What’s a White lie?

Mary doesn’t understand (明白) the sentences (句子) as “She is blue today” “He has a green thumb (拇指)” “He has tells a little white lie” and so on. And she goes to her teacher for help.

Mary: Mrs. Smith, there is a color in each of these sentences. What do they mean (表示……意思)?

Mrs. Smith: In everyday English, Mary, blue sometimes means sad. Yellow—afraid. A person with a green thumb grows plants (种庄稼) well. And a white lie is not a bad one.

Mary: Would you give me an example (例子) for “a white lie”, Mrs Smith?

Mrs. Smith: Certainly. Now I give you some cakes. In fact, you don’t like it, but you won’t say it. Instead (取而代之的是), you say, “No, thanks. I’m not hungry.” That’s a white lie.

Do you have problems with English spelling? It's extremely difficult. And in many cases, there is very little connection between the pronunciation of the word and the way it is written. But you aren't the only ones who find it difficult. A recent study has shown that native English speakers can't spell, either. More than two thousand people took part in the study and the findings were very interesting. Forty percent of the respondents（调查对象）could not spell the word "questionnaire", 38% had trouble spelling "accommodate" and 37% also had problems spelling "definitely". Other difficult words included "liaison", "existence" and "occurrence". Even relatively simple words such as "calendar", "embarrass", "library" and "receipt" caused difficulties.

So, why is this? Two-thirds of those in the study blamed（把责任归咎于）mobile phones for their poor spelling. Abbreviations in texting are leading to a new type of English ("coz" instead of "because"; "4" instead of "for", etc). But this doesn't seem to worry many people. Nearly a third thought their spelling was "perfect", and 46% said it was just "good". Surprisingly, 14% did not think it was important to spell correctly, and 11% were not worried by co-workers' spelling mistakes. Twenty percent said that they'd avoid writing documents by hand because their spelling wasn't good enough, and 59% said they relied on their computers spell-checker to get things right. 6% had lost a job because their spelling was so poor.

James Margate was the head of the study. He said, "It's worrying how weak our spelling has become, especially the simple, everyday words. It's interesting to see that although many people get basic words wrong, most of them still regard their spelling skills as excellent or good. It's inexcusable（不可原谅的）to see badly-written documents in a work environment. If something isn't done in this generation, spelling standards（标准）will only become lower." A member of the Plain English campaign said, "People don't see correct spelling as something important. When we spell words incorrectly, it will cause confusion and make the writing more difficult to read."

Students in many countries are learning English. Some of these students are small children. Others are teenagers. Many are adults（成年人）. Some learn at school, others by themselves. A few learn English by hearing the language over the radio, on TV, or in film. One must work hard to learn another language.

Why do all these people want to learn English? It is difficult to answer this question. Many boys and girls learn English at school because it is one of their subjects required（需要）for study. They study their own language, maths and English. Some people learn it because it is useful for their work. Many people learn English for their higher studies, magazines in English.