My Language Levels
Foreword
I’m multilingual - Russian, German, French, English, Esperanto, Greek, Latin and Hebrew in the order of the start time of learning and at different levels. With my multilinguistic capability I am very competitive in serving the international communities. And multilinguistic has long become a special character of mine. In fact language skills , although no more my career orientation, are still one of my strong points and will remain to be one of my qualifications for my career, studies, researches and business.
I started to learn foreign languages very young and by 20, I was able to use 5 languages – English, German, French, Russian and Esperanto, among them, only German and Russian was learned from classes while the rest – French, English and Esperanto was totally my own initiative. Since then I have never stopped learning these languages over the long long period. I have special enthusiasm for German, German literature, science and the German nation. I am reading German daily and particularly those books written by famous German novelists such as Thomas Mann, Günther Grass and of course Goethe and Schiller. And since 2007 I have even added two other languages to my competence list – Greek and Latin. I have superb learning capacity.
I started to learn foreign languages at 14, but I have not shown any special talent nor any interest in language learning at the beginning of my university days after well three to four years when I have completed my German studies. Only afterwards I was very much attracted by foreign languages and their cultures and by end 1983 I have already completed the studies of basic languages skills of English, German, French, Russian and even Esperanto, a universal and man-made language. Among them, only German and Russian was learned from classes while the rest – French, English and Esperanto were totally my own initiative.
I started to learn Russian – my first foreign language – in July 1974 at high school at home. At that time it was the popular foreign language in China. I did quite well at it, and could get a fairly good score in an entry exam to University four years later in July 1978. But I have not shown any special talent in language learning after well three to four years in about 1981 when I have completed my German studies at Tongji University.
After finishing my schools, I’ve never stopped learning foreign languages and reading their literatures for a single days, to maintain at least or even to improve them a little bit. For example I was able to work in a number of foreign companies of nationalities of the U.S., U.K., Germany, France and several others, so at that time period I was able also to practice thus to improve my spoken English, German, and French. Around 1991/2 I passed an IELTS done at the British Embassy in Beijing with an overall score of 7.0 – which is considered high as the highest is 10.0 - and my oral score was even 9.0 and the examiner commented my oral English as “near native”.
But in all I have not made major progress in all of these languages, either in depth or in width. I’ve not tried to learn more languages nor to learn more sophisticated linguistics such as literatures.
And since 2007 I have even added three more languages to my competence list – Latin, Greek and Hebrew, simply out of my desire to study middle age Latin and ancient Greek science literature - all great scientists must have good command of Latin and Greek, as well as Hebrew Scripture for preparations of theological studies.
Since then I have never stopped learning these languages over the long long period. I will continue to read literatures and some of the other cultural relics to keep my language level not declining too quickly.
Ironically I didn’t like foreign languages at all at the beginning of my university days, but some time around the early 80’s, suddenly I found foreign languages very fun, and ever since I have been keeping learning these languages – English, German, French and Russia – occasionally also some others – till now. It’s part of my life now.
Learning other languages makes me also capable of enjoying other cultures. By mastering the prevailing world languages, I am freely accessibly to all information of the outside world so that nobody can prevent me from knowing the truth and true world (unless there is a free access), just like mastering the IT technologies has enabled me to fully manipulate the virtual world, although I don't need to be a linguist or an IT industrialist.
My foreign language level has even become a sign to differentiate from the rest of world, as a character of mine. Each time I am introduced to new friends, they always say oh Mr Chen can speak several languages, great! And they wonder how I can manage them without confusion.
Foreign Language Studies
Every student starts learning a foreign language in China after their primary school.
At my days we all were learning Russian, although China and the Soviet Union were fighting for more than a decade since the early 60's. Apparently there was no alternatives - english, german, french all capitalistic, Japan our traditional rivalry and what else ?
I don't have talent in language - I was a shy, taciturn and introvert boy. To speak chinese makes me even uneasy in some cases, not talking foreign languages. It is completely a mistake to work in that direction, but no other choices.
