What if our babies could somehow tell us what they're thinking about, what they want, and what makes them unhappy? Robyn Holt, researcher for Baby Talk New Zealand, says they can. Holt heard about baby sign language through an advertisement and decided to go along to a workshop (研讨会).

    “Sign language is something that's always interested me, and I thought, it could be really cool to try this with a baby because we are always guessing all the time what they actually want.”

    Holt started using baby sign language with her baby son Benjamin, now 12, and within two weeks he started to sign the sign for milk. She has since used it with her two younger sons Dominic, 8, and Matthew, 3.

    Baby sign language is nothing new: the practice (which is based on adult sign language) has been out in America for more than 30 years. But it is enjoying a rebirth in New Zealand.

    The idea behind baby sign language is that babies do have the ability to communicate their needs if they are given the right tools to do so. Although many mothers develop an intuition (直觉) about whether their baby's crying is from hunger, tiredness, or pain, baby sign language creates a direct form of communication that unlocks the mystery.

    When babies are between 6-months and 12 to 13-months, parents can begin to teach them sign language: use the sign for milk while feeding, and also talk about milk, so that the child begins to make the link (关联) in their brain. Then they can begin to add other signs, i.e. food, sick or pain.

    “I know of one parent. Her child was signing the sign for hurt by his mouth, and she realised his first teeth were growing. It makes life so much easier,” said Holt.

    The ability to stay positive is one of the most important skills for us. Why is this? The reason is that we will spend most of our lives setting and trying to achieve goals. Everyone has dreams. Everyone wants to know deep down inside that they were put here to do something great. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} The second you set a goal, difficulties will begin to appear to stand in your way. Most people let these challenges rob them of the life they really want.

    If you want to achieve greatness, if you want to experience the best life possible, then be prepared to get knocked down over and over. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} This explains why there are so many people who have stopped trying to reach their dreams.

    So how do you remain positive regardless of what type of challenge you are facing? It all comes down to how you choose to respond to any situation as well as what you decide to focus on. No matter how bad your situation is, you can always find something good in it.{#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    If you keep focusing on how bad you have it, how are things supposed to get any better? {#blank#}4{#/blank#}Of course it is. If this is true, why even bother thinking positively? That is because if you do, you have a chance to make things better. If you don't, things will usually get a lot worse.

    Realize that challenges are a part of life.{#blank#}5{#/blank#} It's what makes reaching a goal worth it. If you were able to get everything you wanted without even trying, the victory wouldn't taste as sweet.

A.Everyone will have to go through them.

B.Staying positive can be beneficial in many ways.

C.Staying positive during situations like this is not easy.

D.You can do things like reading positive books or listening to positive songs.

E.Is it possible to be positive and still have your circumstances get even worse?

F.However, the problem is that life is tough.

G.So what you can do is start focusing on what is good.

    Have you ever run into a careless cell phone user on the street? Perhaps they were busy talking, texting or checking updates on WeChat without looking at what was going on around them. As the number of this new “species” of human has kept rising, they have been given a new name — phubbers（低头族）.

    Recently, a cartoon created by students from China Central Academy of Fine Arts put this group of people under the spotlight. In the short film, phubbers with various social identities bury themselves in their phones. A doctor plays with his cell phone while letting his patient die, a pretty woman takes selfie（自拍照）in front of a car accident site, and a father loses his child without knowing about it while using his mobile phone. A chain of similar events eventually leads to the destruction of the world.

    Although the ending sounds overstated, the damage phubbing can bring is real. Your health is the first to bear the effect and result of it. “Constantly bending your head to check your cell phone could damage your neck,” Guangming Daily quoted doctors as saying. “the neck is like a rope that breaks after long-term stretching.” Also, staring at cell phones for long periods of time will damage your eyesight gradually, according to the report.

    But that's not all. Being a phubber could also damage your social skills and drive you away from your friends and family. At reunions with family or friends, many people tend to stick to their cell phones while others are chatting happily with each other and this creates a strange atmosphere, Qilu Evening News reported.

