-Tuesday-
对话框回复“早安”或者“morning”，获取清晨元气满满的英文金句
开了挂的姑娘
最近一个叫萧靖彤的华裔女孩在国外的社交网络上刷屏了！
她凭借自己写的一封信就收到了美国常春藤所有高校的offer！是的，包括我们大多数人想都不敢想的哈佛大学、耶鲁大学……
In addition to being accepted to all Ivy League schools, she was also accepted to Stanford University, John Hopkins University, University of Southern California, Northwestern University and many others in the UC system.
除了常春藤联盟，她还收到其他很多名校的offer，例如斯坦福大学、约翰·霍普金斯大学、南加州大学、西北大学等。
Cassandra Hsiao was born in Malaysia. Her father is a Taiwanese and her mother is Malaysian. When she was five years old, they immigrated to the United States. When she came to the US, she often was laughed by her classmates for her poor English.
萧靖彤出生于马来西亚，父亲是中国台湾人，母亲是马来西亚人。她五岁时，举家移民美国。因为英语说得不太好，刚到美国时，她经常遭到同学们的嘲笑。
而她的那封信正与她的这段经历相关。究竟是怎样一封神作竟然打动常春藤的所有高校都为她递出了橄榄枝？
那封传说中的信
In our house, English is not English. Not in the phonetic sense, like short a is for apple, but rather in the pronunciation-in our house, snake is snack. Words do not roll off our tongues correctly-yet I, who was pulled out of class to meet with language specialists, and my mother from Malaysia, who pronounces film as flim, understand each other perfectly.
在我们家，英语不是英语，不是在语音意义上，比如a就是apple，而是发音上的。在我们家，“snake”会被读成“snack”。我们的舌头总是卷不对。我常被语言专家纠正发音，我妈妈来自马来西亚，她说“film”的时候总是发成“flim”，但是我们完全能听得懂对方。
In our house, there is no difference between cast and cash, which was why at a church retreat, people made fun of me for”cashing out demons.”
在我们家，“cast”（抛掷）和“cash”（兑现、现金）没有分别，这就是为什么在离开教堂时，人们常常取笑我“cashing out demons”（兑现恶魔，本应为丢弃恶魔）。
I did not realize the glaring difference between the two Englishes until my teacher corrected my pronunciations of hammock, ladle, and siphon. Classmates laughed because I pronounce accept as except, success as sussess. I was in the Creative Writing conservatory, and yet words failed me when I needed them most.
我没有意识到这“两种英语”的区别，直到老师纠正了我的hammock, ladle、和siphon的发音。同学们笑我，因为我将accept读成except，将success读成sussess。尽管我已参加了创意写作课，但常常词不达意。
Suddenly, understanding flower is flour wasn’t enough. I rejected the English that had never seemed broken before, a language that had raised me and taught me everything I knew. Everybody else’s parents spoke with accents smarting of Ph.D. and university teaching positions. So why couldn’t mine?
突然之间，我开始明白，只知道flower和flour的发音相同是不够的。我开始逐渐摆脱那些伴随着我长大的、曾经自以为还不错的英语。既然其他人的父母，都能说一口像博士和大学老师一样漂亮流利的英语，为什么我的父母不能呢？
My mother spread her sunbaked hands and said,”This is where I came from,” spinning a tale with the English she had taught herself.
我的母亲摊开她那双晒黑的手说：“我就是从这儿来的”，她用自己以前学过的英语讲了一个故事。
When my mother moved from her village to a town in Malaysia, she had to learn a brand new language in middle school: English. In a time when humiliation was encouraged, my mother was defenseless against the cruel words spewing from the teacher, who criticized her paper in front of the class.
当我母亲从她居住的马来西亚村庄搬到一个城镇时，她不得不在初中开始学习一门全新的语言：英语。当时很多人以羞辱别人为乐，当她的老师当着全班的面，用尖酸的语言嘲笑她的作文时，她无力反抗。
When she began to cry, the class president stood up and said, “That’s enough.”
当她开始哭泣时，班长站起来说“够了”。
“Be like that class president,” my mother said with tears in her eyes. The class president took her under her wing and patiently mended my mother’s strands of language. “She stood up for the weak and used her words to fight back.”
