How To Study English In China

    English is obviously not the native language in China. Although many Chinese want to improve their English level to the amount needed in daily work, it's very hard when only a few people speak English around them. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Here are a few tips that might help.

Join a school with native teachers to guide you.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} The more exposure you can get to these foreign teachers, the faster and better you're going to learn English. If a school doesn't give students maximum exposure to native English speakers' classes, find one that does.

Read English daily.

    This means using websites that are permitted in China, accessing English texts, newspapers and books. Read short stories in English. When you come across words you don't know write them down immediately. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

Find some English speakers.

    Spend time with them and share conversations. There is nothing better for learning any language than finding native speakers of the language to practice with. When you speak, you are practicing every aspect of the language(except writing) in the most efficient way possible.

Memorize vocabulary.

    Write new words in a notebook every week, with English definitions and a sample sentence, not a Chinese translation. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Carry it with you everywhere you go. Even if you have a question about something that you see and you don't know the English word, write it down in your own language with the plan to look it up later and learn that word in English.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} English is not well controlled by grammar rules. For every rule, there is an exception to that rule. Your time will be better spent in watching movies and learning from them than studying grammar for long hours. Find someone to write emails in English to or write a dairy every day.

    There are many other ways to improve your English. Come on!

A. Learn to write.

B. Watch an English film once a month.

C. What can you do to study more English?

D. There are many English speakers in China.

E. You can do this by writing in your notebook.

F. Follow a soap opera, comedy or radio program or TV drama.

G. You should be carrying a notebook with you everywhere you go just to write down something important.

    Birthdays often involve surprises.But this year's surprise on the birthday of the great British playwright William Shakespeare is surely one of the most dramatic.

    On April 22,one day before his 441st birthday anniversary,experts discovered that one of the most recognizable portraits（画像）of William Shakespeare is a fake.This means that we no longer have a good idea of what Shakespeare looked like."It's very possible that many pictures of Shakespeare might be unreliable because many of them are copies of this one,"said an expert from Britain's National Portrait Gallery.

    The discovery comes after four months of testing using modern chemistry technology.The experts from the gallery say the image—commonly known as the "Flower portrait"—was actually painted in the 1800s,about two centuries after Shakespeare's death.The art experts who work at the gallery say they also used modern chemistry technology to check the paint on the picture.These checks found traces of paint dating from about 1814.Shakespeare died in 1616,and the date that appears on the portrait is 1609.

    “We now think the portrait dates back to around 1818 to 1840.This was when there was a renewed interest in Shakespeare's plays,”Tarnya Cooper,the gallery's curator（馆长）,told the Associated President.

    The fake picture has often been used as a cover for collections of his plays.It is called the Flower portrait because one of its owners,Desmond Flower,gave it to the Royal Shakespeare Company.

    “There have always been questions about the painting,”said David Howells,curator for the Royal Shakespeare Company.“Now we know the truth,we can put the image in its proper place in the history of Shakespearean portraiture.”

    Two other images of Shakespeare,are also being studied as part of the investigation and the results will come out later this month.

    If life is a beach, then a village in Ireland has come back from the dead after the sand returned 33 years later due to a freak tide.

    Dooagh beach on Achill Island in the west of Ireland, was washed away in 1984 after storms hit the area, leaving a rocky foreshore. The tourists left, causing the hotels and guesthouses as well as the cafes to close down. But in April this year, the sand returned over a ten-day period caused by an unusually high tide that deposited hundreds of thousands of tons of sand along the 300m beach, bringing the beautiful beach back to its former glory.

    Emmet Callaghan from Achill Island Tourist Office told the journalist that the people of the island were excited at the beach's reappearing. “It's so nice for the villagers to have their beach back. It is an incredible example of the force and power of nature and how the coast can change in a matter of days. Yesterday we had traffic block here in the village with cars and people coming from all over Ireland and the UK to see our new beach,” he said. “The people here have always spoken about their days on the beach and how they enjoyed it as children. To have it back with their kids is unbelievable. Now locals are hoping that the beach is given the blue flag status. We already have five blue flag beaches and hopefully, if we keep our beach here, we'll have a sixth.”

    Dr Ivan Haigh from the University of Southampton said there were two explanations as to why the beach has reformed. “It could be a change in sediment (沉积物) supply, from further up or down the coast which has brought a fresh amount of sediment to the beach,” he said. “It could also be due to a change in environmental conditions, either a change in the wave climate or a series of tides that have provided the ideal conditions for this beach to reform.”

