I am a bilingual of Mandarin and English. I started to learn English in middle school and treated it as a must-be subject for the entrance exam. Learning English was limited in reading and reading only. But after I started to work in the media industry, communication with English speakers became more and more often. It forced me to go back to language center to practice my listening and speaking.
I won't say my English meets standard now, but at least I can exchange ideas with English speakers with confidence. And it became quite natural when I encountered foreigners to speak English. Through the process, I gradually developed my capability to speak without thinking of grammar. Most of the time in Taiwan now, I spoke English to my children to maintain our English level, or if we would like to bad-mouth someone who doesn't know English. (sorry for the ugly truth) And YES, now when I read articles or novels, I prefer to read the original version if I know they had been translated accordingly because some references contain too many academic terms that would take me a long time to look up dictionary and eliminate my interest in them. Language learning is a life-long process, new vocabulary emerges any time. But in my dream, sometimes I even spoke English or taught others how to speak English, it comforts me and keeps me learning.
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