The game of telephone is a classic ice breaker and party game. It's easy to set up and a lot of fun to play. You and your friends will try to pick a word or phrase, “pass it on” by whispering(耳语) it to someone next to you, and have fun seeing how much it changed during the game. All you will need to play is a couple of friends, a word or phrase, and a whisper.

Get everyone in place.

    Although the game of telephone is simple to play, you will need to arrange(安排) the players in a way that supports the game. Have everyone stand in either a line or a circle. Players should be spaced far enough apart that they won't overhear the word when it isn't their turn. Proper position is important when playing telephone.

Start the game.

    Choose a person to start the game. Make the person think of a word or give a certain word to him or her. And he or she should whisper it to the person next to them. The pronunciation of the word should sound like many others' as the idea is to see how much it changes by the game's end. Once the word has been told to the next person, they will whisper it to the person next to them.

Continue whispering the word.

    Players continue listening to the word and repeating what they think they heard to the person next to them. This is done until the last person in the line or circle is told the word. Every person should have heard the word or phrase by the end of the game.

See how much the word changed.

    Once the last person hears the word or phrase, they will say what they think they heard out-loud. This is compared to the original word that the game started with. This is the moment when all the players get to learn just how much the word or phrase changed through their “telephone line”.

    The Vieira family moved to the United States in1981. At that time, they decided to stop speaking Spanish at home and only communicate in English. This was because they were now living in an English-speaking country.

    Now the Vieira children are adults, and they sometimes travel to Spain to visit their family and friends. But they can't communicate with them. Unfortunately this is common. When people move to new countries, they often leave their own customs and mother language behind. This is a mistake because there are many benefits to knowing more than one language.

    One advantage of speaking more than one language is that you can communicate with more people around the world. You don't have to depend on others to talk for you, so you are more independent. People who know only one language must use others to help them communicate.

    Furthermore, speaking the second language also allows people to experience other cultures and customs more effectively. Local expressions, vocabulary, and even jokes can have a powerful effect on a person's understanding of other culture. So knowing more than one language increases your knowledge of other cultures.

    Finally, having more multi-language speakers improves relationships between countries. If people from different countries can communicate well, the world can become closer. Countries will then have more respect for each other and better understand each other's problems.

    The benefits of knowing more than one language are clear. In fact, there are no disadvantages. It is very sad that many people don't try to learn another language. It' seven worse when people let themselves forget their mother language and become silenced.

    A city without cars would be very strange, right? But Venice is such a city.

    Venice is in the north-east of Italy. It wasn't built on land, like Beijing or Shanghai, but on more than 110 islands. Seawater is everywhere around the city.

    Even so, travel isn't difficult. The waterways have always been the best way to get around. There are 177 waterways and more than 400 bridges that can guide you where you want to go. People in Venice move from place to place by boat. They like to enjoy the scenery and the cool summer night while taking boat trips. They can talk to other people as they go along.

    Venice grew out of small islands in saltwater lakes when some Italians escaped from a war over 1, 500 years ago, and built homes there.

    Water makes the city special, but it is also a big problem. Sometimes tourists will have such strange experiences. One moment they walk across the Rialto Bridge, and there's nothing special but when they come back to the bridge an hour later, it's underwater and everyone is wearing rain shoes.

    Once, people used too much underground water. This made the city get lower little by little. Now the city has gone down by 23 centimetres. Another problem is the rising seawater. The temperature has risen over the years. This has made the ice of the Arctic Ocean (北冰洋) melt (融化).

    Every year, high waters hit the city in autumn and winter. When a lot of water comes, more than half of the city is underwater.

    Scientists are trying different ways to stop the city from getting even lower. The Italian government has asked some of Italy's biggest companies to build the MOST project, which was planned to be built under the seawater to stop the rising water. Anyway, this project is helping solve the problem.