Tell me something that you have come to realize now that you are in 6th grade. What is something you have realized now that you didn’t know before?

Vocabulary

generation – 生成

e.g. My grandma’s generation is much different than my generation. She prefers to live in the country. I prefer to live in the city!

than = compare 2 things

then = changing of time

to live a life – [to lead a life]

e.g. We should all lead lives of honesty and happiness.

investor – 投资者

e.g. The black man was a rich investor and he said “I will pay off your student loans”!

billionaire – a person that has at least $1,000,000,000

loan – 贷款

e.g. If you want to go to university but you don’t have enough savings (储蓄) then you must take out a loan.

e.g. Business loan, car loan, school loan, house loan (mortgage).

house loan – mortgage

e.g. When you want a house. The bank gives you a mortgage (money / loan). Now I can buy the house! When you buy the house with the mortgage, you do not own the house until you pay off the mortgage. Until you payoff the mortgage — the bank owns the house.

debt – 债务

e.g. Should poor people go to university? Even if they must go into debt…

savings – 储蓄

e.g. If you want savings you need to stop buying stuff and start saving your money!

waste of time – 浪费时间 – you spend a lot of time doing something but you don’t learn anything and you don’t earn any money

e.g. Do you ever waste time? Sometimes I waste time by watching videos on the internet for an hour or two.

e.g. It’s not good to waste time. Why? Because 1) time is limited 2) our life is limited 3) there are important things we can be doing 4) you cannot get time back 5) you can sleep when you’re dead.

“time is money” – time is important

e.g. How do I know that “time is money”? Well if I take out a loan / get a loan then the bank will charge me more money if it takes me a longer time to pay it back.

e.g. Also, I am paid per hour. So if I work more hours, I get more money. Time is money!

articles – 文章

e.g. Sometimes I will read dozens of internet articles just to waste time.

upper class – rich

middle class –  you and me – so so

lower class – poor

learned – [came to realize]

e.g. I came to realize when I turned 29 and moved to Shanghai that the world is very big!

When you pause (暂停) say: “Let me think…”

Original

The old people always like to follow the tradition and live a traditional life. Likes the food they eat, the clothes they wear, and many things around — all traditional. The old people also like to live in the countryside – they like to live in a quiet environment. They don’t like the noise in the city. My father’s parents live in Sichuan and my mother’s parents live in Shangdong. Twice or three times a year. I chat with them and — three weeks. Shanghai is more modern than Shangdong and Sichuan — I like the food in Sichuan. The young people like to live a modern life – they always live in a city. Some of them people also live a traditional life.

Corrected

The old people always like to follow traditions and live a traditional life. Like the food they eat, the clothes they wear, and many things in their life / around them — are all traditional. The old people also like to live in the countryside – they like to live in a quiet / quiter environment. They don’t like the noise in the city. My father’s parents live in Sichuan and my mother’s parents live in Shangdong. Twice or three times a year. I chat with them and spend time with them for  three weeks. Shanghai is more modern than Shangdong and Sichuan — I like the food in Sichuan. The young people like to live a more modern life – they always live in a city. Some of them people also live a traditional life / lead traditional lives.

Original

I think we should go to the university because the internet can get anything but if you have any question you can’t told it to internet and it won’t give you the answer, if you go to the university you can ask your teacher to answer your questions. I think poor people also need to go to the university but I think they can go to a cheaper one to save money- every people need to go to university because in the university it is not only teach you knowledge but also some quality.

Corrected

I think we should go to the university because the internet can teach you anything but if you have any questions you can’t tell it to the internet and it won’t give you any answers, if you go to the university you can ask your teacher to answer your questions. I think poor people also need to go to the university but I think they can go to a cheaper one to save money- every person / all people need to go / should go to university because at university it is not only teaches you knowledge but also some high quality teaching.

Original

Because they don’t have knowledge and they can’t do some jobs that can earn more money so they just can do the less money job and then they will be poor. I thin being smart and hard work are both very important because luck cannot stay very long and maybe sometimes – one day the company will fail and you will have no money and if you are not smart and not hard work you cannot be rich again.

Corrected

Because they don’t have knowledge and they can’t do / not able to do some jobs that would earn more money so they just can do the jobs that earn less money and then they will be poor. I think being smart and hard work are both very important because luck cannot last forever and maybe sometimes – one day the company will fail and then you will have no money and if you are not smart and not hard working you cannot / will not be rich again.

https://www.dogonews.com/2019/5/23/billionaire-investor-robert-smith-pledges-to-pay-off-morehouse-graduates-student-debt

Billionaire Investor Robert Smith Pledges To Pay Off Morehouse Graduates’ Student Debt

When Robert F. Smith rose to address the 400 graduates of Atlanta’s Morehouse College on May 19, 2019, the students expected the commencement speaker to be entertaining, inspiring, and encouraging. What they did not expect, however, was that he would change their lives forever by pledging to pay off all their student debt.

The billionaire, who had already gifted $1.5 million to the college, began by telling the attentive audience about his daily commute on bus No. 13 to Carson Elementary — a predominantly white school across town in Denver, Colorado. Though busing was discontinued by the time he got to sixth grade, it made a huge impact on his life. “Those five years drastically changed the trajectory of my life,” he said. “The teachers at Carson were extraordinary. They embraced me and challenged me to think critically and start to move toward my full potential. I, in turn, came to realize at a young age that the white kids and the black kids, the Jewish kids and the one Asian kid were all pretty much the same.”

Smith then went on to talk about how the close-knit community he grew up in allowed him to aspire to reach great heights. He also advised the young graduates to work hard at their respective careers and take calculated risks, similar to what he had done by giving up a “secure” job to pursue graduate school, and later on by leaving a lucrative investment banking career to start his own business.

A few minutes prior to the end of his 35-minute-long speech, the entrepreneur asked the graduates to rise and hug the student on either side of them. Smith waited patiently until everyone was done and then declared, “On behalf of the eight generations of my family who have been in this country, we’re going to put a little fuel in your bus. This is the challenge to you, alumni. This is my class — 2019. And my family is making a grant to eliminate their student loans.” Once the cheers and applause from the surprised and delighted students subsided, he went on: “Now, I know my class will make sure they pay this forward. And I want my class to look at these [alumni], these beautiful Morehouse brothers, and let’s make sure every class has the same opportunity going forward — because we are enough to take care of our own community.”

The details on how Smith will execute his promise of erasing the graduating class’ student loans, estimated to be between $10 million to $40 million, still have to be worked out. However, the altruistic gesture, which left many students in tears, is already inspiring the young graduates to follow through on Smith’s request to “pay it forward” and change another person’s life. This is not the first time the philanthropist has made a generous donation to a school. In 2016, he gave $50 million to Cornell University’s School Of Engineering, where he completed his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering.