Some dificulties ...

Guest 1: thank you for your kind wishes.
Guest 2: I was not there, by the time we joined EU . So I cannot comment it at all.

>>Finally I do not want to struggle to learn more than I do know, because I do not need more than I know. I can read my Bible in English and I can understand some of the things there. That's good enough for me.

Are you trying to write more philosophy than I do? I don't think you're really trying to ask for advice; rather, you're simply talking about mundane things without talking directly about what you want. So, yes, when you say it's not good now to be a parrot, and that you can read a Bible, than you are way beyond my mileage - I may not be able to offer any more, as a stranger in the cyberspace, but I do think I could offer some more food for thought, if you care to read.

I think discussions have now become an irony. You seem to be inviting some mischievous (pardon my English) comments and, still, what are you coming here for? Again, I could post more if you would 1) talk about your problems and ask for advice, so that somebody could talk properly or 2) talk about virtually anything that has to do with philosophy AND language. If not, I shall let this thread sink...

don't sink it:
see <for words like through, I'd underline thr and u only, indicating that o and gh are silent, and mark u with a macron (maybe I can only do it by hand, not using word processors). I'd use a trema/umlaut for diphthong, such as ï for nice. If I already know that a particular letter corresponds to a phoneme perfectly and is not of course silent, I don't mark it too, like n in nice. For short vowels, I mark it with a dot.>

I pronunce through - <thru>
nice - <nais>
You suggested me to listen to audio or tapes. I can tell you I was listening them so many times so I learnt them by heart. My progress was not so fast in one way or another. The moment when I get to English speaking country I had to face with real language, not this one from the books. It was a good experiance though. What I wanted to say is that everyone has a limit of the words he use.

Take it easy for a while, Xie. Tell us a Chinese joke about foreigners, I'm dieing to hear ONE Chinese joke.

I can't quite get it. Except that I've listened too little (but too much French these days...), I didn't actually pick up English words like this. Just use it if you find it useful...

but as I have written somewhere, I didn't learn pinyin at all to master my native language, so this again proves the eternal phenomenon that, in human language, linguistic forms are arbitrary; and in learning, while words are both written and spoken, no matter how xxxked up English words are, the most important thing is only to remember how it is spelt, how you should pronounce it with your favorite (native) accent, and you'd be smart to forget spelling patterns altogether (especially for English).

That's what I'm doing for French. I also used to be quite analytical weeks ago, but unless for quick fixes (which I don't like but which I do so terribly often while posting...), I won't want to see the IPA. The moment that I use IPA, that I'm being analytical, is the time when I turn myself into one who learns blindly using the tools of dead white guys improperly, which in turn would do a lot of damage to myself.

I wrote: people won't care how bad my accent is before I go to their country, so I don't have to be over-correcting myself.

Let me abolish IPA in my mind for now...

And sorry, I thought this thread had been deleted. Thank goodness, it's still here.

I would like to learn the right English specificly conversation