考特博士发言稿
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, Thank you for coming.
尊敬的各位领导、各位来宾、同学们，下午好！感谢大家的到来！
This is the eighth year that we have run the Aihua Cup English competition, and this is the first year that we have felt that it is appropriate for me to give my opening speech in English.Until now, we have always felt that too many people would not understand what I am saying if I speak in English.It is very clear though, that since we started Aihua eight years ago, the general English level of people in this district has improved immensely.I really like to think that this improvement is at least in part due to the positive influence of Aihua.
这是爱华英语第八次举办“爱华杯”英语大赛，但对我来讲，却是第一次感觉可以用英语致词，因为以前我总感觉如果我用英语致词的话会有很多人听不懂。很显然，和八年前爱华英语建校初期相比，石景山区的英语水平已经有了很大的提高。我非常欣慰的认为，作为爱华，尽管我们尽的是绵薄之力，但多年来我们的执着和付出对区域英语水平的提高起着积极的影响。
There is no question that the English ability of the young students has improved since we first ran the Aihua cup competition 8 years ago.I am in a position to see this very clearly, because I have been the head judge and question master at each of our Rising Stars competitions.
毋庸置疑，现在的参赛选手的英语水平和八年前我们举办的第一届“爱华杯”英语大赛的选手相比有了很大的提高，作为历届的评委会主席和主考官我切身感受到了这样的变化。
With each paing year, I enjoy my role as the head question master of this competition more and more.In the first years, a difficult question for the students was “what color do you like?” Now I am able to communicate with the students on a much deeper level, and I learn so much about Chinese culture, and china’s future, from my conversations with these young people.
随着时间的推移，我越来越喜欢我在大赛中扮演的角色。第一届大赛，我们的选手感觉到难的问题会是一些简单的问题，比如“你喜欢什么颜色？”、“你们家有几口人？”而现在我却可以和选手们进行更深层次的交流。在和他们的交流中我也学到了中国的文化，更看到了中国的未来。 I always try to ask the students questions about things that might be interesting to them, in order to get them thinking, and get them talking.This year, I asked them to tell me about a clamate that they didn’t like.I was happily surprised by the answers that I received from the Chinese students.They all said, very sincerely: “I like all of my clamates: there is not one person in my cla that I don’t like.”Perhaps this does not seem strange to you, but believe me, this is a huge and very meaningful difference between foreign and Chinese students.
我经常试着问学生们感兴趣并能启发他们思维的话题，让他们更多的表达自己的想法。在这一届大赛中，我的一个问题是：“请你和我谈谈你不喜欢的一位同学”，而孩子们的回答给了我意想不到的惊喜，他们都十分认真的对我说：我非常喜欢我的同学们，在我的班里没有一个我不喜欢的。 也许对您来说这没什么可奇怪的，但请相信我，这反映出中国的学生和外国的学生很大的不同。Recently, there has been a sentence running round and round my head: “Live each day as though it were the last day of your life: learn each day as though you could live forever.”
最近，有一句话经常在我脑海里浮现：“珍惜活着的每一天，享受生命中每一个学习的时刻。活到老学到老。”
I am 45 years old, and I have been in China for ten years now.I never really tried to learn Chinese, because I felt that I was too old to learn, because I felt that you could not teach an old dog new tricks.For the last 6 months though, I have made sure to study Chinese for at least one hour a day, and I have found that you are never too old to learn.
我今年45岁，来到中国十年了。我从来没有真正的尝试过学习中文，因为我觉得对于学习中文来讲我年龄太大了。但是一个跟不上时代步伐的人注定要被淘汰的。在过去的六个月当中，我确保每天至少花一个小时学习汉语，我发现人要活到老学到老。
Looking back on my long life there is only one thing that I regret: I regret that I didn’t learn more.I regret that I didn’t learn Chinese before I came to China, that I can’t play piano or guitar, that I don’t understand astrophysics, that I can’t speak ten other languages.There is no excuse for ignorance.
回首自己成长的岁月，我唯一遗憾的就是：我学得还远远不够。我非常遗憾的是在我来中国之前我没学汉语、不会弹钢琴和吉他，不了解天体物理学，不会说十种不同的语言。没有人可以为自己无知找借口。
知识就是力量。学习不仅能让你找到一份好工作并拥有财富，更重要的是它能使你的人生更加丰富多彩、能使你更深、更广的与世界相连。
谢谢大家的聆听！最后向所有参加第八届“爱华杯”英语大赛的参赛选手表示祝贺，感谢为大赛的圆满成功所付出辛勤努力的每个人，感谢所有领导、校长和学生家长的支持，再次谢谢你们！
祝大家身体健康、合家欢乐！
