誤區之一：Perfect English

08-17

來自專欄英語學習誤區掃雷

Perfect English 不存在！特別是當你把它等同於完全沒有語法用詞錯誤時。如果不同意的話請舉出一個說perfect English的人。有人會說，那母語是英語的人呢？你可以去問任何母語英語的人，看他們怎麼回答。我相信，沒有一個人會嚴肅地說「我講的是perfect English」. 這和沒有一個中國人可以嚴肅地說「我的中文是完美的」是一回事。

This is a serious misconception that affects a lot of English learners in one way or another. At the back of their mind, they always believe theres the perfect English somewhere in the world. To make matters worse, they often go one step further to equate "perfect English" with not making any mistakes at all.

這害了不計其數的英語學習者。大家常常不明白這有什麼不好，有一個完美的東西作為目標不是更會激勵自己嗎？Instead of answering this question directly Id like to ask a question first. Assuming 2 people have the exact same vocabularies and grammar knowledge as well as pronunciation skills, will they speak English at the same level? 99.9% 的情況下，答案是NO. 為什麼？因為每個人的自信程度不同。其他情況類似，信心是唯一決定你是否能說會道的因素。（99.9% of the time the answer is NO. Why? It is because everyone has a different level of confidence. Everything else being equal confidence will ultimately determine how well you can use the language and make your speech.）

Now, lets look what "perfect English" does to your confidence. While you believe the perfect English is out there somewhere, is it true as an English learner you never believe you are speaking the perfect English? If I ask 100 English learners I will get 100 "yes". If I ask 1 million English learners I will get 1 million "yes". 問題就在這裡了！當你給自己設置一個完美的目標時，你也就永遠把自己釘在了有缺陷的位置上。

Since you are not speaking the perfect English, there must be something wrong with your English but you dont know exactly what. The net effect of this status of mind is whenever you use English you ALWAYS worry about making mistakes. 這是有一個心理學名詞的，叫 self-consciousness. 它與信心恰恰相反。當你總是處於 self-conscious 的狀態下，你的信心也就處於最低點。本來一個很有信心的人，一說英語，信心立即沉底，你辭彙再多，語法再好，發音再准，也會結結巴巴，膽戰心驚。這是明擺著的，因為你信心極低的話，講中文都是結結巴巴，膽戰心驚得，別說是第二語言了。

問題遠遠不止於此，當你在學習中絕大多數情況下不知道自己學到得到底是不是「perfect English」時，你就無法實現學習語言或學習任何技能的一個最重要的過程 --「Binding」，也就是中文中的融合。拿騎自行車來打個比方，你騎自行車時有一直努力思考應該怎麼蹬左腳，怎麼蹬右腳，怎麼拐彎兒，怎麼加速，怎麼減速，怎麼剎車，怎麼姿勢優雅嗎？沒有！為什麼，因為你已經將這個技術融合（binding）了. 學習英語也是一樣的，binding/融合是最高的境界，因為母語英語的人不過是與英語融合了。

所以從英語學習的第一天，就要把「perfect English」這個概念徹底埋葬。那麼以什麼為目標好呢？ freely express yourself and make yourself understood. 真正的學習目標應該是自由表達你自己並讓他人明白你的意思。The process of English learning or any language learning is like the organic growth of a tree, every one will end up differently and thats perfectly fine.