相信这是一个困扰许多人的问题。其实大家都知道方法很多，也很雷同，关键还是要看自己的行动和坚持。今天分享一位来自印度高级软件工程师的英语学习故事和经验，希望可以启发到大家啦，一起来看看吧。
阅读难度指数：2颗星
I am a mediocre English speaker and writer,so forgive me for my poor writing ability. But I'd love to share my experienceabout how I managed to sell 50-60 novels in Bangalore traffic every day, withthe power of the little English that I knew.
我是一个普通的英语演讲者和作家，所以请原谅我的写作能力。但我很愿意分享我的经验，我是如何利用我所知道的一点点英语，每天在班加罗尔的人流量中卖出50-60本小说的。
I came to Bangalore two years ago in searchof a job. The first two months, I searched for a job but did not get any,because of my age (16) and qualification (10th pass). So I went to the nearest railway station and was recruited by a shopkeeper to sell novels andnewspapers. I was ecstatic, but increasingly nervous at the same time because Ihad never sold anything before. Commission was fixed by the shopkeeper:twenty-five paise for each newspaper sold and three rupees for a novel. I stillremember the first day, when I managed to sell twelve newspapers and two novelsin a whole day and earned Rs. 9; and next day Rs. 13. But that was insufficientto get even a single meal.
我两年前来到班加罗尔找工作。前两个月，我找了一份工作，但没有得到，因为我的年龄(16岁)和资历(第10才通过)。于是我去了最近的火车站，被一个店主雇来卖小说和报纸。我欣喜若狂，但同时也越来越紧张，因为我以前从来没有卖过东西。佣金由店主定:每卖出一份报纸25派萨（1派萨等于百分之一卢比），卖一本小说3卢比。我还记得第一天，我设法在一天内卖掉了12份报纸和两本小说，赚了9卢比，第二天是13卢比。但这还不够吃一顿饭。
Since my Mom was sick and unable to go towork, I had to earn enough money to send home. That was indispensable, and moreimportant than feeding myself. Bangalore s weather was always cool and breezy,but I did not have warm clothes. I was feeling feverish every night, coughed alot and got up every morning with a headache and sore throat. I was just unableto understand what to do. For me, it was either DO or DIE. I was completelyfreaked out. I had to come up with a creative way to increase the sales, inorder get enough money to survive. I did not sleep whole night. After thinkinga lot, I came up with a solution: I thought I would read the novels andnewspapers and tell them why they had to buy them; what some of the interestingthings printed on the newspaper were that day, what the hottest news of the daywas or what the specialty of the currently in-stock novel was.
因为我妈妈生病了，不能去上班，我必须挣足够的钱寄回家。这是必不可少的，比养活自己更重要。班加罗尔的天气总是凉爽和微风，但我没有温暖的衣服。我每天晚上都感觉发烧，咳嗽很多，每天早上起床时头痛和喉咙痛。我只是不知道该怎么办。对我来说，要么做，要么死。我完全被吓坏了。我必须想出一个有创意的方法来增加销售，以获得足够的钱来生存。我整晚没睡。经过深思熟虑，我想出了一个解决办法:我想我会读小说和报纸，告诉他们为什么要买;报纸上刊登的一些有趣的东西是那天的，当天最热门的新闻是什么或者当前库存小说的特点是什么。
Every day newspapers were coming in at 4AM. I woke up around 4:30 AM, read all of the three best-selling Englishnewspapers (TOI, Deccan Herald and The Hindu) and reviewed once more beforeleaving for the job. I used to read novels at night and in the middle of thejob. In the beginning, my English was so poor that it made people laugh. Somepeople encouraged and supported me. Others laughed and disheartened me bysaying something that generally hurt. I took it personally, but alwaysapologized saying "I m speak a little English, but I m alwaysimproving." and used it as an opportunity to try harder.
