With his standard Mandarin pronunciation, practiced skills on Chinese expressions and special humor with a Peking accent, Dashan has become a household name acrossprefix = st1 /China.        People have always wondered how the 36-year-old Canadian can be so skillful in the Chinese language even though it is considered by many as one of the most difficult languages in the world. But to Dashan, the great challenge was _ due to his deep interest, proper method and the excellent environment he created for himself.        "Interest is the best teacher." That is a universal principle. Even if he hadn't fully realized what attracted him to the Chinese department at the University of Toronto inCanada, he was already deeply interested in Chinese culture when he decided to have further study inBeijing.        Entering the Chinese department ofPekingUniversityin 1988, Dashan felt like a duck in water. Study is always a hard job, no matter how much interest you have. Therefore, effective ways are necessary to improvement. " _ " is Dashan's belief.        As a freshman at theUniversityofToronto, the student did study the textbooks. They did help him build a solid   foundation.         However, that's far from enough to grasp the Chinese language. Starting in his junior year, Dashan began to read original Chinese novels, Chinese newspapers and even the Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping. "Only the material for Chinese native readers could give me a proper sense of the language," he said.        That the language is the daily means of communication is the principle that Dashan always keeps in his mind. What you have really learned depends on what you can use, not necessarily your mastery of textbooks.        To learn in daily life requires a favourable language environment, which is also necessary for improvement. Dashan admits it is hard for Chinese English learners to be brought into a good English speaking environment, but he insists, "To listen and speak as much as possible does help." Dashan could learn Chinese very well because of   _  .
his interest, method and study environment practiced skills on Chinese expression his cleverness special humour with a Peking accent