学习笔记《葛传槼：向英语学习者讲话》

2021年1月22日发(作者：洪学智)
关键词：
Reading aloud; reading widely; reading carefully; imitating consciously;
commit them to your memory. Above all, we should learn to be modest.

葛先生的建议：要读英文，就读当代英文，而且要出声读，大声朗读可以避 免尴
尬，而且避免没有英语学习环境的困境。先生认为，凡我们想要表达的话，别人
都已经说过 ，
所以我们在写作时，
首先要避免自己根据所谓的语法写，
而要根据
惯用法写 。要写好，写对只有读得多，读得仔细，认真模仿才行。其次先生建议
可以编写属于自己的字典。
一类是词的用法的字典，
便于充分认识单词，
把原本
是别的字典的词变为真正是自己 的词，
再者可以编写以主题分类的字典，
编字典
时不需要逐字逐句摘抄，
可以 以索引加提示的方式来编写。
以下是我的摘抄，
原
文来自于《葛传槼
---< br>向学习英语者讲话》
。


to Read
My advice to you is to change it for something else. 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.

Your
chief
reading
matter
need
not
be
a
literary
masterpiece.
Nor
need
it
be
written
by
a
famous
author.
A
volume
of
short
pieces
of
narration
or
exposition
is
better than a novel or some long argumentative essays.

You
have
a
book
or
two
for
your
chief
reading
matter.
You
should
also
read
something else, which may be a little more difficult, but which still had better not be a
classic of more than a hundred years ago.

2. Reading Aloud
Reading aloud helps you to learn by heart, and learning by heart is essential to all
who aims at writing well.

Reading
aloud
helps
you
to
cultivate
good
pronunciation
and
good
intonation,
and good pronunciation and good intonation are essential to all language learners.

Reading aloud helps you to discover certain beauties of language that you may
fail to see in your silent reading.

Unless
you
read
aloud,
you
cannot
lean
to
write
naturally
or
to
appreciate
literature.

3. Can You Read Englishmen
’
s English?
I would advise you to read as much as possible in general English literature and
to cultivate the habit of thinking in English.

I would also advise you to read some concise history of England and commit to
memory every bit of knowledge about English life and thought that you may find in
reading or study.


4. What kind of English?
There are English English, American English, Scotch English, Irish English, and
other kinds of English.

I call it foolish of one to attempt the other English before one has acquired the
ability
to
speak,
read
and
write
English
as
it
is
used
by
the
average
educated
Englishman or American of today.

One has yet much to learn before one can be properly called an advanced learner
of English so long as one cannot read the news or cannot express oneself intelligibly
to Englishmen or Americans in speaking and writing.

By
“
English
as
it
is
used
by
the
average
educated
Englishman
or
American”I

mean everyday idiomatic English. It is practical, if that means actually used, but not if
that means specially adapted to Chinese psychology
The
fact
is,
however,
that
one
cannot
master
English---that
is,
what
I
call
practical English---by reading about things Chinese only.

I
would
advise
those
who
are
in
the
habit
of
confining
themselves
to
Chinese
news when reading newspapers in English, to give up the habit.


5. The Question of Background
It
includes
history,
geography,
mythology,
the
Bible,
characters
and
facts
in
fiction, proverbs, customs, games, and sports, superstitions, and other things. And in
order
to
understand
fully
the
works
of
any
author,
one
needs
to
possess
as
much
knowledge of these things as he does. This is practically impossible with the average
Chinese leaner of English. (but would you like to acquire such knowledge?)

6. Books on English and Books in English
Language
is
not
an
exact
science,
nor
a
mere
matter
of
principles,
rules,
exceptions, definitions, formulas, and diagrams.
Books
on
English
are
helpful,
but
no
one
can
master
English
by
reading
such
books only.
This is due to their ignorance of the fact that without wide and careful reading,
the mastery of English is impossible.

I would advise all learners of English to devote more time to reading books in
English and less time to reading books on English.

Well, if you happen to spend your days and nights on books on English, it is time
you acted on my warning.

