English is an important international language，but that doesn't mean it's easy to learn．①Many experts have tried to make English easier to learn,but they weren't always successful．

    In 1930，Professor C．K．Ogden of Cambridge University invented Basic English．It had only 850 words and Ogden said most people could learn it in just thirty hours．The problem was that people who learned Basic English could write and say simple messages，but they couldn't understand the answers in“real”English!

    R．E．Zachrisson，a university professor in Sweden，decided that②对英语学习者来说最大的问题是拼写 ， so he invented a language with the name of Anglic．Anglic was similar③      English，but with much simpler spelling，"father'' became “faadher'' and “new'' became “nue”．Unluckily，Anglic never became popular．

  In the age of international communication through the Internet，a new form of English might appear．A large number of world's emails are in English and include examples of“Netlingo”like OIC(Oh，I see)and TTYL，(Talk to you later)．In another fifty years，English might not be used．We might all speak fluent Internetish !

Lots of students know what a marathon (马拉松赛跑) is, but perhaps they don't know what a triathlon is. The triathlon is a sport that has three parts-swimming, bicycling and running. It is not an easy sport, but a man named Joe Salter is very good at it. A few months ago, he finished a special triathlon—he juggled (抛起接住) three balls all the time during the triathlon. That is to say, he kept on throwing and catching three balls while he was swimming, riding a bicycle and running.

    31-year-old Joe is from Florida, the USA. He loves juggling and he started at the age of 8. Joe did well in juggling.  Later, he got the idea to do a triathlon and juggle at the same time to make it more fun. Many juggling fans laughed at his idea and thought it was just a joke. But Joe didn't give up and he kept practising it. Because of his hard work, he made it at last.

    Talking about his triathlon, Joe said swimming was the hardest part. "It was difficult and complex(复杂的)," he said. "I basically only used my legs, so it took quite a lot of work. Also, swimming in open water made it a little harder. It was not like in a pool."

    Most people have heard of the Great Wall, but not many people outside China know about the Grand Canal. This man-made waterway is known to the Chinese as the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand. Canal. It is the longest as well as one of the oldest canals in the world and a place of interest. It's 1,797 kilometres long and some parts of it are more than 2,000 years old. Starting from Beijing, it passes through Tianjin and the provinces of Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang to the city of Hangzhou. The Grand Canal links the Yellow River and the Yangtze River.

    It was built as a way to transport grain from the rich agricultural land in China's south to cities in the north. In fact, it's not one canal, but a system of canals and rivers linked together. It's still an important part of the transport system in China. Thousands of ships use it every day to transport grain and many other types of goods.

    The Chinese government has done new work on the Grand Canal. It has made Darts of it deeper, so bigger ships can use it. The canal also helps to move water. There is a lot of rain in the south of China, but not as much in the north. The canal can carry millions of liters (公升) of water from the south to the north.

    The Grand Canal is much less famous than the Great Wall, and not very many tourists visit it. But it's possible to go on a cruise (乘船游览) along some of the oldest parts of the canal. Passengers on these cruises can see beautiful parts of China that other visitors don't see.