People often ask which is the most difficult language to learn, and it is not easy to answer because there are too many factors to take into consideration. Firstly, in a first language the differences are unimportant as people learn their mother tongue naturally, so the question of how hard a language is to learn only makes more sense when learning a second language.

    A native speaker of Spanish, for example, will find Portuguese much easier to learn than a native speaker of Chinese, for example, because Portuguese is very similar to Spanish, while Chinese is very different, so first language can affect learning a second language. The greater the differences between the second language and our first, the harder it will be for most people to learn. Many people answer that Chinese is the hardest language to learn, possibly influenced by the thought of learning the Chinese writing system, and the pronunciation of Chinese does appear to be very difficult for many foreign learners. However, for Japanese speakers, who already use Chinese characters in their own language, learning writing will be less difficult than for speakers of languages using the Roman alphabet.

    Some people seem to learn languages easily, while others find it very difficult. Teachers and the circumstances in which the language is learned also play an important role, as well as each learner's motivation for learning. If people learn a language because they need to use it professionally, they often learn it faster than people studying a language that has no direct use in their day to day life.

    Obviously , British diplomats and other embassy staff have found that the second hardest language is Japanese, which will probably come as no surprise to many, but the language that they have found to be the most problematic is Hungarian, which uses a similar alphabet to English but has 35 cases (forms of a nouns according to whether it is subject, object, genitive, etc). This does not mean that Hungarian is the hardest language to learn for everyone, but it causes British diplomatic personnel, who are generally used to learning languages, the most difficulty. However, Tabassaran, a Caucasian language has 48 cases, so it might cause more difficulty if British diplomats had to learn it.

    Different cultures and individuals from those cultures will find different languages more difficult. Therefore, it is impossible to say that there is one language that is the most difficult language in the world.

    Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago in 1954 to a Mexican American family. As the only girl in a family of seven children, she often felt like she had "seven fathers ", because her six brothers, as well as her father, tried to control her. Feeling shy and unimportant, she hid herself into books. Despite her love of reading, she did not do well in elementary school because she was too shy to participate.

    In high school, with the encouragement of one particular teacher, Cisneros improved her grades and worked for the school literary magazine. Her father encouraged her to go to college because he thought it would be a good way for her to find a husband. Cisneros did attend college, but instead of searching for a husband, she found a teacher who helped her join the famous graduate writing program at the University of Iowa. At the University's Writers' Workshop, however, she felt lonely—a Mexican American from a poor neighborhood among students from wealthy families. The feeling of being so different helped Cisneros find her "creative voice".

    "It was not until this moment when I considered myself truly different that my writing acquired a voice. I knew I was a Mexican woman, but I didn't think it had anything to do with why I felt so much imbalanced in my life, but it had everything to do with it! That's when I decided I would write about something my classmates couldn't write about."

    Cisneros published her first work, The House on Mango Street , when she was twenty-nine. The book tells about a young Mexican American girl growing up in a Spanish-speaking area in Chicago, much like the neighborhoods in which Cisneros lived as a child. The book won an award in 1985 and has been used in classes from high school through graduate school level. Since then, Cisneros has published several books of poetry, a children's book, and a shortstory collection.

    A telescope, called Gaia, is being designed by astronomers in Europe, and it couldn't be more different from Pan-STARRS, which is another telescope being designed. While Pan-STARRS will be looking for asteroids (小行星) and comets headed for Earth, Gaia will be looking at our entire galaxy (银河系).

    Gaia is designed to draw a map of the Milky Way, our home galaxy. Just as a map of your town gives you a picture of where things are located, Gaia's map of the galaxy will tell astronomers where the stars are. Over five years, Gaia will observe (观察) about a billion stars and other objects in our galaxy. Each object will be observed about 70 times.

    Gaia will be sent into space connected to a rocket. It contains two telescopes, each focused at a different angle (角度). These two telescopes act like Gaia's “eyes”. The reason why humans can see things in 3D is that we have two eyes focused on the same object, at slightly different angles. By using two telescopes like eyes, Gaia can produce the first 3D map of the positions of the stars it views.

    Gaia, which is to be sent into space, will be a powerful telescope. If you were to use it on Earth, for example, you could stand 600 miles away from your best friends and still get a clear picture of their hair.

    Gaia is one of more than a dozen telescopes being designed by scientists right now. The next generation of telescopes will reveal new parts of our universe that will seem surprising. The universe, with all its planets, stars and other strange objects, is a puzzle with pieces that we can see by using powerful telescopes.

