NCE is not a proper textbook for daily communications

NCE has been compliled more academic style. It touches everything a little bit, but in our daily communication, we need to say food names, we need to deal bills with phone/cable/water/electricity comapnies, we need to discuss with other parent how kids are doing, and we need to discuss how the our work is going.

If you are in US, and need a basic skill of English communications, you can put back your NCE on the top shelf so you won't see it accidentally. There is one person's experience that would work for all people living in US: first, write down what you want to say, look up the dictionary and make sure all words checked for the pronounciation, and practice those sentences, and use them at your phone calls and meetings. You also need to recall what you have missed after the phone call and meetings, and make the effort to say them correctly later. This way, you will see the direct impact of the improvement. You practice your English skill in the life living context.

At the beginning, all the effort is to say the content words correctly, and ignore the past tense kind of grammatical issues. Just say the content words to express what you want to say. After you could say content words correctly for your daily routine, then try to use the function words like "want", :like", etc, and then try to be active to ask questions in your daily life..

After you are confident in your daily communication, now, if you still remember where your NCE is, take it down, recite some lessons for fun.

The reason that students who master NCE well but cannot handle daily communications is NCE does not focus on those trivial stuffs for you. NCE gives all kinds of best essays for you to read, it looks very nice, but we need to salt and soy sauce to cook meals to fill our stomach.

The important sentence I need most: your number is not right to me, I have this number in my mind, would you agree on my number?

I hope this will answer some people's puzzles on chniese English learning.