Some people think that as long as you learn mathematics, physics and chemistry well, it doesn't matter if you are good at linguistics. This is not true. Mathematics, physics and chemistry are of course important, but Chinese is the most basic tool for learning all subjects well. If you are good at philology and have a high level of reading and writing, it will help you learn other subjects well, and it will help you to broaden your knowledge and develop your ideas. On the other hand, if you don't do well in linguistics, you will not be able to learn other subjects such as mathematics, physics and chemistry well, and you will often not know much about it. Even if you study other sciences very well, you have to write experimental reports and scientific research papers, and you can't do it without a certain level of language expression skills. Some articles can be passed down for a long time, not only because its content is useful, but also because its text is relatively good. In addition, there is a close relationship between learning a language and learning a foreign language. Some comrades are very accomplished in science, but if they are asked to translate their papers into English or English into Chinese, they will not be able to translate well. The Chinese language is very subtle, and if you don't pay attention to it, you will miss the meaning. It is not easy for the translator to achieve the "faithfulness, attainment, and elegance" advocated by Yan Fu. Therefore, if you want to learn a foreign language well, you must also learn Chinese well.
Su Buqing/The picture comes from the Internet
I was born in the mountains of Pingyang, Zhejiang. There are mountains in front of the house and behind the house. My father was a farmer, very poor, and never studied. But he often listened to people read at the door of the wealthy people's homes, and he could read some words and keep accounts. My father knew the benefits of reading and writing, and he was very strict with us. Every night, when my father came back from working in the fields and had eaten, he would check our homework. Once, my brother couldn't read it, and his father beat him severely, and I was very scared when I saw it. When I was 9 years old, there was a time when I couldn't explain the word "foot". My mother was afraid that my father would come back and beat me, so she stood at the entrance of the village and asked someone to ask for words, but when it was dark, I asked many people, but no one could explain the word. Luckily, I wasn't beaten or scolded that night. There is no school in our village, and a dozen or so children have hired a gentleman who did not pass the Xiucai examination to teach. He taught us to read the Analects and read the Zuo Chuan.
When I was 12 years old, my father sent me to a higher primary school in Pingyang County, more than 100 miles away. When I first arrived in the city, I was very curious about many things, and I didn't need to study hard and was playful. At the end of the semester, I took the penultimate place in the exam – we call it "memorization" there. I remember that year, I wrote a good poem, but the teacher didn't believe it and said that I copied it. Later, when the teacher found out that I had done it, he said to me, "I have wronged you." You're smart, but you don't have to work. You must know that it is not easy for you to study, and your father sent you here from more than 100 miles away......" These words stimulated me deeply, and I have been studying hard since then. In the second grade, I jumped from "memorizing the leaderboard" to the first place. Since then, I have not only studied diligently, but also developed good habits, both as a teenager and as a student in Japan, I always went to bed at 11 o'clock and woke up at 5 a.m. every night, even during the cold season.
In 1915, I entered the only middle school in Wenzhou at that time. At that time, I was determined to study literature and history. When I was in the first grade, I wrote an essay using the "Zuo Chuan" penmanship. The teacher ranked it first in the class, but didn't fully believe that I wrote it. He asked me, "Did you write it yourself?" and I said, "Yes." I can memorize "Left Biography". "The teacher picked out an article for me to memorize, and I quickly memorized it. The teacher had to be impressed, and said: "Your article is also completely the penmanship of "Zuo Chuan"!" I can also memorize many articles in "Historical Records", and I am also familiar with long articles like "Xiang Yu Benji". I also like to read the "Selected Writings of Zhaoming". "In late spring and March, the grass grows in the south of the Yangtze River, the peanut trees are mixed, and the warblers are flying wildly. (Qiu Chi's "Book with Uncle Chen") I appreciate it very much. There are also more than 200 volumes, and I plan to read them all in four years of secondary school. By the end of the first year, I had read about 20 volumes.
At this time, a teacher Yang came to the school who came back from Japan due to illness. He said to me, "It's useless to learn these old things, it's better to learn math." "He translated the math textbooks he brought back from Japan and asked me to learn them. The next year, another teacher from a high school graduate in Tokyo, Japan, came to the school, and he taught us geometry, which I was very interested in and learned best in the class. From then on, I gave up my desire to study literature and history and devoted myself to studying mathematics. But I still like to write articles. When I was in the fourth grade, the principal was corrupt and the students were in turmoil, and I also took the lead in writing articles against the principal.
I later became an expert in mathematics, but I still love languages. I often recite Tang and Song poems, and I also like Chairman Mao's poems, especially "To Shaoshan". "For the sake of sacrifice and ambition, dare to teach the sun and the moon to change the sky. I like to see the thousands of waves of rice and grass, and heroes everywhere smoke at sunset. Chairman Mao used the word "for being" to live. Now, every night before I go to bed, I always spend twenty or thirty minutes reciting poetry. It's really fun. When a person holds a math book or other professional books all day long, his brain is too nervous, and his mind must be rigid. Proper conditioning is important and can help you study your profession better. I also write quite a few poems, but they are not for publication, most of them are for self-entertainment. Sometimes I write political poems, which is also a kind of fighting. I have an article "Night Reading 'Liao Zhai' Occasional Success": "I love to talk about Zhai and listen to stories, and I gradually become unfamiliar with the world after a long time. When I was old, I tasted the smell of wind and frost, and I believed that there were ghost foxes in the world. (See Liberation Daily, November 3, 1978) This is a criticism of the "Gang of Four". A young comrade wrote to criticize me, saying that how could a scientist believe in a ghost fox?
I have laid a good foundation in Chinese since I was a child, which has provided me with great convenience in learning other subjects. I also think that learning a good language is very helpful in training one's thinking and making one's mind more organized. All of this will be of great benefit to me in learning math later on.
The picture comes from the Internet
Today's students do not have a solid foundation in Chinese and have too little knowledge of ancient literature. Of course, you don't have to read the Analects, but even the Analects have a lot to learn. "Isn't it good to learn and learn, and don't pretend to understand, which is also right." You don't have to read all the 220 articles of "Guwen Guanzhi", but you must read several articles such as "Former Chibi Fu" and "Former Teacher's Table". Although some of the articles promote the idea of loyalty to the monarch and patriotism, the diction is very good, and you can learn from its writing. In addition, there are many good works in "Three Hundred Tang Poems" and "Selected Song Words", which are worth reading.
To read, you can read a rough idea for the first time, and gradually deepen your experience for the second and third times. When I was a child, I read "Dream of Red Mansions", "Journey to the West", and "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". "Liao Zhai" is my favorite, I don't know how many times I have read it. At first, there were some things that I didn't understand, and there was nowhere to look for them, so I read them first, and then I read them later, and gradually deepened my understanding. The same is true of reading math books, it is not easy to read all the books at once. I usually read, think, and do the exercises at the same time, and by the end of the reading, I have completed all the questions. You don't have to read too much, you have to read well. When you know the strengths, weaknesses, and mistakes of the book, you can read it well and read it well. A book does not have to be completely read and mastered, and even if it is read and read, it will be forgotten if you don't use it in the future. However, in doing so, we can train the method of reading, the method of intensive reading, and the ideological method and artistry of learning and mastering a book.
Source: "Collection of Chinese Chinese Education in the Late Twentieth Century"), Reading Times, No. 04, 2024
Author: Su Buqing
Editor: Pan Xi
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