Auckland International Airport (AKL) Services

    We are open for all international flights and provide high standards of for visitors to New Zealand. We offer information on a range of attractions, and we also offer a booking service for activities, accommodation and transport. Buses into the city centre are provided at a competitive price.

    The second floor of the international terminal offers a view of the airfield and all incoming and outgoing flights. There is a café situated here as well as a restaurant, which is available for all airport visitors to use.

    Passengers who require immediate medical attention should dial 9877 on any public telephone in the terminal. The chemist's is located on the ground floor near the departure lounge, and sells a complete range of products.

    Departing passengers can put their luggage or packages into recyclable plastic bags to protect them from damage. Luggage storage, charged at $10 per hour, is available on the first floor. Transit（过境）passengers have free access to storage service.

    Every international passenger, with the exception of children under 12 years of age, is required to make a payment of $25 when leaving New Zealand. This can be arranged at the National Bank on the ground floor.

    As Auckland International Airport has adopted the “quiet airport” concept, there are usually no announcements made over the public address system. Details of all arrivals and departures are displayed on the monitors located in the terminal halls and lounge areas.

    The airport meets the needs of business travelers and has several rooms available for meetings or business gatherings. These are located next to the airport medical center on the first floor. For information and bookings please contact the Airport Business Manager on extension 5294.

    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 12,000 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 fewer languages spoken by many people while hot, wet zones have more, 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 3,200, of which 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.

    Now over 400 of the total of 6,800 languages are close to extinction(消亡), with only a few elderly speakers left. None of these seems to have chances of survival.

    A student is learning to speak British English. He wonders: Can I communicate with Americans? Can they understand me? Learners of English often ask: What are the differences between British and American English? How important are these differences?

    Certainly, there are some differences between British and American English. There are a few differences in grammar. For example, speakers of British English say "in hospital" and "Have you a pen?" Americans say "in the hospital" and 'Do you have a pen?' Pronunciation is sometimes different. Americans usually sound theirs in words like "bird" and "hurt". Speakers of British English do not sound theirs in these words. There are differences between British and American English in spelling and vocabulary. For example, "colour" and "honour" are British, "color" and "honor" are American.

    These differences in grammar, pronunciation, spelling and vocabulary are not important, however. For the most part, British and American English are the same language.

    Learning English as the second language for non­native English speakers is not an easy task. It needs to spend a considerable time before you could speak or write the English language. There are only two ways to learn the English language or any other language you prefer.

The first one needs a lot of money because of the requirements needed. If you notice, a person migrated(移民) to another country and stayed there for a couple of years and then going back to his home non­native speaking country, the person became so familiar in speaking English. This is the most effective way of learning to speak and write a language unfamiliar to you.

    The learner learns the language because he/she is forced to do so because there is no other language being used. Not to mention that the learner should adapt to the environment. It is all started from listening. This is the process how language is acquired if you will stay long in a foreign country.

    The second one is the traditional way. You go to school or learning center specialized in teaching English as the second language. Obviously, this is cheaper than the first, but it needs a considerable time before you will learn to familiarize the language. Today, there are different language centers offering their services for people to learn the language in your own country. They brought all the materials needed because, compared to the first one, they're affordable and reasonable.

    Nowadays, learning English as the second language is one of the global trends. Since the English language is used in most of the business transactions, you should be on it too. Otherwise you will not go along with the future trends that will arise.

    Before you make friends, you have to decide who you want to be your friends.

    Most people like to have friends who like to do the same kind of things they do.

    The quickest way to make a friend is to smile. When you smile, people think you are friendly and easy to talk to. It may not be easy at first to smile, but remember most people will stay away from a scaled or angry looking.

    One easy way to start a conversation with someone is to say something nice about him. Think about how great you feel when someone says something nice to you. Doesn't it make you want to keep talking to that person?

    Ask your new friends questions about themselves. Who's their favourite singer, where do they live, what do they do after school are all good questions to start a conversation. Make sure you have something to add to the conversation, too. Then someone asks you a question, do have an answer for it. There is nothing that will stop a conversation quicker than a shrug for an answer.

    Kids who show an interest in other kids and who are kind and friendly make good friends. Remember, everyone wants to be around people who like to do similar things and people who are nice to them.

    People in Japan tend to live longer and stay healthier in their later years, with an increasing number of old people living alone. Japan is on a fast track to "ultra-age" with people aged 65 or above accounting for 28 percent of its total population in 2019；it was 26.7 percent in 2017. On the other hand, the number of births in 2019 fell to its lowest (about 941,000) since records began in 1899.

    Demand for care services for elderly people has increased. A shrinking (缩小) working population means fewer able-bodied adults are available to look after the elderly. State-provided facilities for the elderly are not enough which causes elderly people to turn to private ones but they are expensive.

    The country will be short of 380,000 of health nurses by 2025. The government has to turn to advanced robots to meet the shortage. A study found that using robots encouraged one third of the people to become more active and independent. Yet there is no robot that can provide the emotional support to the elderly.

    Japan provides a case study for China, which is also faced with a fast aging population. 17.23 million babies were born in China in 2019, about 630,000 fewer than in 2018. People aged 60 accounted for 17.3 of China's population in 2019. With a shortage of elderly care facilities and unbalanced supply, China may find it hard to deal with the rapidly increasing number of senior citizens.

    To meet the challenge, the Chinese government should make policy changes, which Japan is unwilling or unable to do or even consider. China should pay attention to the signals its aging population is sending and take proper and timely action.