    The tourism office and locals hope the new beach will stay, at least for the summer of this year.

    It was when I was walking to my office, trailed by three young people whose ages ranged from 16 to 25, flowing down the corridor behind me like the tail of a kite, that I thought of it for the first time.

    This could be because I am not actually a mother. Until recently, I was not a "real" stepmother either. But I have been living with the man who is now my husband, Bernardo for 10 years and in those 10 years, not only have his younger daughters spent every other weekend and half of their school holiday with us but also his son has lived with us full-time. In fact, when Bernardo asked me to move in, he asked his son for permission first.

    Being a step mum is hard enough but being a sort-of-step-mother is about the most awkward position a mature woman can find herself in. With my sort-of-steppies, I have occupied a place of influence, power and sometimes extreme anger by turns. I have stepped on a delicate path between being a grown-up friend, a bridge of influence with their father, the woman of the house, and a figure of authority – but not too much.

    Love the kids or hate them, you must always remember that no matter how much you cook, clean, hug, comfort and discipline, you will never actually count.

    To survive, I trained myself to love the stepkids as hard as I could, but not to care. It's a handy piece of good mental health trickery I recommend to anyone in my position. I can help with homework, yes, but not bother about the results of that homework. I can teach them good manners, but not care about the bad habits they learn at home. Semi-detached is the position.

    Nobel prize winners sometimes display as much uniqueness when deciding how to spend their prize money as they did on the work that won them the award in the first place.

    When Sir Paul Nurse won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2001, he decided to upgrade his motorbike. A fellow winner in 1993, Richard Roberts, installed a croquet lawn in front of his house. Austrian author Elfriede Jelinek, who won in 2004, said the prize meant "financial independence."

    Lars Heikensten, executive director of the Nobel Foundation, said there were no obvious shopping trends among winners.

    "I think it depends a lot on which country they come from, their personal finances... what kind of incomes they have when they get the prize," he said.

    Real estate, however, is a popular option, at least among those willing to reveal what they spend the money on. Phillip Sharp, the American co-winner of the 1993 medicine prize, decided to splash out on a 100-year-old Federal style house. "I took that money and bought a little bit bigger house... It's a beautiful old place," he told AFP(法新社), adding that "The money is a nice part of the process", but "the important thing about the prize is the recognition."

    For winners of the peace prize the decision is often more clear-cut, as the honor tends to go to politicians, organizations and activists who are under more public supervision. Many, like US President Barack Obama in 2009 and the European Union in 2012, donate to charities.

    Literature winners tend to be more private about how they use the money, but the choice is often equally straightforward. "Even if Nobel-winning authors are quite well known, many of them will not have made much money from writing," said Anna Gunder, a Nobel literature expert at Uppsala University. While the prize might keep the wolf from the door for some years, giving them freedom to write, it can also briefly have the opposite effect. "It really changes their careers… During the first year after they've won they often write less, but they generally continue after a year or two," said Gunder.

    We can make mistakes at any age. Some mistakes we make are about money. But most mistakes are about people. "Did Jerry really care when I broke up with Helen?" "When I got that great job, did Jim, as a friend, really feel good about it?" "And was Paul friendly just because I had a car?" When we look back, doubts like these can make us feel bad. But when we look back, it's too late.

    Why do we go wrong about our friends or our enemies? Sometimes what people say hides their real meaning. And if we don't really listen we miss the feeling behind the words. Suppose someone tells you, "You're a lucky dog." That's being friendly. But "lucky dog"? There's a bit of envy in those words. Maybe he doesn't see it himself. But bringing in the "dog" bit puts you down a little. What he may be saying is that he doesn't think you deserve your luck.

    "Just think of all the things you have to be thankful for" is another noise that says one thing and means another. It could mean that the speaker is trying to get you to see your problem as part of your life as a whole. But is he? Wrapped up in this phrase is the thought that your problem isn't important. It's telling you to think of all the starving people in the world when you haven't got a date for Saturday night.

    How can you tell the real meaning behind someone's words? One way is to take a good look at the person talking. Do his words fit the way he looks? Does what he says agree with the tone of voice? His posture(姿态)? The look in his eyes? Stop and think. The minute you spend thinking about the real meaning of what people say to you may save another mistake.