Enrolled at Tongji, I continued my Russian studies, and my scores were quite good. I was able to read some scientific literature such as math, physics. I studied for a semester then as you know I was regrouped in a german class. After the german class, I continued my Russian studies, and at the same time also my german studies during my bachelor studies from 1978 to 1983.
At that time, learning materials were scarcely to be found. I went to the foreign language bookstore at Fuzhou Road not far from the People's Square, and bought whatever was available. I also went to the Shanghai Library located at the end of the East Nanjing Road close to the Square to find any german literature.
About two years before graduation in 1981, I found people were all learning english, was also found that english is more popular and useful than my languages. If I couldn't learn english, it might be difficult to survive in the world. And I turned to english, and happily to find it much easier to learn, especially if you have already learned russian and german whose grammars were much more complex than english. For example, russian and german verbs, adjectives have to be changed along with the subjects, english have not such necessary or much simpler. The "Nebensatz" or subordinate sentences are very complicated in german, and many times I would simply forget to put the verbs at then end in speaking. The prepositions are also sophisticated, and even today they make me headaches.
There are no other tips as reading, writing, speaking and listening if you want to command a language. I read every book I can found, newspaper, magazines, radio and so on. And you must learn it in an intensive and fast pace - I remembered about 50 new words a day. And a book took me normally a week or so for a quick reading. Of course, I will come back later, perhaps more than once, or never if this is only a light reading. Nowadays, my learning speed is even faster. I remember the Spring Festival day in 1992, when I have to stay in Shenzhen, I managed to finish reading an english novel of 500 pages in a day or two. And in 1999-2000 period, very often I bought a IT book of 300 pages, and the next morning, it was a old book - hence I vowed never to buy IT books ever since.
If you try to learn a language by "Daily Collection and Monthly Accumulation" approach, I would say, the failure rate will be high. It is my firm view that to accomplish something you have to be quick and decisive. A moment's hesitation means a total retreat in many cases.
After six months' diligent studies, my english level caught up with others' and I was thinking about other languages - french. In fact, I tried japanese, but the strange characters (like old chinese signs) prevented my learning desire. French was much more difficult. Particularly the pronunciation. Without a good teacher you have difficulties to learn that language. The techniques in english learning cannot be simply implanted into french. I was too confident in learning languages so I attended no school and very seldom listened to radio, cassettes or conversed with french speaking people.
Nevertheless, I ventured to conquer that language, one year before my bachelor graduation. At the same time, I also started learning Esperanto, an artificial language invented by a polish doctor in the late 19's century. Esperanto combines the grammar, vocabularies and syntaxes of the major european languages and therefore is easy to learn, but easy to forget as well, because its use is rarely to be found. I have no single word of Esperanto now, as with Russian.
As your language base becomes larger and larger, your time spent on learning, maintaining and improving those languages will be more and more. More than 1/3 of my time has been devoted to languages and sometime I found it not worthwhile.
During my postgraduate studies, I continued my studies in English, German and French but forgot all others. I couldn't manage the others. If I don't want to be a linguist then stop there.
I have studied relatively more languages, not for immigrating to other countries. Like many other colleagues, I am also not keen to leave China for a better life in western countries. By mastering the prevailing world languages, I am freely accessibly to all information of the outside world so that nobody can cheat me. Just like mastering the IT technologies has opened the information age in front of me, although I don't need to be a linguist or an IT industrialist.
Now language skills are still one of my strong points and will remain to be one of my qualifications for my career and daily life. It's fun to learn a language and a culture.
Languages - Tools for Understanding Other Cultures
Languages - either spoken or in writing - are the most important instruments of mankind for understanding other people of the same race or other races, and to the daily life. Without languages no mankind.
The first language which I knew is of course my mother language, the language my mother spoke or speaks before and after my birth and also now. It's not the native language - the mandarin or the dialect of my hometown though. The mother language is the most important language in my whole private life.
Then the family language, which comes a little different from the dialect in my hometown, as every family has its own language. The dialect is also a language which I can never forget. Our dialect is covered in the surrounding areas of the so-called WU culture region, an area that includes the southern Jiangsu province, Shanghai and the northern Zhejiang province. Within this region man can understand each other without much difficulty. Nevertheless there are hundred of variations - the smaller or larger - among different counties, towns even villages.
