It was so hard for me to speak English this week, I was lucky though. - Feb 21st 2009 03:59

This week I had difficulty speaking English.

I am taking a class, and the assistant professor of the class is the one who is famous in an area related to my research.

For a few months I'd wanted to ask him about my idea. I finally did it yesterday. It started a nightmare of speaking English...

I just wanted to ask him whether or not there were papers with ideas similar to mine. However he needed to hear my motivation and the background of my research. It was natural and I felt he was gentle. That's because I've been unable to provide my coworkers with appropriate answers when they didn't give me the background and assumptions of their questions.

When I explained my general motivation, he seemed to want to know more about it. He seemed to seek the best answer for me. Though we talked on the way to our building for 10 min, we didn't finish because I couldn't use English well.

It is still very hard for me to listen to someone in English, compose English sentences immediately, pronounce them exactly and clearly. One reason is that I have a limited English vocabulary. When someone says a word I don't know, I stop thinking, Ignoring it and imagining (complementing) the meaning, I need too much time to catch up to the conversation. It is necessary for me to practice English more and more.

After walking we continued to discuss my idea in his room. I seemed to fail the explanation completely. Although he tried to understand my idea and gave me questions, I couldn't answer them appropriately and make him understand it. Unfortunately, he was busy and had a flight today. We postponed the talk until next week. He seemed a little tired because of me. I appreciated his effort because he is not my supervisor. So I wrote a document about my research and emailed it to him for better understanding.


Before sending it, I had my English tutor check the document today. Although the document is 7 pages long, he quickly gave it a thourough check. When I talked to him about what happened yesterday with the professor, he said that this document would help. And then he praised my document for being so understandable. Also he advised me to continue the conversation as the best way to enhance English conversation skills. He is always a good guy.

Today I have to thank one more person so much. I'm very encouraged, and I know I'm so lucky.