每天早上4点报纸就来了。我在凌晨四点半左右醒来，阅读了三份最畅销的英文报纸(《印度时报》(TOI)、《德干先驱报》(DeccanHerald)和《印度教徒报》(the Hindu))，在去上班前又看了一遍。我过去常常在晚上和工作中读小说。刚开始的时候，我的英语很差，大家都笑我。一些人鼓励和支持我。其他人笑了起来，说了一些让人伤心的话，让我很沮丧。我以为是我自己的问题，但总是道歉说:“我只会说一点英语，但我一直在进步。”
My fear of speaking strengthened. Remember,when you don t face your fears, they only get worse. Trust me, it s better thatyou speak English confidently and make a million mistakes, than if you speakperfectly but sound unsure of yourself, shy, or scared. People will feel muchmore comfortable if you are able to communicate openly. I got so many trustedcustomers who just took my reviews before buying novels. People slowly startedappreciating my hardwork. I increased my sales and I started getting enoughmoney to have food two times a day and save some to send home.
我更害怕说话了。记住，当你不去面对你的恐惧时，它们只会变得更糟。相信我，你自信地说英语，犯了无数的错误，这比你说得完美，但听起来不自信，害羞或害怕要好。如果你能开诚布公地交流，人们会感觉舒服得多。我有很多值得信赖的客户，他们在买小说之前就会看我的评论。人们慢慢开始欣赏我的勤奋工作。我增加了我的销售额，我开始得到足够的钱，每天吃两次饭，省下一些寄回家。
After a few months, I got shifted to one ofthe roads with the busiest traffic in Bangalore to sell only novels, and nonewspapers. I was almost doing very well at the railway station, but I shifted.I was quite disappointed for some time. I lost my permanent customers. After Ishifted to the new place, I got enough experience on how to make more sales. Mytarget was to read at least one novel in two days. In the beginning, it took alot of time: about six days to finish a novel. I got a dictionary, a notebook(I call it a vocabulary notebook) and a diary. Whenever I read or heard newwords, I wrote it down in my vocabulary notebook, so that I could prime mybrain to learn that word at some point in the future. I also wrote down how touse that word in a sentence. That's very important.
几个月后，我被调到班加罗尔交通最繁忙的一条路上，只卖小说，不卖报纸。我在火车站几乎干得很好，但我改变了主意。有一段时间我很失望。我失去了永久客户。在我搬到新地方后，我在如何提高销售额方面积累了足够的经验。我的目标是两天内至少读一本小说。刚开始的时候，花了很多时间:大约6天就完成了一部小说。我有一本字典，一个笔记本(我叫它词汇笔记本)和一本日记。每当我读到或听到新单词时，我就把它记在我的词汇笔记本上，这样我就可以让我的大脑在将来的某个时候学习这个单词。我还写下了如何在句子中使用这个词。这是非常重要的。
I maintained a daily diary and I wrote downwhatever happened during the whole day. I used to go to work at 8 AM and come backat 8 PM. Every ten minutes, there was a red signal for two minutes. And thesetwo minutes were my sales time. I still remember I used to get around 60opportunities (2 min/stop) everyday, about 120 minutes in total, and my targetwas to sell at least 50 novels per day. I used to go to each car or bike guyand give them a brief about the novel and end it in a very interesting place,so that if they didn't buy it that day, they would at least come back the nextday if they were interested. People used to get more interested in buyingnovels from me because of 3 reasons: 1. They used to get honest feedback andreview from me about the novel, and they knew I loved retaining my customers.2. They liked my confidence and attitude of selling things. 3. They loved tohear my mediocre English.
我每天都记日记，把一天中发生的事情都写下来。我过去常常早上8点上班，晚上8点回来。每十分钟，就会有两分钟的红色信号。这两分钟就是我的销售时间。我还记得我曾经每天有大约60个机会(2分钟/站)，总共大约120分钟，我的目标是每天至少卖出50本小说。我过去常常去找每个卖车或骑自行车的人，给他们简单介绍一下这本小说，然后在一个非常有趣的地方结束，这样，如果他们那天没有买，第二天如果他们感兴趣的话，他们至少会再来。人们过去对从我这里买小说更感兴趣，原因有三:1。他们过去常常从我这里得到关于这部小说的真实反馈和评论，他们知道我喜欢留住我的顾客。2.他们喜欢我的自信和卖东西的态度。3.他们喜欢听我的平庸英语。
I improved my English, talking to mycustomers, reading newspapers, reading novels and writing down new words in myvocabulary notebook and maintaining a daily diary.
