At 14:00 in the afternoon, the plane took off on time and flew directly to Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

At an altitude of 10,000 meters, Xu Xincheng looked at the white clouds outside the window and the horizon in the distance, and could not hide the excitement in his heart.

For this day, he paid a lot and crossed one hurdle after another, among which, for him, the most difficult hurdle was the hurdle of spoken English.

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In the college entrance examination, Xu Xincheng could have applied for more prestigious institutions of higher learning such as Sun Yat-sen University and Fudan University with his results, but in order to realize his dream of traveling the world on his sixth birthday, he knew that he had to learn English as best he could.

Compared with Beijing and Shanghai, he prefers Guangdong, the birthplace of China's reform and opening up, the spirit of innovation and the open culture here.Chinese Chinese

Coupled with the experience of coming to Guangzhou during the winter vacation of the first year of junior high school, Guangzhou is more intimate for him, because this is the place where the seed of the dream in his heart takes root and sprouts.

So, when filling in the volunteer, without the slightest hesitation, in the column of the college he applied for, he filled in "Guangdong University of Foreign Studies", and the professional column, "Business English".

Although his English score in the college entrance examination is as high as 145 points, Xu Xincheng knows very well that he also has the biggest common problem of hundreds of millions of Chinese students, that is, he can only take exams, but his English application ability is very poor, especially spoken English, which is the most difficult hurdle for most Chinese students to break through and overcome.

Before entering the school, he was mentally prepared, he knew that compared with his classmates in the big city, there would be a gap in his English application and speaking ability, but when he found that the gap was much bigger than he imagined, he was still psychologically devastated.

From the first day of his freshman year, he discovered a chain of English contempt: students studying in first-tier cities have better English application and speaking skills than students studying in second-tier cities, while students studying in second-tier cities have better English application and speaking skills than students studying in third-tier cities, and so on.

Studying in an 8th-tier city, he is at the very end, and his English application ability and spoken English are extremely poor compared with those students studying in first-tier cities.

He still clearly remembers that on the first day of his freshman year, in the first class, in the English speaking class, the teacher asked the students to introduce themselves and their hometown in English, and the time was at least one minute, and the first person the teacher called was him.

After scoring 145 points in the college entrance examination English test, he couldn't say a few words, and because his pronunciation was extremely non-standard, almost none of his classmates understood what he said, which made the whole class laugh.

Every second of that minute was torment for him. He was annoyed and ashamed, and he longed to find a crack in the ground to get into.

However, he was indomitable, tenacious and tenacious, and he did not let himself sink, and after returning to his seat, he began to ponder in his heart: "Before, in order to take the exam, in order to get a good score in the college entrance examination, I spent all my time memorizing words and grammar, and spent all my time on "listening, reading and writing", and I didn't spend too much time on "speaking".

Moreover, all the previous English teachers, their own pronunciation was very non-standard, and they couldn't speak a few spoken words.

However, the situation is completely different now, now, there is no pressure of the college entrance examination, and there is such a good environment for learning speaking, there are the best learning materials in the library, and there are the best English teachers in the school, as long as I put in enough effort, I will definitely be able to learn oral well, I will definitely be able to!"

Xu Xincheng wrote in his notebook: "Goal: to reach the level of Native English Speaker within three years." ”

He wrote these words with all his secret strength, and the force was so great that he broke the paper.

Then, he began to figure out how to achieve this goal, and when the bell rang for class, he set himself a plan for 5,000 hours of English pronunciation and speaking, which he would complete in four years of college.

Since that day, Xu Xincheng insisted on stumbling on English every day, in addition to normal classes and study, and continuing to improve "listening, reading, writing and translating", on weekdays, the average time he spent struggling with English pronunciation and speaking was 3 hours, and on Saturdays, Sundays, holidays, winter and summer vacations, at least 10 hours a day.

He bought a small notebook and wrote down the study time of each day, each page was a month, and on the last day of each month, he would accumulate the total study time of the month and write it in the upper right corner of that page.

The total time spent in the first year of college is 2250 hours, the second year is 1030 hours, the third year is 1060 hours, and the fourth year, because he has been working in the AI division of Hongfei since the summer vacation of his junior year, so he can spend a lot less time on studying every day, however, he used the time to commute to and from work, take the bus and take the subway, the time to return to the dormitory after work, and the time on Saturdays and Sundays, or accumulated 660 hours of study time before graduating from college, and successfully realized the plan of 5000 hours of English pronunciation and speaking。

The torn notebook became his most precious keepsake, and Xu Xincheng hid it in the most secret and safe corner of the bookcase, and he would treasure it like a treasure for the rest of his life.

By the end of his freshman year, he had already crossed that hurdle and basically reached the level of standard fluency, and by the second half of his sophomore year, he was able to communicate freely with the United States and the United States and the United States with an extremely standard and fluent spoken English.

In the first semester of his junior year, he achieved that goal ahead of schedule, speaking at the level of a Native English Speaker," he scored an IELTS score of 8.5, and he also won the runner-up in the school-wide English speech competition.

General Manager Li once told him that his standard fluent spoken English was one of the most critical reasons why he was able to successfully pass the company's three rounds of interviews and finally win from more than 10,000 candidates.

When he received foreign guests who came to visit the company, they all thought that he was a returnee from the United States, and Peter, Rose and others who came from Silicon Valley for an interview also thought that he had studied in the United States at first.

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Today, he finally took the first step into the world, and a strong sense of joy and pride welled up in his heart.

Immersed in excitement and joy, he heard Lucy's voice ringing in his ears, "Steve, what's going on?"

Xu Xincheng quickly adjusted his somewhat excited mood at the moment, turned his head from the window, smiled at Lucy, and said, "Yes." The first time I went abroad, I was really excited. Lucy, do you remember the story I told you before, the story of my sixth birthday, and the dream I made that day to travel all over the world?"

Lucy smiled and said, "Remember. ”

He said with emotion: "Today is the first day I have practiced that dream, and the first day I have traveled all over the world. ”

"Steve, I'm so happy for you. ”

He said gratefully, "Lucy, I am so grateful to you, I am so grateful to you! Because of you, I have the opportunity to start living this dream of mine so quickly." "Every word he says is from the heart, and every word he says comes from the heart.

"Thanks, Steve, actually, the person you should be thankful for the most is yourself. That day, when you told me about your childhood dream, I knew that you were a person who dared to dream, dare to fight, and dare to realize your dreams.

Only such a person can constantly achieve self-breakthrough, self-improvement, and constantly realize his dreams, and only such a person can create good results, create brilliance, and even create miracles. ”