Mandarin (Putonghua) is the legal language of China, which origins from the north. Mandarin is being used through my life and career in China.
The first "foreign language" was the Russian, which I started to learn in 1976. Until 1989 I can still read Russian literature, but I nearly know no single Russian word now. That is very unfortunate. Russia is one of the greatest countries in the world. I believe, in few years Russia will become strong again.
The second foreign language is now the German, which I have studies and used very intensively ever since 1979. But my writing abilities and speaking are now only about 40-50% of my best time (around 1989).
English comes already very late. One year before my graduation from university study I decided to learn English. I was of the opinion, without English one can't survive, although I had already rather good Russian and German. Within half a year I had a quite reasonable English already, And what's more, I took the entry exam of master degree where I chose English as foreign language, not German.
I have also strong desire for French however it sounds difficult to me. From 1982 I began to study French, however my french level is not high. At my best time I can only understand 70% spoken French, now I can only read the simplest french literature.
In the the 80's years I have also tried several other languages, like Esperanto, Japanese, but the attempt did not last long. After the graduation in 1983 and 1989 I have hardly time to learn other languages. Then I have also scarcely time to improve the existing languages.
Languages are not my specialty, but they took me 1/4 - 1/3 of my time, and now perhaps a little more (50%).
English
I have learned English completely by my own without attending a single class. I began to learn English in 1982 just a year before graduation. It was the fourth foreign language after Russian, German and French. Only half year later I was able to take English entry exam for postgraduate studies, and was able to read and understand English without much difficulty. I have learned it by many ways – reading a lot, listening a lot (at that time mainly the VOA and BBC radios now rarely able to be received via radios), and practiced a lot.
After school English was very much my second language at works, as my first job was dealing with import of US power generation equipment technologies at the Ministry of Machinery Industry in Beijing. And later I was able to show my excellent English levels to many people in the multinational companies where I used to work.
I have passed an IELS test with a score of 7.0 and my oral score was 9.0, a near native level. Thus around the 1990’s my oral English was fairly good.
English is now almost my working language, as I mostly read English everyday, much more than my native language of Chinese. I have about 30,000 words in mind and can write English with prior preparation of Chinese. That is to say, I think in English too. Many dreams are made in English as well – I often talk in English with people in my dreams. Many times it’s more comfortable to communicate and write English than my native language.
German
My previous German proficiency used to be over English while working at German companies, but now it drops to the 2nd position.
I can fairly understand youtube videos upto 70%, depending on the contents of the talking. Speaking and writing would not impose great challenges if the topic is familiar. I can also write German directly without using Chinese as an intermediate language.
My German studies were started in 1979 when Tongji University has assembled the 200 elite students from all the faculties and fortunately I was one of them (I was considered among the top 50 of the University’s thousands of students at that time). These 200 students have been organized into special classes exclusively devoted to the studies of German language and cultures for a year. Many teachers came from Germany such as the Universität Ruhr-Bochum, and even after the one-year intensive German lectures, many courses were still taught in German, for example my Physics, Mathematics (Algebra), German history were taught in German, partly at least, or as a supplementary. After the school, I’ve never stopped learning German wherever I went.
There was one time I wanted to exclusively devote to German literature studies, ca around 2007, when my solar, business aviation and all other businesses failed. I also used to have a plan to devote completely to the studies and teaching of German literature, therefore I have learned quite intensively the German literature from Classic to Post-modern.
I was a member of the Society of German Language (Verein Deutsche Sprache VDS).
Why German ???
Germany was in the forefront of science, technology and culture in the period of the mid 16th to early 20th century and now it is unfortunately lagging behind the US mainly in the computer, software, space, and biotechnology. German products are declared to be good quality - not so nowadays - and German people are reliable - the same deterioration as their products now.
Nevertheless, with her well-educated population, good natural resources and climate, her cultural, technological and scientific treasures, Germany is still and will be continue to lead the world in somewhere or other.
German is much more difficult to learn, partly because of her complicated grammar. I have still difficulties with her prepositions and the "Nebensatz" in speaking. Very difficult to compose a complicated word when speaking ...
