There are about fifteen hundred languages in the world. But only a few. of them are very important. English is one of them. Many, many people use it, not {#blank#}1{#/blank#}in England and the USA, but also in other parts of the world. About 400, 000, 000 people speak it {#blank#}2{#/blank#}their own language. It is difficult {#blank#}3{#/blank#}(say) how many people are learning it as a foreign language.{#blank#}4{#/blank#}(million) of people are trying to do so. Is it easy or difficult to learn English？Different people may have different{#blank#}5{#/blank#}（answer）.

    The only language that seems easy to learn is the mother tongue. We should remember that we all learned our own language {#blank#}6{#/blank#}when we were children. If we could learn English {#blank#}7{#/blank#}the same way, it would not seem so difficult. Think of {#blank#}8{#/blank#}a small child does. He listens to what people say. He tries what he hears.

    So it is hard to say that {#blank#}9{#/blank#}(learn) English is easy. We must do a lot of practice. And practice needs great efforts(努力) and takes much time. Good teachers, records, tapes, books, and dictionaries will be{#blank#}10{#/blank#}(help) , but they cannot do the student's work for him.