Every artist knows in his heart that he is saying something to the public. Not only does he want to say it well, but he wants it to be something that has not been said before. He hopes the public will listen and understand what he wants to teach them, and what he wants them to learn from him.

    What visual(视觉的)artists like painters want to teach is easy to make out but difficult to explain,because painters translate their experience into shapes and colours, not words. They seem to feel that a certain selection of shapes and colours, out of countless billions of, is exceptionally interesting for them and worth showing to us. Without their work we should never have noticed these particular Shapes and colours. or have felt the delight which they brought to the artist.

      Most artists take their shapes and colours from the world of nature and from human bodies in motion and at rest; their choices indicate(指示)that these aspects of the world are worth looking at, that they contain beautiful sights. Contemporary(当代的)artists might say that they merely choose subjects that provide an interesting pattern, that there is nothing more in it. Yet even they do not choose entirely without reference to the character of their subjects.

    If one painter chooses to paint a decaying(腐烂)leg and another a lake in moonlight, each of them is directing our attention to a certain aspect of the world. Each painter is telling us something, showing us something, emphasizing something-all of which means that, consciously(有意识地)or unconsciously, he is trying to teach us.

    As an English, I can speak three languages—English, German and French, so do you think the British people are very good language learners? The fact is that they aren't.

    Some statistics (数据) from the survey done by the European Commission (欧盟委员会) showed that 62% of the British people only speak English. 38% speak at least one foreign language and 18% speak two or more. Compared with the British people, 56% of the people in other European countries speak at least one foreign language and 28% speak two or more.

    From this you can see that the British people are famous for not speaking foreign languages and that they are not good language learners in Europe.

    And the survey also showed that English is the most widely-spoken foreign language. Many European people can have a conversation in English. That's why my people don't think it is necessary to learn a foreign language.

In Britain, students are not required to learn a foreign language. That means learning a foreign language is only an option at school. In UK schools it is common for children to start learning a foreign language at 11 and many of them give it up at 14. So why don't students continue learning foreign languages at school? Because they think it is more difficult to get good marks in languages than in other subjects such as science or history.

    To solve this situation, the British government is looking for different ways to improve language learning at school. One way is to start learning it at a much younger age. Another one is to give school children more choices.

Changing the British attitude (态度) to learning foreign languages may be a hard task but the government decides to try!

Dear Xia Yu,

    Do you know that there are two special days for parents in America? One is Mother's Day on the second Sunday of May, and the other is Father's Day on the third Sunday of June. On these two days, American children often give gifts to their parents or take them out for lunch or dinner. Common gifts are flowers and cards for mothers and shirts or ties for fathers. I heard that it is becoming more and more popular to celebrate Mother's Day and Father's Day in China. I wonder if children over there also give similar gifts to their parents. I believe that there are many ways to show our love. Actually, we don't have to spend a lot of money. It's also a good idea to help parents to do something instead.

    Quince, a restaurant in San Francisco, is serving a dish called "A Dog in Search of Gold" on an Apple iPad that's playing a video of a dog hunting for truffles (松露). If you're wondering about the connection, the dish is composed of white truffle croquettes (油炸丸子).And in case you're not into truffles, Quince also serves frog legs on top of iPads playing videos of frogs in a pond.

    "The idea is simply about taking the guest on a voyage," Michael Tusk, who runs the restaurant, told Inside Scoop SF. "Living in San Francisco for over twenty years, I have seen the technological development, and I want to combine (结合) food industry with technology and a Me bit of education." Local chef Richie Nakano attracted the attention of social media after showing a photo of the UA Dog in Search of Gold" that a friend had ordered. Some people complained about the high price of the dish, but most wondered whether it was healthy.

    Tusk said, "We asked local wood worker Luke Bartels to create a housing (防护外壳) for the iPad — a glass cover that protects the screen. The food does not directly sit on top of the iPad. The cover is washed after every use."

    Interestingly, Quince is reportedly the first U.S. restaurant to use iPads as plates, but definitely not the first in the world. The Daily Mail reports that restaurants in the UK have been using them for the last two years.