Regardless of the above, German is my most favored foreign language. I began to study foreign language in 1976, at that time it was Russian. My German studies were started in 1979 when Tongji University has assembled the 200 elite students from all the faculties and fortunately I was one of them (I was considered among the top 50 of the University at that time). These 200 students have been organized into special classes with the only courses of German language and cultures for a year. Many teachers came from Germany such as the Universität Ruhr-Bochum, and even after the one-year intensive German lectures, many courses were still taught in German, for example my Physics, Mathematics (Algebra), German history were taught in German, partly at least, or as a supplementary. After the school, I’ve never stopped learning German wherever I went.
There was one time I wanted to exclusively devote to German literature studies, ca around 2007, when my solar, business aviation and all other businesses failed. But I also failed to get some assistance or jobs from German institutions such as Goethe Institut, therefore I abandoned the idea shortly after.
German Class/Deutsche Klasse (1979-1980)
German Class
(1979-1980)
Only after a semester of studies at Tongji University, Shanghai, then I was transferred to a German Language Study Class (GLSC), or German Class for short, together with other four classmates of our Department of Mechanics.
Among the five of us, three of us kept in contact until 2001 when I moved from Beijing to Hangzhou, a long friendship of about 23 years. I was very sad to have stopped that relations. I wish someday we will resume the friendship.
One of the five transferees was a lady much elder than us, therefore I didn't know her anything. I can't remember her now.
Mr. Wu Tianyi departed me in 1986 or so when I came back to Shanghai from Beijing. He was teaching at Shanghai Electric Power College. Soon after he left for the U.S. and we lost contacts forever.
Dr. Liu is residing in Guangdong and is a CEO of a publicly traded enterprises, and finally, Mrs. Wu is a editor-in-chief of a german car magazine published in China.
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There were two classes, one from students enrolled in the 1978 spring season and the other in the 1978 fall semester. I belonged to the later.
As I learned later, the GLSC was a program of the Uni to train german language for students who shall be sent to Germany later. The elder lady was one of them, but the rest 4 didn't get that chance.
Of course, the GLSC was not the only tunnel to pass through to other countries. In fact, most other colleagues went overseas in one way or other, most to North America, not Germany.
Nevertheless, the GLSC gave people a chance to learn a foreign language intensively. During the one-year course period, no other courses were studied, even politics was removed from the program. Starting from pronunciation and ending at speaking, I was happy to know a 2nd language apart from my Russian learned in high school. Although frankly speaking, I knew nothing about the use of these languages. In fact, the whole mission of study at university was very ambiguous - except I knew that one day I may become a scientist, an engineer or even a politician (the last objective was the only purpose why chinese students went to school). But I had no ideas that skills learned at university shall first be used to get a job to earn money to survive and later to prosper in the world.
I still can remember vividly the classes, teachers and colleagues in the classrooms, located in the backyard of the campus, close to the laboratory of thermal science.
I went up very early, at about 6:30 every morning, to speak German in a fresh air. I have been to every grass field, every corner of the campus to find a proper place to speak out. I don't want to people to watch my reading. Sometime we came together with others.
Our books were plumb printed, looked plain but they introduced me to a new world - a world that influenced my life and career forever.
The University invited several teachers from west Germany's Ruhr Bochum University. They taught mathematics, physics, german geology, german history and other courses in German.
We had two chinese teachers too. Of them was a lady, a very nice lady, patient, tender and excellent in speaking. The male teacher looked very pleasant too.
A year passed very quickly. I was redistributed to other department (the Department of Mechanical Engineering) with our remaining three classmates from the Dept of Mechanics whence I came from.
But I never stopped learning German ever since, even today.
German Literature Studies (2007)
There was time when I wanted to devote to German language and literature studies and researches, but I gave the plan up after failure to find a research institute to support my plan, such as Goethe Institute. Nevertheless I have spent quite some efforts to study the German literature and to prepare for that studies – see the GermanLiterature.doc attached.
Deutsche Ecke (DE) (German Corner, German Practice Club)
I have organized a German Club some time in 2002-2003.
