We use the Internet for many things: business, shopping, writing letters, talking to people, finding information, and so on. In recent years, a new kind of English has grown on the Internet. There's no real word for it yet, so we'll call it e-talk. People don't like typing too much. To save time, they turn phrases (短语) into a few letters called acronyms(首字母缩略词). Acronyms are often used in chat rooms.
Some of them are:
BTW(by the way) BRB (be right back)
LOL (laughing out loud) IMO (in my opinion)
People also use many abbreviations. They are shortened forms of words. Some common abbreviations are:
info (information) puter (computer) pic (picture) sec (second)
We usually don't see people when we communicate on the Net, so people have new ways to show feelings. Most people use their keyboards to draw “feeling”, such as:
: ) (happy) :-( (sad) ; : P (joking) : O (surprised)
These days, many forums have picture feelings. For example:
happy sad angry cool
There are even whole new words, like ‘newbie' (someone who is new on a chat board or forum). When you write something bad about someone else, it's called ‘flaming' the person.
It takes time to get used to e-talk. Also, different groups in the Net have their own special ways of communicating. Newbies sometimes have to ask other people what they mean. As the Internet grows, e-talk will continue to grow and change.

    Ted, my little brother, is in Grade One. Last Friday he came back from school with a letter. The letter was from his teacher. “I got a red flower today. Could you please sign this note?” he said to mum. The note showed that he had been talking in class.

    Ted hardly gets top scores in his school work. The best he gets is “OK”, but he often gets “You can do better than this.” Mum knows what it means. She tells me “You can do better than this” means “Extremely bad” in China.

    In the USA, teachers never say anything too bad about their students, even if the students are making trouble in class or not working hard enough. The worst they might say is “Please be nicer tomorrow”. Many parents are satisfied with a B-grade for each subject.

    But things in Chinese schools are quite different. Parents have high expectations for their children. I sometimes felt that my second-grade cousin spend more time on homework than I did when I was 6^th grade in the US! Yet his parents and teachers didn't think he worked hard enough.

    Is it too strict in China? Or is it not strict enough in the USA? Maybe both are true.

    One of the things to be learnt in a foreign language is guessing all the time what kind of thing to come when listening to someone talking. People do this all the time in their own language, so it is necessary (必要的) to do this in a foreign language, too. Here are some examples.

    ⒈"What's the matter?" "I went to a party last night, so I…"

    ⒉"I feel so tired these days."" I think you'd better…"

    ⒊"Of course, she never stops talking. She is one of the most…"

    You can see from the above three examples that the context (上下文) helps a lot in understanding what is being talked about. So "guessing "is very important in understanding English, especially (尤其)spoken English.

    Job interviews can be very different from country. An interviewer's “body language” and questions, and the form of an interview are not the same around the world.

    If you're at a job interview in Japan, don't look directly into the eyes of the interviewer. It is considered impolite. But if you're at an interview in the US, you should make eye contact(交流) with the interviewer. If you don't, the interviewer may think you are not sure about your ability.

    In the US and some other countries, interviewers aren't supposed to ask questions about family and personal information. In most countries, however, personal questions are very common during job interviews.

    In Germany, your interview might begin with a very short conversation followed by a formal(正式的) interview. In Mexico and many other countries, the whole interview might not be formal.

    In the world, soccer of football is the most popular sport. This is because many countries have wonderful teams for the World Cup. The World Cup is held every four years.

    To remember 2002 FIFA World Cup ,children from different countries and more than 60 children from Japanese schools came together and spent three weekends drawing a big picture called “Dream(梦幻) World Cups ”in Japan .The children drew animals, flowers and people playing soccer under a bule bright sky. They wished each football team good luck by drawing the flags(旗帜)of all the countries that will take part in the World Cup in Japan and South Korea. The picture was put up in a park near a playground in Yokohama .Some football teams will have games there.

    Are you a football fan(迷)？The World Cup makeds more and more people interested in football Teenagers(青少年)like playing and watching football .Many of them love some football stars so much that they get the pictures of their favourite players on the walls of their rooms. That is the way to show their love for the World Cup as children in Japan.

    Comics use drawings and words to tell stories that can be funny or serious, or a little of both. Comic books grew out of comic strips in newspapers.

    One of the most successful early comic characters in America was Mickey Dugan, better-known as "the Yellow Kid". He wore a yellow coat that was too big for him. He was a character in a comic strip which provided opinions on the problems of cities. The Yellow Kid first appeared in 1895. The character became so popular that it was also used to sell products and to create plays.

    Adventure stories in comic books were very popular during the 1930s- the time known as the Golden Age of Comics. Famous characters created during that time include the science fiction hero Flash Gordon and the detective Dick Tracy.

    The 1930s also gave us a superhero who came to Earth from another planet. Superman was a newspaper reporter for Daily Planet in the big city when he lived on the Earth. Superman became a hero of comic fans as he used his ability to fly to fight for "truth and jus tice(正义)". Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were seventeen when they created Superman in 1933. They sold the rights(版权) of the character to the DC Comics Company for one hundred and thirty dollars. That might be a lot of money to them at the time. But it was nothing compared to all the money made since then from Superman comics, radio and TV shows, movies and toys. Finally, in 1975, they wanted to get more for their creation. DC Comics agreed to pay each of them twenty thousand dollars a year for life. And it agreed to put their names as the creators of Superman in all future printed materials and films.