A Chinese mother has become a walking dictionary by memorizing the English-Chinese Dictionary from cover to cover. Li Yanzhi, 51, from Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, is able to explain the meaning of every single word in the 2,458-page book, which consists of 220,000 entries.
Ms Li, who divorced more than 20 years ago, undertook the mission in order to receive more translating work. This helps her support her 26-year-old son who suffers from autism and is not able to take care of himself.
Ms Li is a lecturer in Financial English at Xi'an Transport University’s Economic and Banking School. Since August 2013, she has been reading the dictionary six hours every day from 3am. Within 19 days, she finished the task for the first time. To help her memorizing, Ms Li borrowed 465 English language magazines from the university library. “My biggest dream is to enter The Brain to challenge myself,” said Ms Li. The Brain is a popular reality TV show in China which uses a series of games to test the contestants’ brainpower.
Ms Li said that her son cannot look after himself. Since her divorce more than 20 years ago, she and her son have been relying on each other. As a single mother, Ms Li had to lock her son in the house whenever she went out for work. She said when she returned the house was always a complete mess. But she said she never gave up. “If I can fly I will fly, if I can't fly I will run, if I cannot run I will crawl,” she said.” No matter what you must move forward.”
Apart from English, Ms Li has learned to speak more than 10 different languages, including French, Russian, German, Japanese and Polish. She hopes that by memorizing the 220,000 words from the dictionary, she can encourage students to learn English and increase their vocabulary. “Lecturer Li really is a living English-Chinese Dictionary. And we should devote ourselves to learning.” says Zhang Xinjie, one of her students.
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