Late April (in 2002 perhaps), when I was talking with a girl in the Zhejiang library for a translation and teaching opportunity, an idea suddenly come up: to organize a German corner in Hangzhou.
I learned later, there were once two german corners in the city, one in the Zhejiang university and the other in the Shuren university, all disbanded because of lack of participants. I asked why. People learning german feared difficult to find jobs and the previous corners didn't provide chances for information exchange for jobs and other concerns.
Now I will organize one to cater those needs. My german corner will be well prepared, well organized.
First, german people will be invited to the corner in each session (about once a week). These german people come mostly from the industry, some also as teachers or students. They will provide german lessons, history, art, music, science, geography, living and study in Germany etc, everything about Germany and german language. They will improve our speaking; they will probably provide job opportunities;
And further we hope the german industries will sponsor our activities, in turn we will try to promote their companies, and their products.
During each session, various topics will be talked, personal life, culture, art, traditions, cuisines, travel etc.
The group will also move around the city. Up at mountain tips, down on the Westlake, here at cafe shops, there in a teehouse. Or in an open garden. I have already made a candidate meeting places, some costing money, some free.
In my plan, we will held a German Week so something to promote the german presence in the province. Germany's Schleswig Holstein state is the partner state with Zhejiang. But development of economic ties is mostly stagnating. Few companies from Germany enter into the soil of the province. They like Shanghai more.
I sent out invitations to german companies I found from AHS Shanghai. Mr Thomas Gut of SurTec responded. He was enthusiastic and we met the next day, together with their four, at the StarBucks, an expensive but nice coffee shop. That was the first and only meeting of my planed german corner. It was not well organized, people seemed a bit nervous and Mr Gut was the suspect in front of the police officers. We kept asking him questions while others remained silent, esp. the young girls.
After that meeting I have planning another event, trying to get feedback from my friends. Like my emails to Chinese solar suppliers, they got no replies. I was despaired once again, for I was spending my time preparing for the meeting which is good to others. What they want ?
I was soon discouraged and told another, senior level german teacher to take over the task and then retreated.
At the moment, a certain Mr Zhou from SAR is managing the case. He told me he also has got no replies from his participants.
French
I started to learn French in 1992 almost at the same time with my English learning. I did alone too. French seems more difficult than English especially its spelling and pronunciation. Frankly speaking my French level is not good, although I used to be able to speak a little while working at French company (Alstom, 1996-1997), but I have never reached a level compatible with those of English or German. Now I can only read French literature but still difficult to understanding the talking.
The motivation to learn French was the desire of reading French novels in their original tongues. During the time of my job at Alstom my French was much better, though.
Esperanto
I have learned Esperanto – one of the man-made universal language – sometime in 1983, just days before graduation. Later on I forgot it and now I have no intention to renew it. Whether or not I will catch it up, I have no idea yet. I will take decision when my studies of Greek, Hebrew and Latin will come to an end. Of course, Japanese, Spanish and Arabic have already come to my mind, but that’s years away!
Some time I consider it absurd to learn a language of another nationality and in the end I shall only use a world language that is most likely Esperanto. There are hundreds of world languages, but I don’t want to research which one is the best for me, because Esperanto is the one I learned the earliest and so far the only world language.
Russian
Russian was my first foreign language and I began my Russian study at middle school in 1994. In 1980 my Russian level was at its peak when I was able to read scientific books in Russian. But later I have completely ignored it and suddenly in 2007 I found it impossible to even pronounce the Russian words. It terrified me and I decided to recover my Russian proficiency to a degree of the 1980’s, i.e. to read simple scientific literature. Now two years later, after some hesitation – there was time when I did want to maintain my language proficiency other than English – I could catch up with the Russian level a bit. And now I can of course pronounce Russian words and sentences but although can understand simple Russian texts. Another year is needed to fully recover my previous level.
Greek
I started learning Greek in 2008 when I was trying to study ancient Greek literature and science books such as those of Euclid’s Elements, because I found the English translation very dull. I guess it does not transmit the true meaning of the originals and especially those subtle implicit meanings which are difficult to be translated to other languages. The plan was stopped for half a year, but now I am solid enough to finish my learning in about three years.
