Many people drive their cars to school or work now. So there are lots of cars on the streets. Sometimes, it's not easy for you to get to school or work on time(准时). Then you want to take a plane to school or work. Can your dream come true? Yes!

Four people in Germany(德国) make a new plane—Lilium Jet. It doesn't look like a plane but an egg. Many people think it looks funny. The nice "egg" can take two people and "run" about three hundred kilometers an hour.

    The Lilium Jet is not very big. So it doesn't need an airport(机场). A small place is OK.

    Some people also call the Lilium Jet "a flying car". It's not difficult for you to learn to drive it. You can drive it like driving a car.

    Maybe you can buy one in 2018 if you like it. I'm sure your trip to school or work will be great.

    The Notting Hill is only a small area in west London, but the Notting Hill Carnival (诺丁山狂欢节) attracts millions of people from all over the world to have fun. The carnival is at the end of August each year, and the main days are Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday.

    The festival started as a local West Indian event, but from a small procession (游行) through the streets of Notting Hill, it's a huge multi-cultural arts festival now. In fact, it is the largest street carnival (嘉年华会; 狂欢节) in Europe. Only the Rio Carnival in Brazil is bigger.

    At the heart of the festival is a spectacular (壮观的) parade (游行). The carnival route (路线) is three miles long and hundreds of groups move along it. There's music, decorated floats, elaborated costumes and dancing. There are also live stages where artists from all over the world perform, but there is a lot more to the festival than just music. There are 300 food stalls selling international food so you can't get hungry. There's theatre, arts and crafts, too.

    You can sing and dance or you can just watch. But there's no need to be quiet.

    You can buy whistles and blow them to make lots of noise! The Notting Hill Carnival welcomes visitors and tourists.

Do you know that vocabulary is more important than grammar? If you have good vocabulary, you can communicate successfully, even if your grammar is not completely perfect.

However, one common problem is leaning new words and then forgetting them. So, when you want to use a new word in a conversation, you can't remember it at that moment. Does this often happen to you? The reason for this difficulty is that most students try to learn vocabulary by studying word lists and dictionaries and remembering the words. But it may not work if you don't have a very good memory.

The best way to learn vocabulary and remember the words successfully is to learn new words and use them at once. You can do this with a very simple exercise. Each time you learn anew word, for example, from an English lesson or an article, write it down in your vocabulary notebook. Writing is more active than just reading a definition(释义). You should write the word, the definition in English or translation, one example sentence from the article or dictionary and one example sentence that you create.

Imagine you just learn the word "generous", write in your vocabulary notebook: generous(adjective), definition-giving or willing to give freely. Example One, from the article: Thanks for paying for my dinner, you're very generous. Example Two, my example: My brother is generous because he volunteers at the animal shelter on weekends. It's best if your example sentences are true to your life, because this creates a personal connection with the new word. The next day, read your vocabulary notebook again and try to add one more example sentence using the new word. It's helpful for you to remember it. These two simple steps-writing the word and using it at once-help you remember and use new words.

There was a saying in ancient China,"The Winter Solstice (冬至) is as important as the Spring Festival (春节)."

The Winter Solstice became a winter festival during the Han Dynasty. On this day, people would have a rest.

The Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, falls on Dec. 22 this year. Northern China has the tradition of eating dumplings on this day, while people in southern China eat tangyuan (汤圆).

The Winter Solstice marks the beginning of deep winter. The important thing during the days of the Winter Solstice is to keep away from cold. We should wear more clothes to stay warm and try to reduce unnecessary outdoor activities.

The Winter Solstice is also a time for family gatherings. However, Tang Xiaoqian, an 11-year-old girl, will have to spend the festival with only her grandmother. She hasn't seen her parents for four years. In fact, there are lots of children like her in her village. They are growing up without their parents. They are called left-behind children (留守儿童).

To make more money, a number of parents have to leave their children behind and go to cities to look for jobs. They can't go back home to celebrate festivals with their children and even can't see their children for years.

When you are reading something in English, you may often see a new word. If you want to get its meaning (意思), you can just guess and you can also ask your teacher or friends for help. But, what's the best way to know it?

A dictionary is your best friend when learning English. You need an English-Chinese dictionary. It will tell you a lot about the word you don't know. For example (例如), it tells you how to read this word, what it means in Chinese and how to use this word. But there are so many English words in the dictionary and how can you know where the word is? There is a way to look for it. 

In the dictionary, you can first see the words beginning with the letter A, then B, C, D, E… That means, if there are two words, "desk" and "hour", " desk" will be before "hour"; "story" before "Sunday", "tomato" before "tomorrow" etc (等等). 

The English-Chinese dictionary will be your good friend. I hope you will often use it in your English learning.