我提高了我的英语水平，与我的客户交谈，阅读报纸，阅读小说，在我的词汇笔记本上写下新单词，并坚持每天记日记。
TIP #1: They say if you havegot 10,000 words in your mind, you can write a novel. Just 10,000 words. Learn100 words per day and you can make it in just 100 days: a little more than 3months. It's the first step for improving your spoken English.
技巧1:他们说如果你脑子里有1万个单词，你就可以写一部小说。只是10000字。每天学100个单词，你可以在100天内完成:3个月多一点。这是提高英语口语的第一步。
TIP #2: Read atleast one newspaper every day for a year. You can definitely improve yourEnglish. So many people disagree with me, but it works.
技巧2:每天至少读一份报纸，坚持一年。你一定可以提高你的英语水平。很多人不同意我的观点，但它确实有效。
TIP #3: Read at leastone novel every month.
技巧3:每个月至少读一本小说。
TIP #4: Try to write something every day.
技巧4:试着每天写点东西。
TIP #5: Talk to people.
技巧5:与人交谈。
TIP #6: The human brain easily captures visual things and remembersit for a very long time. Because when we see something, our brain keeps a copyof that image or visual representation. So whenever you read or do things, tryto have a visual representation of it so you can remember it for a long time.
技巧6:人类的大脑很容易捕捉到视觉上的东西，并能长时间地记住它。因为当我们看到某物时，我们的大脑会保留该图像或视觉再现的副本。所以当你阅读或做事情的时候，试着有一个它的视觉表现，这样你可以记住它很长一段时间。
For example, if we consider a word --banana -- our brain exactly visualizes the image of a banana. Because we readit, saw it, ate it and we already have the image in our brain. So we couldremember it easily.
例如，如果我们考虑一个单词——香蕉——我们的大脑会准确地想象出香蕉的形象。因为我们读它，看它，吃它，我们已经有图像在我们的大脑。所以我们可以很容易记住它。
But if I ask you what your Gmail passwordwas a year ago (and if you changed it 4-5 times)? Most people wont remember it,because we do not have the visual image of the password in our brain; so wehave forgotten.
但如果我问你一年前你的Gmail密码是什么(如果你改了4-5次)?大多数人不会记得密码，因为我们的大脑中没有密码的视觉图像;所以我们忘记了。
TIP #7: Love English, Live English, Dream English.
技巧7:热爱英语，活英语，梦想英语。
Hope this helps.
生词：
1.mediocre
英 /ˌmiːdiˈəʊkə(r)/
美 /ˌmiːdiˈoʊkər/
adj. 普通的；平凡的；中等的
2.recruit
英 /rɪˈkruːt/
美 /rɪˈkruːt/
v. 征募；聘用；通过招募组建；补充；（非正式）说服；（使）恢复健康
n. 招聘；新兵；新成员
3.ecstatic
英 /ɪkˈstætɪk/
美 /ɪkˈstætɪk/
adj. 狂喜的；入迷的
n. 狂喜的人
4.insufficient
英 /ˌɪnsəˈfɪʃnt/
美 /ˌɪnsəˈfɪʃnt/
adj. 不足的；不能胜任的，缺乏能力的
5.indispensable
英 /ˌɪndɪˈspensəbl/
美 /ˌɪndɪˈspensəbl/
n. 不可缺少之物；必不可少的人
adj. 不可缺少的；绝对必要的；责无旁贷的
6.disheartened
英 /dɪsˈhɑːtnd/
美 /dɪsˈhɑːrtnd/
v. 使沮丧；使泄气；使失去勇气（dishearten的过去式和过去分词）
adj. 沮丧的；灰心的
文章来源：微信公众号唯美英语部落