True or False (判断下列句子是否符合短文内容)
A rabbit is running into its hole. You may
ask, "What happened?"
Well, when a rabbit sees something
dangerous, it runs away. Its tail moves up and down as it runs. When other
rabbits see this tail moving up and down, they run too. They know that there is
a danger. The rabbit has told them something without making a sound. It has
given them a signal.
Many other animals use this kind of language
too. When a bee found some food, it goes back to its home. It cannot tell the
other bees where the food is by speaking to them, but it does a little dance in
the air. This tells the other bees to go with it to find food.
Some animals say things by making sounds. A
dog barks, for example, when a stranger comes near. A cat purrs (发出呼噜呼噜的声音) when it is pleased. Some
birds make several different sounds, each with its own meaning.
But human beings have something that no
animals have—a large number of words about things, actions, feelings or ideas.
We are able to give each other information and to tell or inform other people
what is in our mind or how we feel. By writing words down we can remind
ourselves of the things that have happened, or send messages to people far
away. No animal can do this. No animal has the wonderful power of language.
No one knows how man learned to make words.
As centuries went by, he made more and more new words. This is what we mean by
language.
People living in different countries made
different kinds of words. Today there are about fifteen hundred different
languages in the world. A very large English dictionary, for example, contains
four or five hundred thousand words. But we do not know all of them. The words
we know are called vocabulary. We should try to make our vocabulary larger.
Read as many books as possible. When we meet a new word, look it up in the
dictionary. A dictionary is the most useful book.