“When in Rome, do as the Romans do”, so when you want to do business in France, you have to get to know French culture, to make marketing plans, and to run your business by local laws.

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#} The French take great pride in their language, so anyone who does not speak it may run the risk of being disrespected by his French colleagues or business partners. Also, another reason why learning French is important is that it is a great way to show every possible French business partner that you care and respect their country's culture and language.

    There are obvious ways of greeting people in French. When you meet someone new, it's usual to shake his hand firmly and always look at the person in the eye. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

        Dress well. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}Your business clothing is a reflection of your success and social status. Always try to be stylish. Women are advised to dress simply but elegantly. Wearing make-up is practiced widely by business women.

    The French are passionate about food, so lunches are common in doing business in France, which usually consist of an appetizer, main meal with wine, cheese, dessert and coffee, and normally take up to two hours. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    Do not begin eating until the host says, “Bon appetite”. Pass dishes to the left, keep wrists above the table and try to eat everything on the plate. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}This may suggest that you find the food tasteless. If eating in a restaurant, the person who invites always pays.

A. The French draw information about people based on their appearance.

B. This is a time for relationship building.

C. Maybe you have heard the expression.

D. Language should be the focus of anyone planning to do business in France.

E. Be careful with adding salt, pepper or sauces to your food.

F. When you meet a friend, kissing is common.

G. English and French are both spoken in formal occasions.

    Public Speaking Training

    Get a coach

{#blank#}1{#/blank#} so get help. Since there are about a billion companies out there all ready to offer you public speaking training and courses, here are some things to look for when deciding the training that's right for you.

    Focus on positives

Any training you do to become more effective at public speaking should always focus on the positive aspects of what you already do well. Nothing can hurt confidence more than being told that you aren't doing well.{#blank#}2{#/blank#} so good public speaking training should develop those instead of telling you what you shouldn't do.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

If you find a public speaking course that looks as though it's going to give you lots of dos and don'ts, walk away! Your brain is so full of what you're going to be talking about.{#blank#}4{#/blank#} As far as we're concerned, there are basically no hard and fast rules about public speaking. Your audience can be your friends.

    You are a special person not a clone (克隆人)

Most importantly, good public speaking training should treat you as a special one, with your own personal habits.{#blank#}5{#/blank#}Your training course should help you bring out your personality, not try to turn you into someone you're not.

A. You aren't like anybody else

B. You already do lots of things well

C. Turn your back on too many rules

D. Check the rules about dos and don'ts

E. Whatever the presentation, public speaking is tough

F. The one thing you don't want is for them to fall asleep

G. So trying to force a whole set of rules into it will just make things worse

How to Treat Hoarding Disorder(囤积症)

    Many of us struggle to part with treasured belongings, but for years Stephanie Evans felt too hard to leave everything she'd ever bought. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Her bedroom, meanwhile, was so full of piles of clothes that, until recently, she had to sleep on the sofa in the living room.

    Stephanie suffers from hoarding disorder, thought to affect an estimated 3.4 million people in the UK to some degree. But, like many, she didn't think it was something doctors would treat. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} In fact, hoarding is recognized as a psychiatric disorder(精神疾病) by the World Health Organization. It can be associated with other mental health conditions such as depression and social anxiety, etc. Those affected people will collect anything, such as clothes, newspapers, photos, even printouts of emails.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} If a person lost something important in the childhood, he or she would resist any further losses. That's why hoarders refuse to part with things. Hoarding can have far-reaching effects on a person's life. People can lose their children and their homes due to hoarding.

    Hoarding disorder, like many other illnesses, can never really be “cured”. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Clearing out someone's overcrowded house is rarely effective on its own, because he or she will just fill it up again. If and when hoarding disorder is diagnosed, the mental health professional, the patient's primary care physician, and any specialists or other professionals involved will work together to develop a coordinated treatment. For most people with hoarding disorder, cognitive behavioral therapy(认知行为治疗) with a mental health professional is the first choice treatment. It can often help the hoarders accept that there is a problem, and then possibly develop solutions.

    Because hoarding disorder is still relatively new as a distinct condition, treatment plans may be somewhat less standardized. For instance, there is still disagreement regarding if and how to use medicine to treat hoarding disorder. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}

A. So she didn't seek any help.

B. Hoarders may also have problems planning and organizing.

C. However, it can be successfully treated with the right mix of treatment methods.

D. The common time for it to come is when people are middle-aged or older and living alone.

E. Hopefully, some people with the condition do seem to respond well to certain kind of medicine.

F. As a result, her hallway and living room were packed with towering stacks of books and magazines.

G. One theory is that having experienced loss in the past can make people suffer from hoarding disorder.

Not all English is the same

    To many learners of English, it's easy to think that all native speakers have no trouble communicating with one another.

