我是1956年从北京大学物理系毕业的,中学时学的是英语,到了大学改学俄语,大学三四年级时,对俄语特别感兴趣,每天要花上三、四小时。可是我的学年论文和毕业论文指导老师是美国芝加哥大学的博士叶笃正教授,他曾任科学院副院长,并曾荣获联合国气象奖和国家最高科学技术奖。他说他不会俄语,只会英语,要求我在半年内读完十几篇英文文献,写出详细的读书报告,然后才可以开始做毕业论文,不可以讨价还价,没有商量余地。我被逼上梁山,硬着头皮,又重新开始学习英语,经过半年的拼搏,终于勉力完成了任务,可见人往往是逼出来的,学习外语尤其如此。 I graduated from the Physics Department of Peking University in 1956. I studied English in my junior high school and switched to Russian at university. When I was in the third and fourth years of college, I was particularly interested in Russian and spent three or four hours a day. However, my school year thesis and graduation thesis instructor is the doctor of the University of Chicago, Professor Ye Yongzheng, he was the vice president of the Academy of Sciences, and won the United Nations Meteorological Award and the highest national science and technology award. He said that he would not be able to speak Russian and would only speak English. He asked me to read more than a dozen English-language documents within six months and write a detailed reading report before they could start a dissertation. They could not bargain, and they had no room for negotiation. I was forced to work on Liang Shan and bite my head again. I started to learn English again. After six months of hard work, I finally completed the task with patience. It is obvious that people are often forced out, especially in learning a foreign language.