When I was studying in schools back in China, I spent almost all of my spare time in reading various books. I enjoy interesting novels as well as something not so joyous like works for science popularization. I always didn’t understand why few people are reading books nowadays, since the world inside words is so attractive and wonderful.

However, the answer seems to occur to me now. Those who are not fond of books must lack of reading when they are young, which later makes them too tired to enjoy the story when they read it. I am getting into the same situation today, with little interest in reading English books because of my poor English and lack of English reading experience. This fact really makes me sad.

Just like reading, learning a language may have a similarity. We ought to draw more attention to the beginning and form a good habit so that there will be a positive circle. Maybe I have missed the best opportunity, but this kind of things is never too late to do, isn’t it?

So I make up my mind to work harder to solve this problem. I would try to read certain pages of a book every day in order to develop my reading skills generally. (I’d like to begin with the novel Life of Pi, of which I read the Chinese translation version in primary school.) Practice of spoken English is also necessary not only for daily life but also for English improvement.

I sincerely hope that I won’t feel so blue once I adapt myself to the new life in this foreign land. I occasionally think of this song from Disney, which is exactly the feeling what I want to share right now:

A whole new world
A new fantastic point of view
No one to tell us no
Or where to go
Or say we're only dreaming
A whole new world
A dazzling place I never knew
But when I'm way up there
It's crystal clear
That now I'm in a whole new world with you