Latin
My idea to learn Latin was initiated when I was reading “the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy or Principia” by Isaac Newton. I tried both the English and Chinese translations but both were hard to read. And not only this, but also because I want to read original works of the greatest scientists in the time period of the 16th to mid 19th centuries where most scientific books were written in Latin.
Hebrew
It was mainly for understanding Hebrew Bible that I started the learning process. Right now I am still unable to write the Hebrew alphabet and it is extremely difficult to learn a language very different from all others. My another motive is to learn Hebrew (Jewish, Israelites) people who I consider as one of the two nations who have contributed to the world civilization in the human history – the another is Greek.
My Higher Education at Foreign Universities
I was admitted into – though not enrolled because of my private engagement with a lady from Taiwan - PhD & higher degrees programs of several high profile universities around the world at the early 1990s, such as the University of Glasgow (PhD for gas turbine combustion research, 1991) and several others (University of Paris VII, Université Laval, Université de Provence, Universität Gesamthochschule Essen), and was ready to pursue a Harvard MPA (1996), but abandoned. These facts also help demonstrate my language skills in English, German and French. Unfortunately I don’t have the records for Glasgow and Harvard.
My University Transcripts
These can also show some kind of evidence of my English, German and Russian lessons I have taken, although but a weak prove.
My Language Tests
I have passed an IELTS test at the British Embassy in Beijing in 1992 with a score of 7.0 and my oral score was 8.0, a near native level. My two TOEFL scores were all around 590, taken almost at the same time periods. Thus around the 1990’s my oral English was fairly good.
Enclosed you will also find my ILETS and TOEFL test scores of the earlier years. I took TOELF for preparing for US universities and IELTS for UK and other English speaking countries. These tests were of course taken very early, but that does not mean my English level has been degrading, just on contrary.
My Working at Multinational Corporations
I was able to work in a number of foreign companies of nationalities of the U.S., U.K., Germany, France and several others between 1989 to 1999 (ref. my CV), so at that time period I was able also to practice thus to improve my spoken English, German, and French. I have written lots of working reports at that time, mostly in English, some in German.
My Linguistic Services
Since long I have been also providing some kinds of linguistic services to the industries, businesses and also my friends with my language skills.
I used to be also an interpreter/translator for my foreign colleagues while working at the multinational corporations in addition to my engineering and management functions. The total length of this service amounts to more than 10 years.
Now I am more or less focusing on IT related linguistic services, that is globalization and localization of websites, software, databases, multimedia and other forms of IT related materials.
My clients include names such as
Beijing Global Strategy Ltd. – English / French
Braun (Shanghai) – English
Eiden & Schmidt Hangzhou Representative Office - German
GE – English
Vorwerk - German
Translation as Voluntary Work or Hobby
I’ve also translated several Christian texts from English into Chinese such as the one called “CLASS NOTES FOR NT THEOLOGY: SALVATION” as a voluntary work at the Church. As another voluntary work at the church I have organized and held a free English lecture while in Hangzhou. These were about 2005. When our fellow Christians from other parts of the world, I have also provided voluntary interpretation services in English or German.
In addition to the services rendered to people of various background, I have also done some translation for my own pleasure, such as the translation of some short German novels into Chinese around 1982, and possibly from Russian and Esperanto into Chinese as well at the same time period.
My Writings – Academic, Technical, Business, Sociopolitical and Others
I write a lot, mostly in English, for business, for researches, for private communications, before, at the present and in the future.
During the 2003-2016 period, I’ve written hundreds or even thousands of research and study notes amounting to tens of thousands of pages, almost all in English, some in German, in various topics of science, engineering, languages, business and politics.
I did not publish my academic writing results because none of these researches and writing are sponsored by any universities, institutions, other academic organizations and funds, for all of thousands of these organizations and professors have rejected my research incentives in the past. On the other hand, most of them are just my study aides or daily records, with exception of the business reports that are specifically prepared for a special purpose. Therefore they are mostly not written with the purpose of publication in mind. And my writing is to large extent only my hobby, for my own amusement, not for showing the world how capable I am. However, they are not necessary meant to be in low quality and just on contrary, they can be compatible with most published papers on the market.
