Nowadays, lots of foreigners are learning Chinese. Like many of them, I 1 knew two words of Chinese ("Ni Hao" and "Xie Xie") when I first came to Beijing, China in 2009. As you can guess, my life was 2 for a while after I arrived. Simple tasks like ordering food or taking a taxi were quite stressful.

    I knew I had to learn more Chinese, so I 3 a Chinese class. My teacher was 4, although I didn't learn enough to have a real conversation. Later I studied on my own as well, but my progress was still slow. And I decided to 5.

    Around this time, I started playing in a band with a Chinese man who became one of my best friends in Beijing. He taught me a lot of 6 about music, such as "melody". He learned a lot of English from me in return, so it was a good way to 7 language and culture.

    I have learned enough Chinese to 8 many problems like booking train tickets. These days, there are more foreigners who are studying Chinese. I can 9 why it's an amazing language. Finally, I found that the best way to learn a 10 is to make friends with native speakers and spend time with them.

    Karan Singh is just like any other five-year-old- except for the fact that he is 5 feet 7 inches tall! When he was born, he was 15 pounds- the usual1of a newborn baby is about half of this, and he was four inches taller than the usual baby.2his height and weight at birth, his father Sanjay thought there might be something wrong with him, but doctors found he was3and really fine.

    Before he could walk or talk, Karan was made into The Guinness Book of World Records in 2008 as the tallest and heaviest newborn baby. Karan clearly4his mother, Shweatlana, who is 7 feet 3 inches tall and one of the5women in South Asia! Sanjay is also quite tall at 6 feet 7 inches.

    Being so tall isn't always a great thing for Karan and his6. Karan used to get bullied about his height, but he doesn't anymore. "But they all say that I am cheating when we7 basketball," Karan said.

    Shweatlana also had trouble finding diapers that fit him when he was8and still has trouble finding children's clothes for him sometimes. "Now I just buy him adult size9. They fit him perfectly well," she said.

    She is also10about her health and that her son might have the same condition she has. "I used to get about 1.5 inches of height every year because of too much growth hormone. I sometimes feel afraid that my son has the same disease as I have. But I know he is doing well and he will grow up to be a nice and healthy person."

Imagine that you have woken up on the first day of your vacation. You enjoy a delicious breakfast, take a walk on the beach, and read the morning newspaper as you drink coffee. You are feeling happy and relaxed. But you may start to feel bored by the time the late afternoon comes around!

If you have ever felt like this, you're not alone. It turns out that having unlimited (无限的) free time is not always as great as we expected. What is the best amount (数量) of free time for our happiness?

Researchers tried to answer this question by surveying tens of thousands of people, collecting data (数据) on how they spent their time and how happy they were. After looking at the data, the research team found that having less than two hours of free time a day, was not enough to be happy. People with under two hours of free time a day usually had more stress. It means that they were simply too busy with work to get their happiness.

The fact that being too busy cuts happiness is true. It might lead to the answer that more free time is simply better. Surprisingly, having a lot of free time is not a panacea (灵丹妙药) for happiness. People surely get a certain sense of joy from finishing tasks. Having more than five hours of free time a day makes us lose the sense of joy. It is in fact cutting our happiness. But I think it is how we spend our free time that matters. When free time is used in more active ways, like playing a team sport, then five or more hours a day can keep of even produce happiness. However, spending five or more hours of free time alone can stop happiness.

I wake up at six in the morning. Dad is putting the cows and sheep onto the trucks. Mom is putting my favorite milk food and some dried meat (肉干) in a bag. We will start driving to another past ure (牧场). We won't forget to take our yurt(毡房) with us!

 My family moves like this four times every year. It's a tradition (传统) of the Kazak people in Altay, Xinjiang. We have about 100 sheep and 40 cows. We move to different places as the seasons change. So, our animals can always have fresh grass to eat.

 Kazak people have been traveling this way for thousands of years. In the past, it took people about ten days to get from one place to another. If it rained or snowed, traveling was even harder. Luckily, now we have trucks. It only takes us five hours on the road! And as we move from place to place, our lives keep getting better and better.

On Wednesday, August 7, China got its first-ever gold medal in artistic swimming at the Paris Olympic Games.

Among the impressive performers were twin sisters, Wang Liuyi and Wang Qianyi. Born in 1997 and grew up in Shenzhen, the sisters took an interest in artistic swimming when they came to Shenzhen sports team in 2005, asking to learn artistic swimming. The twins almost didn't make it to the team because of their parents* heights.

There is an unwritten rule in artistic swimming. If a sportswoman is less than 1,68 meters tall, she is unlikely to become a professional. The twins' father is less than 1.7 meters tall, while their mother is a little taller than 1,6 metres, which means the daughters are unlikely to be tall enough.

However, the twins' wrong will and strengths impressed Hu, coach (教练)of Shenzhen team. She recalled that twins, who studied at Nanshan Foreign Languages School, went for training after school every day. At 20 years old, the twins grew to be 1.72 meters tall. They were among the tallest when joining the national artistic swimming team in 2017,

With good physical quality and willingness to bear hardships, through years of hard training, they became key players and got a lot of medals. In 2010, the twins won the gold medal at the provincial games. They also won a gold and a bronze medal at the national games in 2013 and 2O17.Then, they won four gold medals at the 2022 World Championships in Hungary and a gold in the duet event at the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games, winning the right for the Paris Olympics.