At an age when most people usually start forgetting things, this Chinese woman has managed to do the opposite – she’s actually memorized the entire Oxford English-Chinese dictionary from cover to cover! OddityCentral has more:
A mother and divorcee of 20 years, 51-year-old Li Yanzhi said she took on the Herculean task of memorizing the Oxford Chinese-English dictionary in the hope of receiving more translating work, so she could take care of her autistic son. She started studying the tome in August 2013, reading it every single day between 3am and 6am. To speed up the process, she borrowed 465 English language magazines from the university library, and within 19 days, she had finished her first round of memorization.
Ms. Li can not only recite all 220,000 entries in the 2,458-page dictionary, but also accurately describe their meanings. Her vocabulary skills are now far more superior than any university student taking the College English Test Band 6 for which the candidates need to understand 6,000 words.
Despite all the hardships she has faced through life, Li Yanzhi said that she has never thought about giving up. “If I can fly I will fly, if I cant fly I will run, if I cannot run I will crawl,’ she said.’No matter what you must move forward,” she said proudly.