As an English, I can speak three languages—English, German and French, so do you think the British people are very good language learners? The fact is that they aren't.

    Some statistics (数据) from the survey done by the European Commission (欧盟委员会) showed that 62% of the British people only speak English. 38% speak at least one foreign language and 18% speak two or more. Compared with the British people, 56% of the people in other European countries speak at least one foreign language and 28% speak two or more.

    From this you can see that the British people are famous for not speaking foreign languages and that they are not good language learners in Europe.

    And the survey also showed that English is the most widely-spoken foreign language. Many European people can have a conversation in English. That's why my people don't think it is necessary to learn a foreign language.

In Britain, students are not required to learn a foreign language. That means learning a foreign language is only an option at school. In UK schools it is common for children to start learning a foreign language at 11 and many of them give it up at 14. So why don't students continue learning foreign languages at school? Because they think it is more difficult to get good marks in languages than in other subjects such as science or history.

    To solve this situation, the British government is looking for different ways to improve language learning at school. One way is to start learning it at a much younger age. Another one is to give school children more choices.

Changing the British attitude (态度) to learning foreign languages may be a hard task but the government decides to try!

    Spain is famous for its tomato festival, called La Tomatina. It happens in a small town Hanoi on the last Wednesday of August every year. During the festival there are all kinds of activities, but the most exciting part is the tomato fight. It takes place at the end of long celebration (庆祝). You are encouraged to throw tomatoes in the fight. There're many stories about how the festival began. One of the stories goes that during the 1940's, some friends started a tomato fight, while another story is about a local band. Anyway, everyone in Bunol seems to have a different story.

    Before the tomato fight, there are parades (游行)，musical bands, street parties and so on. On the day of the fight, shopkeepers cover their windows and doors in order to keep away from the tomato fight. At the same time, thousands of tourists and local people come to the town square together. Then large trucks (卡车) full of tomatoes arrive. From the back of the large trucks, a great town band start to throw tomatoes at others. Then the crowds fight back, throwing the tomatoes at anything and anyone. Soon the streets are in the sea of red tomato juice.

    Everyone is supposed to obey a small number of rules: You must squash (压烂) the tomato before throwing it and you are allowed to throw nothing but tomatoes.

    It is usually over in less than half an hour. Everyone then sets off to the river to clear up. Sounds like fun!

    Many people in China like animals and usually keep some of them as pets. These pets can bring people a lot of fun. People in the UK are pet lovers, too.

    Lots of families in the UK have one or two pets. Dogs are their favorite pets. Cats are the second. And birds are the third. But some families don't like to keep dogs, cats or birds. They keep other special animals as their pets in their homes, like tigers, elephants and snakes.

    English people always look after their pets very well. They usually give them lovely names, let them wear beautiful clothes and feed them with delicious food. They usually buy the food in some pet shops. Sometimes the food is really expensive. Many pets even have their own houses, beds, meals and bowls. When they talk about their pets, they usually say "he" or" my son", and "she" or" my daughter. They never say" it.