“要像那个班长一样”，妈妈含着泪说，“她不仅为弱者说话，还用语言反击。”要知道那个班长不仅保护了她，还耐心地帮她提高语言。
We were both crying now. My mother asked me to teach her proper English so old white ladies at Target wouldn’t laugh at her pronunciation. It has not been easy. There is a measure of guilt when I saw her letters together.
我们都哭了。母亲要我教她正确的英语，这样Target商场的白人老太太就不会嘲笑她的发音了。这并不容易。当我把她的话拼缀在一起时，会有一种歉疚感。
Long vowels, double consonants-I am still learning myself. Sometimes I let the brokenness slide to spare her pride but perhaps I have hurt her more to spare mine.
长元音、双辅音，其实这些我自己也仍在学习。有时候我避免让一些只言片语伤害她的自尊心，但我可能已经在不经意时，伤害了她很多。
As my mother’s vocabulary began to grow, I mended my own English. Through performing poetry in front of 3000 at my school’s Season Finale event, interviewing people from all walks of life, and writing stories for the stage, I stand against ignorance and become a voice for the homeless, the refugees, the ignored.
随着妈妈英语词汇不断增加，我的英语也在不断进步。我可以在学校3000多人面前朗诵诗歌，还采访了各界人士、写舞台剧，站出来为无家可归者、难民和弱势群体发声。
With my words I fight against jeers pelted at an old Asian street performer on a New York subway. My mother’s eyes are reflected in underprivileged ESL children who have so many stories to tell but do not know how. I fill them with words as they take needle and thread to make a tapestry.
在纽约地铁，看到有些人嘲笑街头的一位亚裔老艺人，我也站出来和他们对抗。我还会教那些贫穷的、英语非母语的孩子学英语，看到他们有很多故事要讲、但又不知道如何表达时，我仿佛看到了妈妈的过去。一点一滴，我教他们英语，如同他们用一针一线织成毯子。
In our house, there is beauty in the way we speak to each other. In our house, language is not broken but rather bursting with emotion. We have built a house out of words. There are friendly snakes in the cupboard and snacks in the tank. It is a crooked house. It is a little messy. But this is where we have made our home.
在我们家里，家人之间说话的方式也很温馨。在我家里，我们说话的方式很美。在我家里，我们的话并不‘烂’，而是充满了感情。我们用词语建了一座房子。橱柜里有友好的“蛇”，水池中也有“小吃”。这房子有点歪，有点杂乱无章，但这是我们的家。
其实，萧靖彤自己也没想到她会收到这么多的offer，尤其是哈佛大学的。她说，她小时候就参观过哈佛，一直对哈佛充满向往。
不过，她现在还没有正式决定去哪所学府：
“I’m still processing it. It’s not something you expect when you open these college messages on your portal. I saw a yes and a yes, congratulation after a congratulation. It’s totally surreal. I’m still sinking in. I had a moment to myself yesterday where I was just sobbing.”
“我还在消化这件事。我没想到打开邮箱的时候，能看到这些高校发来的邮件。我看到一个接一个的“yes”,一个接一个的“congratulation”。这一切都太不真实了。我到现在都还没有反应过来。昨天我一个人待了一会儿，一直在哭。”
梦想背后的力量
读了萧靖彤的故事，大家可能都注意到了她的这些成长都离不开一个人——她的母亲。
她曾在在接受采访时说到她的母亲：
“My mother is my role model. She keeps me grounded and inspires me not only to dream big but to take action to make those dreams come true. I love her passion for life, her boldness, her compassion and her honesty.”
“我的母亲是我的榜样。她让我懂得人要脚踏实地，也激励我不仅要有远大的理想，还要付出行动，让梦想成真。我爱她对生活的热情、她的勇敢、她的慈悲和诚实。”
每一个优秀的孩子背后往往都有一位伟大的母亲。她可能永远做不出可以流芳百世的贡献，也对社会创造不出惊人的财富。
但是，她一定会用自己的爱教会她的子女拥有一个善良、慈悲的灵魂；用她的信念教会他们成为一个勇敢、有担当的人。不论自己遭遇了多少风雨，她也会为自己的子女撑起一片蓝天。
（图片和部分内容整理自百度、网易）
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