Chapter 8 College Students and Little Teachers

  Liu Shuangxi, who had been out for half a month, finally returned home quietly. (Winning phone bill): . Old mother Zhu Wenhua found that her son was a bit abnormal these two days, and he would laugh at his father for no reason, especially when Liu Guoqing was studying English.

  In that era, for the vast majority of people, learning a foreign language was still quite difficult. Firstly, there were no teachers to teach, and secondly, there were no students to learn. It was an era centered on class struggle, and almost everyone avoided anything related to foreign countries, especially overseas relations. As for learning a foreign language, it was naturally something that people kept at arm's length and didn't bother with.

  Liu Shuangxi likes to watch Old Dad is happy, because on the desk hangs a banner, which is written in English, translated into good study, every day upwards. Standard Chinese-style English, although Americans from past lives have accepted this way, just like we now say long, time, no, see, you, but grammatically speaking, it's absolutely wrong.

  In his previous life, Liu's father didn't attend college, but he couldn't recall whether it was because he didn't get in or simply didn't take the exam. However, since his father had made preparations and worked hard this time around, Liu decided to do something about it. He thought that since foreign languages were a weakness for most people, he should find a way to help his father with that. At the very least, he wanted to change the banner to "study hard and make progress every day." If not, he was afraid that one day his father would get so anxious that he'd end up getting hurt internally.

  "Mom, what's Dad always muttering about every day? I don't understand it, he doesn't speak like that when we talk normally."

  "Great, that's English, it's the language with the widest usage in the world. Later on, if you want to communicate with British people or Americans, you must learn this language."

  "What a hassle! It would be great if they could just learn Chinese instead. (Save on phone bills)" Before he knew it, Liu Shuangxi had blurted out what was on his mind.

  "You kids, we're learning from others now because we're not as good as them. We need to understand and learn, only when we've learned well can we catch up with them, or even surpass them. So, your dad is learning this year, I'll be learning tomorrow, and you'll have to learn too when you grow up." Zhu Wenhua patiently told his son, worried that if he developed a dislike for English now, it would delay something in the future.

  "Then mom, can I start learning now?"

  "Come on, son, learn with your old man. Later you'll become a diplomat just like your Grandpa Tong." Liu Guoqing, who was reading and felt dizzy, joined in the conversation between the mother and son, taking a break at the same time.

  So Liu Guoqing taught Liu Shuangxi from ABC.

  In the following months, Liu's courtyard occasionally heard "hello", "hi" and "good" sounds. Once, even when Liu Dongfang greeted someone, a drumstick cat appeared.

  The time for learning always flies by quickly, and soon it's the end of summer and beginning of autumn, when the weather in Beijing is unusually hot. In these past five months, Liu Guoping has made huge progress, but also faced tremendous pressure. At first, his sister's English level was much stronger than his, after all, Liu Guoli had been studying for years and was younger, so she could learn and remember things faster. But gradually, it was discovered that the son's learning speed, at least his progress, was much faster than his own.

  At first, what made it difficult for him was that his son found a few words and asked him to change their forms, such as past tense, past participle, present participle, um, if I remember correctly, they were stop, hurry, rise, catch, and about 20 more. This wasn't too hard, and he could look up the ones he couldn't quite recall in a dictionary. Some simple English Q&A, like "Are you a student?" or "Where were you born?", were also handled easily as part of his daily routine.

  Before long, his son found a few sentences for him to translate, such as "If it doesn't rain tomorrow, I will stand on the square, the day our beloved Premier Zhou comes to visit them." Such translations were more or less difficult for Liu Guoqing.

  The most outrageous thing is tonight, Liu Shuangxi got a short article from somewhere, and the article goes like this:

  I am a new member of the Red Star Commune. Two years ago, I left the city to go to the countryside to join the rural settlement. With the help of poor and lower-middle peasants, I improved my political awareness and learned various farm work. This January, the party branch asked me to become an elementary school teacher. Since then, I have been teaching language and literature. How much I love my job and my students!

  In order to achieve the great goal of Four Modernizations, the Party calls on us young people to learn science and technology. Now I am participating in the college entrance examination. I hope to be admitted to university. I will definitely work hard for the revolution, strive to be both red and expert. If I don't get in, I'll go back to the countryside and work harder in the Three Great Revolutionary Movements. I will contribute to building our motherland into a great modern socialist power.

  Liu Guoping wants to say that translating English into Chinese is just a matter of flipping through the dictionary and making some guesses, but when it comes to translating a passage of Chinese text while following grammatical rules, this is indeed a bit difficult for him.

  "Son, do you know what this says?"

  "I don't know, otherwise why would I ask Dad to help me translate?"

  "Alright, you haven't even mastered Chinese yet and now you're bothering me to translate it into English for you to learn. I admit that you're clever, this is just a few months of learning vocabulary and you already know more words than I do characters. But don't bully people like this! I still have the math problem you gave me two days ago: if the three interior angles of a triangle form an arithmetic sequence, prove that one of the interior angles must be 60 degrees. And yesterday, who knows where you dug up some classical Chinese text for me to translate... Alas, Chen Sheng and Wu Guang were just ordinary soldiers, they were on their way to garrison duty... it was raining heavily, the road was impassable... Can't you two speak in plain language? Why do you have to use classical Chinese?"

  "Son, look at your old man, I still have so many math problems to do, and there are also some classical Chinese texts that haven't been translated yet. Recently, your aunt even suggested that I write a few essays to practice my writing skills. It's really busy, sigh... otherwise, let's put this English translation on hold for now?"

  "Grandpa, grandpa look at dad, he's not studying English properly again." Seeing that her old man wasn't listening, Liu Shuangxi immediately took out the magic sword.

  "Ah, you little stinker, how come your son is learning English and it's like a burden to you? Look at your level, it's almost letting my grandson surpass you. It's just translating a small paragraph, what's so difficult about it? I used to see your Uncle Tong speaking with foreigners, not a single word was misunderstood, can't you learn properly? The high school entrance exam is coming up soon, let you study and prepare more... (omitted 8000 words, this chapter can be considered as a 10,000-word chapter) Alright, alright, you work with Guoli together, I'll take Shuangxi out to play for a bit, and come back later to check on your progress." Now Liu Lao's words are absolutely effective, especially when it comes to his son's studies. As a result, Liu Guoli, who was watching the commotion from the side, also got scolded.

  Alas, it's a bitter life. It's fine that I'm being controlled when I was the son, but now that I'm the father, why do I still need to be controlled by my son? Every day is like being a student again. At this time, Liu Guoqing didn't know yet how lucky he was to have such an accurate teacher who could grasp the topic, compared to other examinees.

  Yes, our Double Seventh Brother relied on his incomplete memory of the 77 high school entrance exam to calmly start Golden Fingers and find some high school entrance exam questions that he could remember from many review materials. This little butterfly wants to change its fate, starting with its own father.

  Note 1: This article is purely fictional, and in reality, children under the age of 5 should not start learning a foreign language. It's better to wait until they are at least 5 years old, otherwise it may cause more harm than good. You can search for this topic on Google for more information.

  Note 2: Due to the starting format, spaces cannot be added in words. For convenience, extra symbols are used to separate sentences.