China is the biggest market in the world, and many countries such as Germany, the USA, the UK and Russia do a lot of business in China. Let's have a look at some important tips to help you be successful when dealing with these nationalities.

    First, you must be punctual (准时的) with Germans. Even 5 minutes late makes a bad impression. Being punctual is also very important in the USA. In the UK, it's important to be punctual for business meetings, but nobody expects you to be on time for a social event. Half past seven really means a quarter to eight, or even eight o'clock! With Russians, you should always be on time, though it is not unusual for them to be one or even two hours late!

    It is best to dress formally and wear dark colours when you meet people from all the four countries. In Russia, designer clothes are very common. Don't be surpri if you go to an office in the UK on a Friday and find everyone wearing jeans. Many companies have “dress down Friday”, when people wear casual (随便的) clothes.

    In Germany, first names are only used by family members and close friends, so be prepared to use titles and last names. In the USA you will usually be invited to use first names almost immediately. The British are quite informal and using first names in business is more and more common, especially among younger people. In Russia, however, nobody uses first names, so use titles and last names.

    In conversation, the British and the Americans value humour, and both like to talk about sport. The weather is also a good topic of conversation with the British and the Americans, but avoid talking about politics. In Russia, say positive（肯定的） things about their country, but avoid making complaints. The Germans, however, prefer to get straight down to business!

    So, use these tips, and you will be on your way to a successful international business career!

    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 rarely 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 stressed to be perfect when learning a new language. This can discourage many people and make it even harder to learn a new language.

    When young children learn a new language, they come to see various languages as a "normal" part of society. This mindset helps them to 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!

    Languages have been coming and going for thousands of years, but in recent times there has been less coming and a lot more going. When the world was still populated by hunter-gatherers , small tightly knit (联系) groups developed their own patterns of speech independent of each other. Some language experts believe that 10,000 years ago, when the world had just five to ten million people, they spoke perhaps 1,200 languages between them.

    Soon afterwards, many of those people started settling down to become farmers, and their languages too became more settled and fewer in number. In recent centuries, trade, industrialization, the development of the nation-state and the spread of universal compulsory education, especially globalization and better communications in the past few decades, all have caused many languages to disappear, and dominant languages such as English, Spanish and Chinese are increasingly taking over.

    At present, the world has about 6,800 languages. The distribution of these languages is hugely uneven. The general rule is that mild zones have relatively few languages, often spoken by many people, while hot, wet zones have lots, often spoken by small numbers. Europe has only around 200 languages; the Americas about 1,000; Africa 2,400; and Asia and the Pacific perhaps 3200, of which Papua New Guinea alone accounts for well over 800. The median number (中位数) of speakers is a mere 6,000, which means that half the world's languages are spoken by fewer people than that.

    Already well over 400 of the total of 6,800 languages are close to extinction (消亡), with only a few elderly speakers left. Pick, at random, Busum in Cameroon (eight remaining Speaker), Chiapaneco in Mexico (150), Lipan Apache in the United States (two or three) or Wadjigu in Australia (one, with a question-mark) none of these seems to have much chance of survival.

    About 5,000 children die each day due to preventable diseases such as cholera and dysentery (痢疾) , which spread when people use unclean water for drinking or cooking. A lack of water for personal health leads to the spread of totally preventable diseases like trachoma, which has blinded some six million people.

    Water troubles also trap many low-income families in a cycle of poverty and poor education and the poorest suffer most from lack of access to water. People who spend much of their time on ill health, caring for sick children, or collecting water at distances averaging 3.75 miles a day don't have educational and economic opportunities to better their lives.

    Agriculture is called the lion's share of freshwater worldwide, using some 70 percent, and industrial uses consume another 22 percent. Water areas have no political borders and nations don't always work together to share common resources, so water can be a frequent source of international conflict as well.

    Day-by-day demand keeps growing, further needing water sources, from great rivers to groundwater. “We're going deeper into debt on our groundwater use,” Postel said, “and that has very significant impacts on global water security. The rate of groundwater consumption has doubled since 1960.”

    Some of Earth's groundwater is fossil water created when Earth's climate was far different. Today such water is as limited as petrol. “But we're pumping much of them out faster than ever,” Postel explained. “Humanity's growing thirst also causes a major problem about water and our ecosystems. And that also creates a cost to us, to our sons and to our grandsons, not just to nature.”

    Michael Faraday was the son of a blacksmith. There were four children in his family and, with his father often ill and unable to work, Michael Faraday had to earn his living from an early age. This meant little or no schooling. However, the family belonged to a religious group, and Faraday learnt to read and write at Sunday School.

    When he was only fourteen, Faraday found a job as a bookbinder（装订工）.He used to read the books he was given to bind and he became very interested in the scientific books, particularly the ones about electricity. His interest soon took a practical path and he began conducting his own experiments. These were very basic because Faraday had to make all of his equipment himself. However, he was very careful and kept a clear written record of all his findings.

    One day he was given an entrance ticket to the Royal Institute chemistry lecture, given by Humphry Davy. Determined to work for this great scientist, he sent Davy a job application and included his laboratory reports on the experiments he had carried out. In 1813 Davy offered Faraday a job as one of his laboratory assistants. Faraday learnt quickly and soon was recognized as a very able analytical chemist. Later he went to work at the Royal Institute.

    Michael Faraday was, perhaps, the greatest practical scientist of the 19th century. As a chemist, he discovered the benzene（苯）,which is now the focal point of chemical study. He also proved the relationship between electricity and chemical bonding（化学键合）.As a physicist, he invented the dynamo, which led to the later invention of the electric motor. He also discovered the effect of magnetism（磁）on light rays.

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.