I have three friends. They are Lucy, Mary and Mike. They have their favourite pets(宠物). The dog is Lucy's favourite. She thinks(认为) it can help us and it is our good friend. Mary likes the cat. She thinks it is nice to play with it. Mike says his favourite pet is the bird. It can sing very well.

    I'm Jim. Today is my birthday. I want to thank my family for their love. So I cook dinner for them. I know my mother likes hamburgers and salad. But my father likes chicken and tomato soup(汤). I have a brother. He likes hamburgers, too. But he doesn't like salad. He likes carrots. I have a sister, too. She likes fish(鱼肉) and bread. I like chicken and strawberries. I will buy these things for the birthday party.

    As the Internet is developing fast, more and more new words and phrases have been created in Chinese. Here are some examples.

    One of the most popular words is Dianzan, which is often used when you quite agree with someone. Another example is Renxing. When you say somebody is Renxing, you mean that they will do whatever they like. The phrase Miaosha first came from online shopping, which means ou can complete your shopping orders before others. But now it's widely used when you achieve your purpose in a very short time. If you describe someone as a Tuhao, you mean that he or she is very rich.

    You can find lots of such new Chinese words. Keep learning and you'll know more about Chinese culture.

When they finished the moving, Mom took Jane to meet her new teacher. The teacher said, "Welcome to our school Jane. Let me tell you what we do in our second-grade class. We start the day with reading and writing. After that, we do math. Then we go out to recess(休息). Just before lunch, we have social studies. We eat lunch at eleven o'clock. Then we have story time. After story time, we have science. Then comes learning centers where you can work on the computer, play a game, or read a book. Next, we have spelling. And then we go to the music class. From 3:00 to 4:00, we have some lessons for you and you can take one of them. Here is a schedule for you to take home. I'll see you tomorrow, Jane!"

    Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in 1835,in the state of Missouri. When he was four, his family moved to the town ofHannibal, Missouri. Hannibal was a port on the Missippi River, and Clemensloved to watch the big steamboats going up and down the river. He said that allthe boys in his school had one ambition in life: to work on a steamboat!

    His father died when he was just 12 yearsold, and Clemens then went to work for a printer to help support his family. Hetravelled around, and worked in many different cities. But when he was 22, heachieved his ambition—he got a job working on a steamboat. He sailed up anddown the wide Missippi River until the American Civil War began.

    He then moved around America, and triedseveral jobs. He was a soldier, and a silver miner. Then he started working asa writer for a newspaper. It was at that time that he decided to use a pen namefor his stories, and he chose the name "Mark Twain".

    The name is interesting. It comes from hisdays on the steamboats. He used to throw a piece of rope into the river. Therewas a heavy weight on the end of the rope, and the rope had some marks on it.He used the rope to find how deep the river was. Then he shouted out, "MarkOne" or "Mark Twain", meaning "Mark Two". Each markwas about two metres, so when he shouted "Mark Twain", it meant thatthe river was deep enough for the big boat.

    In 1865 Clemens wrote a story about ajumping frog. The story and the writer became famous. In 1867 he toured Europe.He married when he returned, and lived for most of the rest of his in Harfort,Connecticut. He wrote many books, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, whichhe wrote in 1876. He also gave many lectures, and became a very famous andpopular man.

    Once two of his friends decided to write tohim, but they had lost his address. So on the envelope they just wrote "MarkTwain, God knows where". Several weeks later, they received a replay fromthe writer. It just said, "He does!"

    Samuel Clemens died in 1910. He isconsidered to be one of America's most important writers.