Has anyone told you that it’s fun to play with English words? For a long time these “words within words” in English have been used to surprise and educate us…and they often make us laugh too. Now we go to learn about them.
| Riddles(谜语) How did the animals open the zoo door? They used a monkey! What’s the longest word in English? Smiles—there’s a “mile” between the first and last letters! These jokes —a question followed by a surprising answer — are known as “riddles”. But the ones above are examples of a special kind of riddle, a riddle which is funny because a word is hidden within another word. Many English speakers are crazy about this kind of words with double meaning. And it can be found in texts written in English a very long time ago. But riddles are not the only example of “words within words”. |
| Hidden words During Victorian times (1837—1901), the game of hiding words within a whole sentence became popular. Look carefully at this sentence—The king eats his lunch in a fine palace. Can you see that the countries “China” and “Nepal” are hidden in it? The Victorians even used hidden words to teach children history and geography at school. Today we still see hidden word games in books and magazines, but we also use hidden words in jokes. |
| Palindromes(回文词) Palindromes are words and phrases which can be read the same forwards and backwards. The pop group “Abba”, for example, is a palindrome. The sentence “Was it a car or a cat I saw?” is also a palindrome. We find them interesting, but they can also be funny: I kept receiving emails about reading maps backwards, but then I realized it was just spam(垃圾邮件)! |
【小题1】Which of the following is a riddle?
| A．step—pets, part—trap | B．hiding words within a whole sentence |
| C．silent—listen, the eyes—they see | D．Which letter is a question? Y (Why) . |
| A．Riddles are the only example of “words within words”. |
| B．Victorians even used riddles to teach kids history at school. |
| C．“Was it a car or a cat I saw?” is a palindrome as well. |
| D．These “words within words” in English often make us cry. |
| A．It’s fun to play with words | B．“Words within words” educate us |
| C．Riddles & Hidden words | D．The pop group “Abba” |
People often ask which is the most difficult language to learn, and it is not easy to answer because there are many factors (因素) to take into consideration. Firstly, in a first language the differences are unimportant as people learn their mother language naturally. A native (本国的) speaker of English, for example, will find French much easier to learn than a native speaker of Chinese, because French is similar to English, while Chinese is very different, so first language can affect (影响) learning a second language. The greater the differences between the second language and our first are, the harder it will be for most people to learn. Many people answer that Chinese is the hardest language to learn, possibly because of Chinese writing system (系统), and the pronunciation of Chinese does appear to be very difficult for many foreign learners. However, for Japanese speakers, who already use Chinese characters (汉字) in their own language, learning writing will be less difficult than for other foreigners.
Some people seem to learn languages easily, while others find it very difficult. Teachers and the circumstances (环境) also play an important role, as well as each learner’s motivation (动机) for learning. If people learn a language because they need to use it, they often learn it faster than people studying a language that has no direct use in their life.
No language is easy to learn well, though languages which are related to (与……相关) our first language are easier. Learning a completely different writing system is a huge challenge, but that does not necessarily make a language more difficult than another. In the end, it is impossible to say that there is one language that is the most difficult language in the world.
【小题1】According to the passage, which of the following is NOT true?| A．Japanese speakers use Chinese characters in their own language. |
| B．A person’s first language can affect learning a second language. |
| C．An English speaker will find that Chinese is an easy language to learn. |
| D．People will be able to learn a language fast when they need to use it. |
| A．the learners are intelligent | B．learners’ motivation is high |
| C．there are patient teachers | D．there are good classrooms |
| A．Chinese is the hardest language in the world. |
| B．A person’s native language is always easy to learn. |
| C．For every speaker, no language is hard to learn well. |
| D．To different people, the hardest language is different. |
| A．a language teacher | B．a language learner | C．a school leader | D．a newspaper writer |
Zhang Yufei has made a name for herself as the new butterfly queen at this year’s National Swimming Championships(锦标赛). During the nine days of the event, she won five gold medals and a silver one. At the Olympic Games in Tokyo, the 23-year-old girl picked up two gold medals and two silver medals.  |
Tianwen I landed on Mars(火星) on May 15, 2021 successfully. It’s China’s first probe(探测器) to land on a planet other than Earth. China named its first Mars exploration mission(探索任务) Tianwen I on April 24, 2020, China’s fifth Space Day. The name comes from a poem of the same name by Qu Yuan, one of the greatest poets of ancient China. In his poem, Qu Yuan asked questions about the sky, stars, nature and the world around us. He questioned traditional ideas and looked for the truth of the universe.  |
The Bulgarian national qualification contest of the 20th “Chinese Bridge”, a major international Chinese professional competition for foreign university students, was held in Sofia on Sunday. The event, organized by the Chinese embassy(大使馆) in Bulgaria and the Confucius Institute in Sofia, was held online because of the COVID-19, with seven students from three universities attending. The “Chinese Bridge” competition is organized every year to encourage foreign students to learn Chinese and improve their understanding of Chinese culture.  |
【小题1】Zhang Yufei won five medals at this year’s National Swimming Championships.
【小题2】Tianwen I was named by Qu Yuan, one of the greatest poets of ancient China.
【小题3】China’s first probe to land on a planet other than Earth is Tianwen I.
【小题4】Seven students from three universities of China came to Sofia to attend the twentieth “Chinese Bridge” competition.
【小题5】The “Chinese Bridge” competition is organized every month in Sofia to encourage foreign students to learn Chinese.
The English language is different from any other language. Yet English words do not stay the same.
Sometimes new words are shorter forms of older words. The word photo was made from
photograph by cutting off the end of the longer word.
根据短文内容，选出五个句子填入文中空缺处，使短文内容通顺完整。
| A．English can change by borrowing words from other languages. |
| B．English is an interesting language. |
| C．Plane was made by cutting off the front part of airplane. |
| D．The language is always changing. |
| E．New words are also made by adding two words together. |
| F．The names of people and products can become new words. |
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