回复：My hat off for you.

YuGong,

I appreciate your concern as much as the support you have given me in the past months.

As a matter of fact, I have been expecting questions like the ones you just asked. The reason that I turned back to the very basics is that it turned out that I haven't really grasped the fundamentals yet. When one is not able to walk well, normally s/he won't be able to run well. Being able to read out complicated articles loudly and smoothly doesn't guarranttee the fluency in basic skills. This is always true at least for me.

If I really want to get rid of Chinese accent in English speaking, I got to really get the essence of all the three properties of spoken American English: intonation, liaison, and pronunciation. The simplest and most basic material, like English 900, serves this purpose the best. With this Text and audio, I will have more time to work on each single sentence, and to learn all the above mentioned three parts in each sentence the best I could.

It would be a more meaningful success than the improvement I got in reading New Concept English II if at the time I finish this series, I could by myself read any one of these 900 sentences with a perfect American accent. (This is a little too ambitious, I know, but I will be doing my best toward achieving it in the coming months.)

I am not sure if I have explained my points clearly so far. If you knew what a struggle it was when I read the last 1/3 of NCE II, you would easily understand why I am so determined to go back to a lower level now.

It'll be only three months, and we will see then.

Thanks again. You have a nice week and a great year!

北京二号