personal''造句的八卦，Yahoo名人娛樂都在討論

如何撰寫令人印象深刻的recommendation letter

[明報專訊] 好多人寫personal essays或獎學金申請信，或替下屬寫reference時，喜歡整篇寫滿形容詞，什麼passionate呀，devoted呀，logically minded之類。其實這類字完全沒有impact，只係撻幾個形容詞，係人都識，有何難度？讀信的人，也是見慣。

要增加文字的感染力，讓人留下深刻印象，不如試下講故事：一些人無你有的小故事、小經驗，以突顯閣下希望market的特點。

最近英國演員Alan Rickman逝世，同演Harry Potter電影的「哈利仔」Daniel Radcliffe在其Google+ account寫了一篇悼文，在網上瘋傳。這篇文用字不深，造句不特別，但令人印象最深的是一兩三件小事，表現出Alan Rickman的特別性格。第一段他講Rickman對後輩如何supportive and encouraging：

He is also one of the loyalest and most supportive people I've ever met in the film industry. He was so encouraging of me both on set and in the years post-Potter. I'm pretty sure he came and saw everything I ever did on stage both in London and New York. He didn't have to do that.

假如沒有寫he came and saw everything I ever did on stage both in London and New York，而只用形容詞loyal、supportive同encouraging，就沒有原文的impact了。

然後再借別人的remark講Rickman是個有義氣、對朋友很好的人：

I know other people who've been friends with him for much much longer than I have and they all say "if you call Alan, it doesn't matter where in the world he is or how busy he is with what he's doing, he'll get back to you within a day".

同樣，這裡不用形容詞。一句quote已顯明突顯Rickman的性格。這個impact，不論你寫幾多helpful、friendly、kind、encouraging都不能達到。

下一次寫求學信或替人寫reference letter，不妨用心想想要寫什麼qualities，再想有什麼特別的經驗或故事可以講，可能效果更好。

蕭叔叔

In part one of the interview on my blog I posted yesterday, I mentioned how my mother supported me to pursue my interest in art in my early years. I'm forever grateful to her. This is a portrait that I did for her in Hong Kong and below is an introduction of the painting and my mother in an oil painting collection to be published in China in the near future.

***
Mother 75x47cm 1982 Hong Kong
母親 75X47CM 1982 香港

In 1960, during my second year at the Affiliated High School of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts while I was home for the winter break, I made an oil painting of my mother. That painting was unfortunately lost during the Cultural Revolution. After my graduation, I was assigned to Zhaoqing City in Guangdong Province, which was very far away from my hometown in Hunan. I only received 12 days a year for family leave including the travel time, so my trips home to Hunan were always rushed affairs with little time for painting. It was not until the 1980s that my mother, siblings, and I were all finally reunited one by one in Hong Kong. By that time, my mother was 72 years old. Two years later, we moved to slightly larger rental accommodations and I found time to paint this portrait of my mother.

1960年冬，我正在廣州美術學院附中二年級的寒假吧，趁假回家時為母親畫過一幅油畫像，可惜文革中丟失了。畢業後工作分配在廣東省的肇慶市，離湖南老家太遠，每年探親假連路程也才12天，因而，回湖南探親都是行色匆匆，少有時間作畫。直到1980年，母親與我們兄弟姊妹先後抵港，重新團聚。此時母親已高齡72歲了。再過兩年，我們搬租到稍大的房子，我才抽空為母親作了這幅畫像。

After I came to Taiwan, I happened to mention the tragedy of my parents caused by the cross-strait standoff to Mr. Liu Shaotang, the president of Bibliographies Publishing. Liu expressed his sympathies as well as his admiration for my mother because she managed to raise us all by herself despite everything that she went through.

我到台灣後，有一次與「傳記文學」社長劉紹唐先生談起父母在這海峽兩岸對峙中的悲慘遭遇時他深表同情與感嘆。並直說你母親真是了不起，經歷那麼多苦難，獨力將你們撫養大，真是很偉大。

My mother was born in Taoyuan County, Hunan. She attended the Zhounan Women's School in Changsha and, to escape from an arranged marriage, fled to Shanghai where she enrolled in the Daxia University. After that, she married, had children, and suffered through China's modern history. It was not until the mid-1980s that she was finally able to travel to Taiwan to sweep my father's tomb. When she passed away in 1994, we fulfilled her final wish by laying her to rest alongside my father.