    When I was a boy, my parents and I traveled from New York City to the Pennsylvania countryside for a weeklong taste of rural life. We stayed in a guesthouse on a farm, joining the daily routines and eating meals with the farmer and his family. We got up early to see the cows as they were milked. I even tried my hand at milking one, and then joined the farmer as he released the cows into the field afterward.

    Decades later I still have vivid memories of that trip which made me realize the value of a vacation, of seeing new things, meeting new people and sharing memorable experiences with family members. To this day, I still consider that family trip when I plan to take time off with my wife and kids. Vacations are a time for resting and connecting. As a bank manager, I spend much of my workday encouraging my customers to save their money. One of the reasons I give is that we should all have enough for a family vacation every year. In our busy lives, family is what we should be saving our money and time for.

    For my family, our vacation starts when we begin planning the trip. We talk about destinations and our budget (预算) ahead of time. Among the things we discuss: Can we save money by renting a house instead of spending six nights in a hotel? Would it be better to buy groceries and cook for ourselves rather than eat out every night? Involving (使参与) the kids in planning the vacation makes sure that they have a great vacation too. I prefer to visit historical sites and museums while they love to fish and swim. So I build in some relaxation time for us all so that the vacation can work for everyone.

    Each year, setting aside vacation time to spend together is especially important to us. A relaxing environment opens the doors to all kinds of conversations—deep, silly or meaningful. There's no pleasure from the usual everyday tasks. What matters is that everyone is having a great time.

A Rare Spotless Giraffe

A female giraffe was born at Brights Zoo in Tennessee recently—but unlike her mother she was born without any spots an unusual one.

Standing 14 to 19 feet tall, giraffes are the tallest land animals in the world. When mothers give birth, the young giraffes are already 6 feet tall, and other than in especially rare cases, they're born covered in brown spots. Brights Zoo in Limestone, Tennessee, announced that it welcomed the birth of a reticulated giraffe (网纹长颈鹿) without any spots on July 31st.

"Giraffe experts believe she is the only solid-colored reticulated giraffe living anywhere on the planet," the zoo said. The zoo's director, David Bright, said zoo staff had been reaching out to zoo professionals across the country inquiring about how unusual the giraffe could be. Zoo officials said the only record of a reticulated giraffe being born without spots was in Japan in the 1970s.

Mr. Bright said that the new giraffe might not have survived if she had been born in the wild. "Being solid-colored, she may not be able to hide quite well," said Bright. He also thought it was likely that the giraffe would be a "key target for illegal hunters" because she's so unusual.

Pictures of the young giraffe can be seen on the Brights Zoo Facebook page. In a picture, she, without her spots, stood next to her mother, a normal giraffe, in stark contrast. The zoo is asking the public to help name the newborn. People can choose one of four names available on the zoo's Facebook page. The names and their meanings are: Kipekee, meaning unique; Firyali, which means unusual or surprising; Shakiri, meaning she is most beautiful; Jamella, which means optimistic.

Bright said that the zoo looked at thousands of names and their meanings before settling on the four available. "Those four are the four the family really loves," Bright said. "So if she's named one of those four, we're very happy."

According to the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, there are only about 16, 000reticulated giraffes left in the wild — a more than 50% drop from approximately 36,000giraffes 35 years ago. There are about 117, 000giraffes across nine subspecies(亚种).Many of them are endangered or critically endangered.

Between 1945 and 2000, educators employed a fairly uniform approach. The teacher was the sun in the classroom, and all lessons and activities centered around him or her. Educators stressed the importance of discipline and obedience(服从) within the classroom, and students were expected to follow very rigid standards for behavior and academic performance. The stated goal of this model was to ensure fairness by applying the same expectations; however, the result was that only a few students succeeded while many others were left behind.

When computers and Internet technology entered the classroom a few decades ago, another pattern appeared and progressive educators immediately saw the opportunity to change the way school worked. Instead of needing to focus on the teachers for the vast majority of the day, students could use computers, websites, and even games to learn new materials and improve their skills and knowledge. Not all educators welcomed this shift, however, as some believed it took power and responsibility away from the teachers and cheapened the educational experience for learners.

Over the last decade, two distinct camps of educators have emerged. Tech advocates stress that computers and Internet technology allow students to learn at their own pace in an environment that makes them feel comfortable, while the traditional classroom sets a pace that many learners can't keep up with and often makes students feel uncomfortable. Traditionalists, on the other hand, believe that over-reliance on tech limits students' ability to develop their own knowledge and skills and does little to prepare them for the realities of being adults in the real world.

Regrettably, the inability of these two parties to find an agreement has prevented the growth of our education system. We must learn from what worked in the past while adopting the best of our new technologies to create an education system that reflects our modern world. If we can't get all our teachers on the same page, then we will be at risk of failing future generations.