My English ChinaSolar and ChinaPower reports
I have written and sold more than 8000 pages of English reports of the solar energy and power industries to some great organizations and companies during the 2003-2007 period alone.
My clients were:
Bayer
BP Solar ???
Ecosolar
HOLLEIS
IMI
JP Morgan ???
Mannesmann
Saint Gobain
Tasmania
Wacker Chemicals
Apart from these official reports, it is also me who initiate the business plans, the business contracts and all kinds of things involved in the business transactions inside and outside the business operations, all in English.
My Websites
I have developed a website about Chinese solar industry www.solaires.com (obsolete long ago) – also in English (for a very short period even with 4 languages – EN, DE, FR, and CN) between 2003 to 2007, which was referred by the best names in the international solar communities – such as NREL/DOE (the National Renewable Energy Labs of the US Department of Energy, at that time DOE listed me as one of the solar PV experts), ISES (International Solar Energy Society) and lots of others. At that time that solar portal was the most popular website about Chinese solar industry.
Apart from the solar portals I have developed hundreds of other websites for my own uses, for businesses and studies.
Behind these websites they are many times more efforts involved in the relevant business areas, all done in English – gathering information, translating from one language to another, preparing for business deals, and following up aftersales, just to name a few, exactly like doing business in an English speaking environment, for decades.
In addition to developing my own web presence, I of course shall visit hundreds of thousands of websites of all sorts in English and other languages. Literally I will view hundreds of websites per day.
Development of Software Applications
I haven’t developed any commercial software yet, but I have developed some web scrapers for my own uses in Java, Python and several other development environments such as .net, c/c++, golang. nodejs and perl. These applications are all in English and were used to collect information from the web for later analysis. Of course they can also be used for commercial purpose, but I don’t want to commercialize them, for fear that someone may use them for other illegal purposes.
Lots of Reading
I read a lot. Over the last decades I have been reading at a pace of about 100 pages a day of various kinds of materials – mostly scientific papers, books, but also literature, business, social-political, leisure books etc, in English mostly, but occasionally in other languages, very seldom in my own language of Chinese. The only Chinese novel I am reading is the “Red Dream” (they call it Red Mansion but my translation is more accurate) of Cao Xueqing. This is I think one of the greatest works of Chinese and world literature. My current reading is restricted to modem IC design, satellite broadband, communications technology and English literature. I’ve stopped reading German and French literature about two months ago, because I don’t know whether or not I shall still maintain my competences in these languages, as my future career is science oriented, not linguistic oriented. Currently I have no chance to work with people from these nations.
And now come to the most promising part:
Testimonials
Many people praise my skills and experiences, incl. also my language skills, for example:
“In China, you can hardly find someone else who can write better English reports from a local hand”
Commented by Mr Gilbert Van Kerckhove, my former boss at Alstom Shanghai and now my friend and benefactor, also a friend of the King of Belgium and one of the most favored foreign expatriates of the Government of China.
“ the most talented of my colleague mates…”
Wu Tianyi, currently at Citi Corp New York. He is surprised at my language ability and talents. (Sept 2014)
“Thank you for your beautifully written email (a rare treat in these days of hurriedly written communications!) re the Real Estate China Monthly Reports. …Thank you, though, for letting me know about your publication and I wish you every success with what sounds like a very interesting project. “
Caroline Chapple, Editor, Reita.org, the British Property Federation (May 27, 2010)
“A solar PV expert”
NREL of the US Dept of Energy (2005- 2007)
“News from SPI's solar energy information is the best resources I can ever find in China regarding all the latest solar news, investment overview, policies and etc. in English. Colleagues from our worldwide subsidiaries depend much on this issue to know China’s market. Some news even help us directly on sales and investment.”
Johnny Young, Market Analyst, Saint-Gobain (China) Investment Co., Ltd. (2005-2006)
SPI (Solaires Power International, www.solaires.com, now obsolete): a business name I have used over that period.
“Thanks a lot for September Report. I was really surprised to read so many detailed information. I also send you this email as I do have a question...”
Christophe Jasnot, V&M Deutschland Beijing (2005-2007)