Hans Christian Andersen, a great Danish (丹麦的) writer, is very famous for his fairy tales(童话). He wrote a lot of best-known stories such as The Emperor's New Clothes and The Ugly Duckling. His fairy tales have brought happiness to children across the world. The tales have versions (版本) of over a hundred languages.

    Andersen was born in Denmark in 1805. When he was still a young boy, he was already very clever and imaginative (富于想象力的). He created a small toy theatre and made clothes for his puppets (木偶). He also loved reading.

    In 1816, his father died and he learned to be a tailor (裁缝). Later he worked in a factory. At the age of fourteen, Andersen moved to the capital of Denmark to become an actor and gave performances (演出) in the Royal Danish Theatre. However, his voice changed when he grew older, so the job had to stop. Then he began to write poems and fairy tales.

    In the spring of 1872, Andersen fell out of bed and didn't get well again. He lived until 1875 and died peacefully at the home of his close friends.

    She was a poor child, but proud and arrogant（傲慢的）, and people said she was nothing but rude and impolite. When but a very little child, she had pleasure in catching flies to pull off their wings, stick them on a pin and watch them try to get off it.

    As Inger grew up she became even worse instead of better. She was very pretty, and that increased her arrogance. "You'll bring misfortune down upon you," said her own mother to her. "As a little child you often used to break things, and when you're older, I fear you'll break my heart." And she really did. Then she was sent into the town to be in the service of a rich family. They treated her as kindly as if she would have been their daughter and dressed her so well that she looked more beautiful.

    When she had been there for about a year, her mistress（女主人） said to her, "You are supposed to go back and visit your parents, little Inger." So she went, but only because she wanted to show them how fine she had become. When she reached the village, and saw her poor mother resting herself on a stone nearby, with a number of firewood. Inger turned away.

    Another year went by. "You must go and visit your old parents," said her mistress." Here's white bread for them." So Inger put on her new shoes, and walked carefully so that her shoes would stay clean and neat. When she came to somewhere dirty, she threw the bread on the ground and use it as a steppingstone to get across. But once she stepped on it, the bread went down quickly, carrying with the girl into the deep.

    Soon nothing could be seen but a black pool!

    How nice to meet you all! Let me tell you a little bit about myself.

    My name is Li Ming. I am from Shenzhen. There are three people in my family. My father is a Maths teacher and my mother is an English teacher. We all love playing sports very much. My favorite sport is football. My parents are crazy about badminton.

    From now on we study together and live together. I think we should love and help each other. And we must love our school and teachers! Let's be good friends. Let's get to know each other better. Let's become a real family here at school.

    It's time for us to depend on(依靠) ourselves. Never let our parents down! The future belongs to us.

Now more than one billion people in China speak putonghua, or Mandarin, as their first language. At the same time, dongbeihua, or northeast dialect (方言), has become more popular. The dialect makes even the most serious daily conversations sound fun.

Ms Ann, a Chinese language teacher, opened a class to teach middle school students dongbeihua in Heilongjiang Province. "I just hope to help the students learn more about the culture of their home town," said Ms Ann.

"It is important to inherit (继承) the northeast dialect in a new form,"she said. "For most students, they are speaking Mandarin or even English to adapt(适应) to society. They don't pay more attention to the dialect or the culture behind it. That's a pity. They need to pass it on."

Now there are over thirty students in her class. At first, some students believed it would not be difficult for the northeasterners to speak dongbeihua well. However, with the deepening of the class, the students could only speak some easy words and knew little about the meaning behind them. To increase students' interest, Ms Ann has been trying different ways. For example, she chose video clips from interesting cartoons for her students to dub (配音) them into dongbeihua.

Both Mandarin and dialect are the carriers (载体) of Chinese language and culture. Learning the dialect is learning our local culture and history.