If you are a live music lover, you must be familiar(熟悉) with the word “encore”. Have you listened to the song of “Encore”? “Encore” is the seventh album(专辑) of Chinese Taiwanese women’s group S.H.E. It was released(发行) on November 12, 2004 and contains 10 songs. Another meaning of encore is an extra performance(表演) given at the end of a concert. Encore is a popular way of concert. It means that the audience still want to continue to listen to the singer’s performance at the end of a concert or other performances.

Encores are now carefully planned. Many singers even save their most popular songs for their encore performances. But encores first happened without planning.

The word “encore” is French; it means ‘again’. Encores became popular in Europe back in the 18th century. Since recorded music wasn’t available(可得到的) then, if people wanted to hear a song, it would have to be played live. At that time, if the audience applauded(鼓掌) for a long time after an opera performance ended, the performers would usually return to the stage for additional(额外的) acts. More recently, as pop and rock music became popular, encores began appearing at the end of pop and rock concerts as well.

_________ One artist who never played encores was Elvis Presley. His manager(经纪人) refused to let him play encores to keep fans wanting more.

The US President Donald Trump’s granddaughter sang a Chinese song and recited poetry in Chinese when Trump visited China. Once again learning Chinese becomes a great investment （投资）in children’s education after that. Chinese President Xi Jinping praised Arabella Kushner, a six-year-old Chinese learner as a “little star”. She also graded her performance with an “A+”. She started learning Chinese from her Chinese nanny（保姆） when she was just 16 months old.

Arabella is not the first foreign kid famous for being good at Chinese. Learning Chinese is popular with royal （皇室的） families. Such a move also happened in Dutch. Catharina Amalia is the heir to the Dutch. She will probably be the next queen of Dutch. She started learning Chinese in Hague in 2016. And the Denmark is another European royal family which has shown a high interest in China and its culture and language. Besides Danish, French and English, Chinese is among one of the four languages used on the royal family’s website since 2014. Chinese also appears to be a popular second language in Asian royal families. The number of for learning Chinese has grown from 30 million in 2005 to 100 million today.

Cats are the most popular pets among Americans. So it is not surprising there are many expressions (表达) about cats. Do you know any of them? Now let me introduce some to you.

Some cats like to catch small birds, like canaries. If someone looks very proud or satisfied with himself, we say he looks like the cat that ate the canary.

Sometimes, a cat likes to play with a small animal it catches. So if you play cat and mouse with someone, you change between different kinds of behavior when dealing with another person. For example, a child might offer something sweet to her little brother, and then take it away when he reaches for it.

A cat will often catch a small animal and present it to its owner. The saying that looks like something the cat dragged (拖) in describes something in bad condition.

A fat cat is a person with a lot of money.

There are many other expressions about cats in America. How interesting! Which kind of cat are you, or which kind would you like to be?