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Since I am a student from FLL department, I would like to share the fasciation about language. It all started from the interesting scene I saw happened to my grandmother. My grandmother is an old lady that had never finished her elementary school. Her education level is high, not to mention her language ability. She does not speak Mandarin Chinese but only be capable of casting a few words, let alone her English proficiency. She basically does not understand English at all. However, once a Dutch lady visited my parents and we offered them dinner. My grandma came to talk to the lady and started to chat with her. They went to the garden and chatted about the plants she grows. They seemed to have a really good time out there. (Keep in mind that my grandma doesn’t speak English.) When I went out to see what they were talking, it is purely amazing what they were doing. They were talking entirely different things! My grandma introduced Chinese squash(絲瓜) to the Dutch lady was complimenting her on the garden saying that this is gorgeous. Do you see what happened there? It is the /g/ sound that links the conversation altogether.
From this experience, I understood that language is a means to communicate with people. Even when we are not capable of getting 100% proficiency of a language, it is always worthy of a try to speak it. In Taiwan, most students lack confidence to speak a foreign language when facing a stranger; however, language is should not be treated this way. How we learn a language actually harms the way we treat it. If more people could treat a foreign language as a communicative tool to connect, I believe the English proficiency level in Taiwan will improve a lot. Let’s hope that day will arrive soon.

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我是一位外語系的學生，我想要分享一則關於語言魅力的故事。在幾年前我看到一件很有趣的事發生在我奶奶身上。奶奶過去沒有完成國小教育，她教育程度並不是非常高，並不用提語言能力了。奶奶不太會說中文，只知道一些常用的中文字，而英文對她來說是豆芽字，一竅不通。曾經有位荷蘭太太來到我家，吃完晚飯後奶奶與那位外國訪客到庭院散步聊天，她們談論到奶奶在庭院種的植物，看起來聊得十分愉快。（請記得，奶奶不會說英文）我很訝異，所以走出去看她們在說什麼，這才發現她們相處方式多麽有趣，他們說的是完全不同的東西呀！奶奶和荷蘭太太介紹著她種的絲瓜，而荷蘭太太說奶奶照顧的庭院很gorgeous（美好）。發現到什麼特別的嗎？是的，只有/g/這個聲音把他們所講的對話串連起來而已。
從這個經驗，我了解到語言是一個與人溝通的方式，有時我們無法完全精通一個外國語言，但無妨可以嘗試說出來。在台灣多數學生沒有自信與一個陌生人說出非母語的語言，但是語言不應該被如此對待。我們從小學習的方式反而傷害了我們對待外語的方式，若是我們能夠真正的把語言當作與人們連結的工具，我相信台灣的英文程度能夠提升很多。我們一起期待那天早點到來！