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    Well, it turns out that being a native English speaker from one country doesn't mean that you're able to perfectly understand a native English speaker from another country, and vice versa (反之亦然)

    Take the UK and the US for example.

    As a Briton, I grew up hearing American accents alongside British ones – on TV shows, movies and in songs.{#blank#}2{#/blank#} and how they would eat “cookies” instead of “biscuits”.  And it took me a while to figure out that the “trunk” (n. 后备箱) of a car is what us Britons call its “boot”.

    The confusion didn't stop at just vocabulary –{#blank#}3{#/blank#} For example, when talking about shopping malls, Americans pronounce it “mawl” instead of “mal”. And for some reason that's hard for Britons to understand, Americans remove the “H” sound from “herb”, pronouncing it “erb”.

    These small differences may not change much in a day-to-day conversation between a Briton and an American.{#blank#}4{#/blank#} Recently, for example, an American friend told me that she liked my pants. “You can see them?” I asked, shocked. Pants means “underpants” to most British people, which explains my horror.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} In the US, for example, a “bum” is a homeless person, while the same word in the UK is used to describe one's backside（n.臀部）.

    And, more amusingly, “trump” was only ever really used as a verb in the UK – meaning “to pass gas” – until the US' current president came into the spotlight.

But as long as you can speak one version of English, it's easy enough to understand any other – and any confusion just makes your day more interesting.

A. English is changing as it spreads around the world.

B. After all, English is English, isn't it?

C. I soon noticed how Americans would put “gas” in their cars instead of “petrol” .

D. However, confusion can still happen every now and then.

E. There are different words that mean the difficult thing.

F. Some words can even be offensive (adj.无礼的) without you realizing it.

G. I discovered that many words are even pronounced differently.

    Before there was the written word, there was the language of dance. Dance expresses love and hate, joy and sorrow, life and death, and everything else in between.

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#}We dance from Florida to Alaska, from north to south and sea to sea. We dance at weddings, birthdays, office parties and just to fill the time.

    “I adore dancing,” says Lester Bridges, the owner of a dance studio in Iowa. “I can't imagine doing anything else with my life.” Bridges runs dance classes for all ages. “Teaching dance is wonderful. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}It's great to watch them. For many of them, it's a way of meeting people and having a social life.”

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#}“I can tell you about one young couple,” says Bridges. “They're learning to do traditional dances. They arrive at the class in low spirits and they leave with a smile. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}”

    So, do we dance in order to make ourselves feel better, calmer, healthier? Andrea Hillier says, “Dance, like the pattern of a beating heart, is life. Even after all these years, I want to get better and better.{#blank#}5{#/blank#} I find it hard to stop! Dancing reminds me I'm alive.”

A. So why do we dance?

B. Dance in the U.S. is everywhere.

C. If you like dancing outdoors, come to America.

D. My older students say it makes them feel young.

E. I keep practicing even when I'm extremely tired.

F. Dancing seems to change their feeling completely.

G. They stayed up all night long singing and dancing.

    Constantly. About a half-million quakes rock the earth every day. People don't feel most of them because the quake is too small, too far below the surface, or deep in the sea. Some, however, are so powerful that they can be felt thousands of miles away.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}But you can prepare for the unpredictable with a family safety plan, emergency kit and supplies and act properly when facing it and the disasters it brings.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#}On one hand, make sure you have a fire extinguisher, first aid kit, a battery-powered radio, a flashlight and extra batteries at home. Learn first aid and learn how to turn off the gas, water and electricity. On the other hand, make up a plan of where to meet your family after an earthquake.{#blank#}3{#/blank#}Do fix them to the wall or the floor.

    Pay attention to what you can do during an earthquake. Stay calm! If you're indoors, stand against a wall near the center of the building, stand in a doorway, or crawl under heavy furniture (a desk or table). Stay away from windows and outside doors.{#blank#}4{#/blank#}Stay away from buildings considering something might fall off the building or the building could fall on you.

    Take some useful measures after an earthquake.{#blank#}5{#/blank#}Provide first aid for anyone who needs it. Check water, gas, and electric lines for damage. You should stay out of damaged buildings. Be careful around broken glass. Wear shoes to prevent cutting your feet. Be careful of chimneys-they may fall on you.

A.Stay indoors before an earthquake.

B.Check yourself and others for injuries.

C.Maybe you think the earthquake can be predictable.

D.Some actions matter to you when an earthquake is coming.

E.That's to say，earthquakes can happen anytime or anywhere.

F.Don't leave heavy objects on shelves because they'll fall during a quake.

G.If you're outdoors，stay in the open away from power lines or anything that might fall.