"Hello everyone, my name is Zhang Jianna. I'm a city cleaner from Chaoyang Sanitation（环卫中心）…"
Recently, a video of Zhang became popular online. Many people were shocked at her fluent （流利的） English and wondered how she had such great English skills. Actually, behind this is a long journey of persistence（坚持）.
Zhang comes from a village in Hebei Province. In 2012, she got the job as a sanitation worker in Chaoyang District, Beijing. One day, she met a foreigner. The foreigner spoke a lot of unfamiliar（陌生的） words to her. She didn't know what to do because she couldn't understand what the foreigner said. Soon, the foreigner found that Zhang didn't understand his words. So, he pointed to the street and gave her a thumbs-up while saying, "Good, good!" Zhang suddenly realized that the foreigner was cheering her for keeping the street clean, but she couldn't say anything to express herself.
This unusual experience touched Zhang, and she made up her mind to learn English. Then, Zhang found her children's textbooks and started her learning journey. However, learning English at an older age was difficult. Zhang would easily forget the words she learned. But she didn't flinch from facing up to the challenge. She used all her free time to learn and memorize the words over and over again. Finally, her hard work paid off. So far, she has learned around 3, 000 English words and has been able to communicate fluently with foreigners. Zhang said, "Persistence is the key to learning English. Learn step by step and learn every day. "
Now, Zhang's amazing journey leads to a new goal. She says she wants to introduce her hometown in English to draw more tourists one day.
