Learning English is challenging because of the various rules and exceptions to the rules. The best way to learn English is to hear it spoken and repeat the words as you hear them. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}You will learn how to make English a daily part of your life in order to learn to speak it quickly.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Ask a friend to help you write letters of English alphabet on index cards. You should write a letter on each card. Practise the letters by mixing up the cards and saying the letters. You can ask your friend to help you pronounce the letters and quiz you on your knowledge.

    Make your own videos in English. If you have a video camera, you can tape yourself speaking English and practice along with your own video. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Watch your videos daily, and repeat what is being said.

    Get a private tutor. A professional English instructor can give you one-on-one instruction that will help you understand the rules of English. Your instructor can teach you how to write and speak English.  {#blank#}4{#/blank#} You can also inquire at your local community college.

    Watch movies with English subtitles. When watching a movie in your native language, use the English subtitles so you will understand the connection between your language and English.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} You will make mistakes, and that is OK. You need to practice English as much as possible in order to quickly learn to speak the language fluently.

    Life is full of funny moments, and not just for humans.

    Over the years, studies by various groups have suggested that monkeys, dogs and even rats love a good laugh. People, meanwhile, have been laughing since before they could talk.

    Jaak Panksepp, a professor at Bowling Green State University, US, said he would not be surprised if positive feelings could be produced in some animals. Dolphins, for example, have long attracted animal researchers because of the complex (复杂的) ways in which they communicate: a rich variety of sounds of different rhythms. A decade ago, researchers studying dolphins at the Kolmarden Wildlife Park in Sweden noticed a set of sounds the dolphins made during play-fighting. They concluded that the purpose of the sound was to suggest that the situation was pleasant and to prevent it from a real fight.

    Panksepp has even seen evidence of joy in crayfish (小龙虾). When given small amounts of drugs such as cocaine (可卡因) in a certain place, they appear to connect that location with pleasure. “Given the chance, they will always return to that place, perhaps in the hope of getting more,” he says. Panksepp wasn't sure it equals the same happiness that humans get from cocaine, but said it “could be in the same evolutionary category”.

    More studies are needed to really understand animals' laughter. Strangely enough, the answers may help with our own desires for cures for mental illnesses. Panksepp's experiments may soon lead to a new antidepressant (抗抑郁) drug that works by using the pathways in the brain behind positive feelings and joy. Perhaps pleasure and laughter in the animal world will help solve the depression in our own species one day.

    One Saturday morning in September I {#blank#}1{#/blank#} (go) to a local music festival. I left it early{#blank#}2{#/blank#} I had an appointment later that day. My friends walked me to the bus stop and waited with {#blank#}3{#/blank#} (I) until the bus arrived. I got on the bus and found a seat near the back, and then I noticed a man {#blank#}4{#/blank#} (sit) at the front. He pretended that a tiger toy was real and giving it a voice. He must be {#blank#}5{#/blank#} (mental) disabled.

    Behind him {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (be) other people to whom he was trying to talk, but after some {#blank#}7{#/blank#} (minute) he walked away and sat near me, looking annoyed. I didn't want 3{#blank#}8{#/blank#} (laugh) at for talking to him but I didn't like leaving him on his own either. After a while I rose from my seat and walked to the front of the bus. I sat next {#blank#}9{#/blank#} the man and introduced myself. We had {#blank#}10{#/blank#} amazing conversation. He got off the bus before me and I felt very happy the rest of the way home.

    I'm glad I made the choice. It made both of us feel good.

    Stan Lee, who dreamed up Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Hulk and other Marvel Comics (漫威漫画) superheroes that became highly successful at the movie box office, died at the age of 95, his daughter said on Monday.

    "{#blank#}1{#/blank#} (know) as a writer and editor, he felt a duty to his fans to keep creating," his daughter J. C. Lee said in a {#blank#}2{#/blank#} (state). "He loved his life and he loved {#blank#}3{#/blank#} he did for a living. His family and his fans loved him. He was irreplaceable." Lee was {#blank#}4{#/blank#} (wide) credited with adding a new layer of humanity to superheroes. His characters were not made of stone. They had love and money worries and suffered terrible shortcomings or feelings of insecurity.

    "I felt {#blank#}5{#/blank#} would be fun to show that they are human as well as super," Lee said in 2010. Many of Marvel Comics movies Lee created were produced in the first decades of the 21^st century, {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (add) up to over $20 billion at theaters worldwide, according to box office analysts.

    In 2008, Lee {#blank#}7{#/blank#} (award) the National Medal of Arts, {#blank#}8{#/blank#} highest government award for creative {#blank#}9{#/blank#} (artist). His greatest contribution will be not only the co-creation of his characters but the way he helped to build the culture that comics have become, {#blank#}10{#/blank#} is a pretty significant one," said Robert Thompson, a pop culture expen at Syracuse University.

 Chongqing heat sparks highest health alert

The Chongqing Health Commission and Chongqing Meteorological Observatory upgraded the city's second-level alert {#blank#}1{#/blank#}(issue) on Wednesday for heatstroke, changing to a first-level alert for heatstroke on Friday. It is the city's first such top-level alert.

According {#blank#}2{#/blank#} the chief forecaster of the municipal meteorological observatory, Luo Juan, the city's first-level alert for heatstroke must come after temperatures in at least eight districts and {#blank#}3{#/blank#}(county) rise above 40 C for five consecutive days.

From July 29 to Aug 12, a dozen districts in Chongqing had temperatures exceeding 40 C for five to 11 consecutive days. The heat wave is expected {#blank#}4{#/blank#}(continue) the following week.

Luo said summer in Chongqing is noted for its high {#blank#}5{#/blank#}(intensify) and long duration. Temperatures are much higher and the rain is {#blank#}6{#/blank#}(significant) reduced.

Chongqing has witnessed two rounds of heat waves, with 29.3 days of high temperatures on average, {#blank#}7{#/blank#}(rank) second in the period since 1951. {#blank#}8{#/blank#} most was 30.2 days in 2006.

Last Sunday, the city's Beibei district {#blank#}9{#/blank#}(reach) 44.5 C — the maximum temperature appearing for the second time on record in Chongqing.

The local weather forecast says western and northeastern Chongqing will see temperatures reach {#blank#}10{#/blank#}even surpass record highs in the coming two weeks.