母親，湖南桃源縣人，早年去長沙念「周南女校」，之後為逃婚獨赴上海唸「大夏大學」，結婚、生子，經歷中國現代史中一切苦厄。直到八十年代中才得以到台灣為父親掃墓。1994年，她老仙逝，我們將她與父親合葬，完成她老最後的願望。

My mother was a good and honest woman filled with compassion. She often taught her children that "integrity is the foundation of personal character." She was well-versed in ancient literature and wrote with a neat, beautiful hand. She frequently reminded me of the need to re-read my letters to ensure that they were "fluent and made sense", and to use well-accepted phrases rather than making up unfamiliar terms. How I miss her!

母親善良、誠實，富于同情心，經常教育子女：忠厚為人之本。她古文好，字端正、秀麗。常告誡我寫信要複讀一遍，要『文從字順』。遣詞造句不要自己生造，要約定從俗……啊，我的母親。

In part one of the interview on my blog I posted yesterday, I mentioned how my mother supported me to pursue my interest in art in my early years. I'm forever grateful to her. This is a portrait that I did for her in Hong Kong and below is an introduction of the painting and my mother in an oil painting collection to be published in China in the near future.

***
Mother 75x47cm 1982 Hong Kong
母親 75X47CM 1982 香港

In 1960, during my second year at the Affiliated High School of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts while I was home for the winter break, I made an oil painting of my mother. That painting was unfortunately lost during the Cultural Revolution. After my graduation, I was assigned to Zhaoqing City in Guangdong Province, which was very far away from my hometown in Hunan. I only received 12 days a year for family leave including the travel time, so my trips home to Hunan were always rushed affairs with little time for painting. It was not until the 1980s that my mother, siblings, and I were all finally reunited one by one in Hong Kong. By that time, my mother was 72 years old. Two years later, we moved to slightly larger rental accommodations and I found time to paint this portrait of my mother.

1960年冬，我正在廣州美術學院附中二年級的寒假吧，趁假回家時為母親畫過一幅油畫像，可惜文革中丟失了。畢業後工作分配在廣東省的肇慶市，離湖南老家太遠，每年探親假連路程也才12天，因而，回湖南探親都是行色匆匆，少有時間作畫。直到1980年，母親與我們兄弟姊妹先後抵港，重新團聚。此時母親已高齡72歲了。再過兩年，我們搬租到稍大的房子，我才抽空為母親作了這幅畫像。

After I came to Taiwan, I happened to mention the tragedy of my parents caused by the cross-strait standoff to Mr. Liu Shaotang, the president of Bibliographies Publishing. Liu expressed his sympathies as well as his admiration for my mother because she managed to raise us all by herself despite everything that she went through.

我到台灣後，有一次與「傳記文學」社長劉紹唐先生談起父母在這海峽兩岸對峙中的悲慘遭遇時他深表同情與感嘆。並直說你母親真是了不起，經歷那麼多苦難，獨力將你們撫養大，真是很偉大。

My mother was born in Taoyuan County, Hunan. She attended the Zhounan Women's School in Changsha and, to escape from an arranged marriage, fled to Shanghai where she enrolled in the Daxia University. After that, she married, had children, and suffered through China's modern history. It was not until the mid-1980s that she was finally able to travel to Taiwan to sweep my father's tomb. When she passed away in 1994, we fulfilled her final wish by laying her to rest alongside my father.

母親，湖南桃源縣人，早年去長沙念「周南女校」，之後為逃婚獨赴上海唸「大夏大學」，結婚、生子，經歷中國現代史中一切苦厄。直到八十年代中才得以到台灣為父親掃墓。1994年，她老仙逝，我們將她與父親合葬，完成她老最後的願望。

My mother was a good and honest woman filled with compassion. She often taught her children that "integrity is the foundation of personal character." She was well-versed in ancient literature and wrote with a neat, beautiful hand. She frequently reminded me of the need to re-read my letters to ensure that they were "fluent and made sense", and to use well-accepted phrases rather than making up unfamiliar terms. How I miss her!

母親善良、誠實，富于同情心，經常教育子女：忠厚為人之本。她古文好，字端正、秀麗。常告誡我寫信要複讀一遍，要『文從字順』。遣詞造句不要自己生造，要約定從俗……啊，我的母親。