Many people believe that you lose the ability to learn new languages as you get older. Language experts, however, will tell you that you're never too old to learn a new language. As you get older, it can be more difficult to learn a new language, though.

    Children and adults learn new languages in different ways．For children, language is their life. They study for thousands of hours every year, because they need to learn languages to become part of their communities. Adults, on the other hand，are already part of a language community. Learning a new language means becoming part of another language community, and adults seldom get the chance to practice as much as young children do.

    Moreover, children learning a new language are expected to make mistakes. This gives them freedom when learning to be daring and confident. Adults, however, often feel pressured to be perfect when learning a new language. This can discourage many people and make it even harder to learn a new language.

    Research has shown that children who learn a new language when they are very young will not be likely to have a “foreign” accent when speaking a different language. Some scientists also believe that it can take up to 10,000 hours of study to master a new language. This can be difficult for adults to achieve, but young children can accumulate(积累) those hours over several years as they grow up.

    When young children learn a new language, they come to see multiple languages as a “normal” part of society. This mindset (思维模式) helps them learn a new language without feeling like they're doing something unusual or “too hard”.

    So if you want to learn a new language, go for it! It's never too late to learn a new language. If you're older, it may take more work, but it can be done. If you're a young child, though, now is the time to step out and learn a new language!

阅读短文，从每题所给的四个选项(A、B、C和D)中，选出最佳选项。

    Hiking England

    DAY 1: ST. BEES TO ENNERDALE BRIDGE

    Our journey sets out early this morning with a Coast to Coast tradition approaching the Irish Sea. Then set off along the rocks of St. Bees Head. Turning inland, we'll pause for a typical pub lunch on our way to Ennerdale Bridge, located at the foot of the Lake District mountains. (15 miles hiking, 8 hours)

    Accommodations: Ennerdale Country House Hotel

    DAY2: ENNERDALE BRIDGE TO HONISTER

    Today we'll walk into impressive Lake District National Park, where glass-like lakes reflect mountains that rise from their shores. Our pleasant walk covers the southern edge of Ennerdale Water, the park's most western lake. After lunch near the Black Sail Hut, climb a 2,000 foot mountain and take in the beautiful views of lakes and pastures (牧场). We finish in Borrowdale, a short transfer (转乘) from our hotel. (13 miles hiking, 9 hours)

    Accommodations: Inn on the Lake

    DAY 3: GRASMERE TO GLENRIDDLNG

    Take a short drive to Grasmere, where the great poet William Wordsworth wrote some of his most well-known works. Visit the poet's home, and walk through the village where he found inspiration. Then climb over Grisedale Hause enjoying views of Helvellyn, England's third-highest mountaintop. Hike down the valley toward Lake Ullswater and spend the night in Glenridding. (9 miles hiking, 5 hours)

    Accommodations: Glenridding Lake Hotel

    DAY 4: LAKE ULLSWATER TO SHAP

    The day begins with a scenic journey on Lake Ullswater to Howtown. From here, we cross a historic Roman road on our way to Bampton. Hike to the 12th-century Shap Abbey. A short transfer takes us to our hotel in the typical English village of Ravenstonedale. (12 miles hiking, 7 hours)

    Accommodations: The Black Swan

    Plastic waste has polluted the Arctic. Two new studies have spied bags, fishing rope and tinier bits of rubbish in the Barents Sea. This sea sits north of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. It mixes with the Arctic Ocean, which is even farther north.

    Plastic waste in the Arctic could harm wildlife and may hint that large volumes of human rubbish are collecting there, says Melanie Bergmann. She is one of the scientists who spotted the waste. She studies Earth's oceans at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany. She first started counting bits of plastics in the Barents Sea because she kept spotting signs of the stuff there in images taken with deep-sea cameras.

    Bergmann and her colleagues counted pieces of plastic from an icebreaker, a boat designed to break through large blocks of ice in very cold waters. They also tracked plastic pieces they saw during helicopter rides over Arctic waters. The team found 31 pieces of plastic. “That doesn't seem like much, but it shows us that we've really got a problem, one that extends even to this remote area, far from civilization,” Bergmann says. She and her colleagues described their findings October 21 in Polar Biology.

    Another team has also been counting plastics in the area. Those scientists took water from the Barents Sea and counted the number of smaller bits of plastics, called microplastics.

    Plastic in the ocean is dangerous to animals. Some may get caught in rope or bags. And wildlife may swallow bags and other plastic bits. That makes them feel full. But some may eventually starve because they are not getting the nutrients they need to live. Sometimes plastics also may break down in an animal's body and release poisonous chemicals. If another animal later eats the one that swallowed plastic, it too can end up with poisonous chemicals in its body. This, in turn, can travel up the food web, endangering predators (肉食动物) — even people.

The World's Unusual Libraries

    Log Libraries

    Alex Johnson writes in his new book—Improbable Libraries,“ The very idea of a library is developing: many of these libraries operate on principles that differ mainly from the traditional libraries. Some, for example, have no membership or identification requirements, and some do not even request that the books be returned.” The oversized bird box in a park in Lowa is part of the Little Free Library Movement, which was established in Wisconsin in 2009.

Phone Booths

    This design from the firm, Stereotank, offers browsing shelter for passers-by. In the UK, a phone company's programme, allowing communities to take over their phone booth for £ 1— means that many have been changed into tiny local libraries. Meanwhile, a solar light has been set in a phone booth so that late night visitors can still read.

    Branches of Knowledge

    Didier Muller's libraries operate as hanging libraries: visitors can look through pages, taking any book they choose and exchanging it with their own. The equipment of hanging wooden houses is one of several art projects serving as a booklover's place.

    Soundproofed Pods

    Around the world, architects are designing buildings that bend bricks-and-mortar libraries into new forms. The Seikei University Library in Japan—the vision of Pritzker Prize winner Shigeru Ban—contains space-age soundproofed (隔音的) pods to encourage discussions between students.

    Your next car could have two seats, three wheels two in front and one in the back and a top speed of more than 100 miles per hour. Elio Motors plans to make such a tiny car named the Elio. Its two seats sit front and back instead of side by side. The driver is positioned in (he center with the passenger directly behind.

    The starting price for the car is just ＄6.800. It has only one door, on the left side, which cuts a few hundred dollars off the manufacturing costs. Having three wheels also makes it cheaper. It has air conditioning, power windows and door locks and an AM/FM radio. More features can be ordered through Elio's long list of suppliers. Elio will also sell the cars directly through its own stores and not through franchised dealers (特约经销商).

    Paul Elio dreamed as a kid that he would one day own a car company called Elio Motora. In 2008, tired of high gas prices, he started working on a car that burns gas in a more effective way. Equally important to him was creating US manufacturing jobs and making the car inexpensive enough to attract buyers who might otherwise be stuck in their old, unreliable cars. "Whatever matters to you, this can move the needle on," he said.

    Already, more than 27,000 people have reserved one. Paul hopes to make 250,000 cars a year by 2020. So far, reservation holders are those who will use the Elio as a second or third car for work. Paul Elio believes the car will interest college students as well as used-car drivers who want something newer and more reliable, though.