7. An Easy Sentence to Study
Why, after
all, did
the
young man fail to
understand
the short sentence---They
cannot see enough of each other? My answer is that it is because its way of expression
does not have its corresponding way in our own language.
There are many ways of expression in English that have no corresponding ways
in Han. These are puzzling to most Chinese learners of English.

In
your
reading
you
will
do
well
to
pay
special
attention
to
those
ways
of
expression for which you do not find corresponding ways in Han. This will help you
both
in
reading
and
writing.
I
am
sorry
to
find
that
many
Chinese
learners
do
not
realize the importance of doing this, with the result that while they can read English
by Chinese authors and write long and tolerably grammatical essays, yet they may not
be
able
to
understand
an
Englishman
’
s
social
letter
thoroughly
or
write
a
short
paragraph in purely idiomatic English.



8. What Does
“
Would of Come
”
Mean?
You
ought
to
learn
to
use
English
correctly.
But
you
ought
as
well
to
learn
to
understand
the
incorrect
expressions
that
are
common
among
Englishmen
or
Americans.
It
is
partly
owing
to
their
ignorance
of
such
incorrect
expressions
that
many Chinese leaners can parse and analyze well without being able to read a single
page in an English-language magazine published in England or America.

There are many mistakes that are common among Englishmen or Americans but
from which we Chinese are absolutely free. As I have said, you ought to understand
them, but you ought not to adopt them as ornaments of style.

9.
“
More Presently
”

Equipped with
a good
knowledge of grammar,
Chinese
learners of
English are
apt to think they are quite able to read general literature without much difficulty so
long as they have a good dictionary within reach. What is more, they are too ready to
dismiss as wrong any combination of words that does not seem to him to be capable
of grammatical analysis.
Important as
grammar is, there are many turns of expression that are
generally
considered
blameless
English
though
they
are
not
quite
defensible
from
a
narrowly
grammatical
point
of
view.
So
that
the
mastery
of
English
grammar
in
its
narrow
sense does not enable one so much as to read English intelligently.

When
you
come
across
in
good
writing
any
construction
that
you
do
not
find
grammatical, I would advise you to note it down instead of calling it a mistake, and to
see if you will meet with a similar one in your reading. You will very soon, perhaps,
and then you will most likely understand the construction.

10. Double Negatives in Current English
Double negatives always mean emphatic negation rather than assertion. What I
wish to tell you is that this unreasonable fact is not peculiar to Elizabethan literature.
It exists at present.

I don
’
t
want
to
you use
this unreasonable
construction (I want
you to
talk and
write like an educated person). But I believe every learner of English should know it.

There are several English usages that every learner of English should know, but
which many, or even most, Chinese learns do now know, because these are not to be
understood by means of mere logic and are not to be found in ordinary grammars. The
double negative is one of them.


11. About the Study of Grammar

The object of this article, however, is to advise you not to devote much time to
the study of grammar.

You study English in order to be able to make practical use of it. This object is
not to be attained by mere study of grammar. I don
’
t even think I should now be able
to write such simple English as that of this book if I had read nothing but grammars.
Grammar
tells
you
some
general
rules,
some
exceptions
to
rules,
and
perhaps
some idioms. But the correct use of English is not a mere matter of such.

English is not to be learnt from
grammar but only from careful reading.
Many
Chinese students write sentences that might be justified by one grammatical rule or
another but are certainly wrong.

Grammar may help you to use English, but only to a certain extent. Do not look
on the study of grammar as all or nearly all that
you have to
do in
order to
master
English. Careful reading and constant practice are far more important.


12. Knowing Just Enough Grammar to Go Wrong
Students
’

narrowly
grammatical
conscience,
however,
often
causes
them
to
change idiomatic English into unidiomatic English.
There are several forms of expression that are purely idiomatic and do not admit
of grammatical analysis.
In your reading, reader, take care to note down those idiomatic constructions that
you do not find grammatical enough. Commit them to memory and try to use them in
your writing.
You must not think, however, that idiom and grammar are always incompatible.
What is idiomatic is far more often grammatical than ungrammatical. I mean simply
that
not
every
idiomatic
construction
is
grammatically
explainable,
nor
is
every
strictly grammatical construction idiomatic.

13. The Language Is the Main Thing
Of course, it is all right to read and enjoy and remember a story, and d so long as
one wants to know the story only, one needs not bother about the language. But the
case
is
quite
different
with
a
learner
of
English,
I
mean
a
student
of
English
as
distinguished from a student of stories or what is called the general reader.

Whatever
a
learner
of
English
reads,
he
should,
in
my
opinion,
regard
the
language as the main thing.
In this way, he does learn some English though what he reads may happen to be
otherwise uninteresting or uninstructive. It may safely be said that this is a far better
way of learning English composition than to read and consider the so- called principles
of the subject.
Incidentally, I would advise teachers of English to question their pupils on points
of diction and construction as well as facts and thoughts.


14. Logic and Usage
There are a number of other illogicalities in English that are quite idiomatic.

As
I
have
said,
logic
has
time
on
its
side.
But
how
many
years
the
English
language will take to become a perfectly logical speech!

15. Something Unnatural
Chinese learners of English often misunderstand or fail to understand a group of
simple words put together in a simple way. My advice is to stop to think again when
you find something unnatural in an expression. That something is perhaps not in the
expression itself but in your interpretation of it

16. A Good Knowledge of Bad English
Perhaps you think that bad English is not worth learning, and that the English of
the average Chinese learner of the language is bad enough without his ever making
any effort to learn to be bad.
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 has occasion to have anything to do with.


17. Reading Dictionaries
I am sure that reading dictionaries is, after all, not so foolish as you might think.

I used many
years ago to read through many articles on common words in the
Concise Oxford Dictionary. Ifound that very helpful in the mastery of common words
and phrases.
Such
common
words
and
phrases
can
be
very
easily
picked
up
by
English- speaking
boys
and
girls.
But
they
are
not
likely
to
be
acquired
by
Chinese
students without any special effort in this respect. The reading of articles on common
words in dictionaries is no doubt a great aid.

18. Make your own Dictionary
The
chief
reason
is
that
being
a
conscientious
learner
of
EnglishI
am
always
careful to avoid slipshod or perfunctory work. I hope that the delay in publication will
be compensated for by the richer and better contents of the book.
I think that every learner could make his own dictionary of usage. He could keep
a notebook in which to record, in alphabetical order, such points of usage as he might
find
of
particular
interest
to
him.
Such
a
book
would
serve
him
as
a
constant
companion to composition, though many things in it might seem quite dull or useless
to others.
I think that every learner could make his dictionary of usage as large as the sum
total of the books he reads. I mean that he might make a usage index, so to speak, to
those books. For a particular point he would have to record only the book, the page,
and the line concerned.
I
wish
I
could
find
time
to
do
this.
And
I
believe
that
I
could
thus
lay
the
foundation
of
a
live
and
original
dictionary---quite
different
from
those
based
on
nothing but one or more dictionaries.

19. Make Another Dictionary of Your Own

I
mean
a
dictionary
in
which
a
certain
number
of
topics
are
arranged
in
alphabetical
order
and
useful
phrases
and
sentences
about
each
topic
are
grouped
together.
This can be done by reading and
making notes. It is not necessary to copy the
phrases and sentences. It is enough to jot down the page number and line number, and
give
one
or
two
words
as
a
hint.
In
this
way,
any
book
may
be
turned
into
a
topic
dictionary
by
merely
providing
it
with
a
topic
index.
And
several
such
dictionaries
may be turned into a fairly complete topic dictionary.


20. More about What to Read
Since it is with a view to learning composition that you read, and since it is in
present-day English prose that you ought to learn to express yourself, what you read
must be present-day English prose. Expressions in common use a hundred years ago
may not be so at the present day. Likewise, expressions in common use in verse may
not be so in prose.
Since it is in StandardEnglish that you ought to learn to express yourself, what
you read must not contain too much slang, whatever significance one may attach to
the word.

Since it is things in everyday life that you ought to learn to write about, what you
read must not be of a technical character.
What you read must be fairly easy for you; too much time and energy spent in
reading between the lines and finding out all kinds of references and allusions would
very
likely
distract
your
mind
from
your
purpose,
which
is
to
learn
English
composition.

21. Reading to Learn the Art of Expression