    It can also cost you your life. There have been lots of reports on phubbers who fell to their death, suffered accidents, and were robbed of their cell phones in broad daylight.

The Best Ways to Lose Weight with Walking

    Walking regularly is the easiest and least expensive form of exercise. Except for a good pair of walking shoes, no special equipment is needed. It is not necessary to join a gym. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}You can walk every day with no “rest days” in between. There is nothing to learn; people already know how to walk. There are, however, a few important things to keep in mind when walking to lose weight.

    Ways to lose weight by walking

    The first way to begin to lose weight by walking is to start walking. The initial goal should be 10,000 steps per day. Using a simple pedometer(计步器) attached to the waistband or on a belt will help you to count your daily steps. Consistency—even 10 minutes 3 times a day at first will produce the immediate results. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    It is very important to check with your medical professional before beginning any exercise program; especially if you are over age 65, have been required sitting or little activity for more than a year, or have been diagnosed with heart disease, pregnancy, high blood pressure, or any other medical conditions.

    How to walk to lose weight

    A good walking technique will help you achieve the physical or mental energy you need to walk consistently for the amount of time you have set for your goal. Making sure that you are using your large muscles correctly will also help to build your muscles. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    Walking regularly can aid in muscle growth and increase the amount of calories you burn throughout the day. Eating a healthy low-fat diet will raise your metabolism(新陈代谢). {#blank#}5{#/blank#}If paired the calorie burn with the correct diet, it can lead to a better form of weight loss.

A. Limit your "bad" fat intake.

B. Begin a walking program with suitable physical qualities.

C. For example, take the stairs rather than taking the elevator.

D. It can be done anywhere and anytime, alone or with friends.

E. These two methods will help lead to a safe 1 to 2 pound weight loss per week.

F. Strong muscles burn more calories throughout the day, even when you are not walking.

G. But slowly increasing the time and the distance will encourage your weight-loss efforts.

    Learning Chinese could be one of the most important decisions you ever make. Chinese is becoming the language to learn in the 21^st century. With the world's largest population and a rapidly growing middle class, China stands to become the engine of the world's economy in the coming years. This will make learning Chinese very important for people in many industries, or for those of us who wish to visit China or learn from its culture and history.

    There is an ongoing effort to modernize the writing system and standardize the language. An increasing number of people learning Chinese are learning the Mandarin, so unless you absolutely need to learn another dialect (such as Cantonese), be sure you are studying Mandarin.

For native English speakers Chinese is one of the most difficult and most different languages to learn. The vocabulary is wholly unfamiliar and unlike anything we know. In addition, in the Chinese tone system, words are spoken in rising or falling tones, which help to distinguish between them. Furthermore, there is the Chinese writing system— a collection of thousands of individual ideograms (表意文字), or symbols, which represent a word or an idea. These ideograms have no phonetic value—that is to say, we can't tell how the word is pronounced by how it is written. There is a method to present written Chinese in a phonetic script called pinyin. If you are learning Chinese, you'll be working with this pinyin system, but the beauty of the traditional writing system shouldn't be passed up. All these factors make learning Chinese difficult for us. Yet, for a determined learner, there's always a way to overcome it.

I have met many westerners who do not feel anything to put their feet on the table while sitting on the chair.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}They don't feel like it is a strange or rude thing to do it. And I-know that they don't mean to be ill-behaved. However, in the eyes of a Myanmarese, it is really a very rude thing.

For Myanmarese, the head is the most sacred (神圣的) part of the human body while the feet are the most inferior part.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}They touch ground, dirt, mud and garbage. Just think of all the dirty things lying on the ground. So the Myanmarese regard feet as the most dirty and smelly part of one's body.

{#blank#}3{#/blank#}When you put that dirty part of your body onto other people's clean table, it is like an insult (侮辱) to that person if that person is a Myanmarese. There is nothing more insulting to a Myanmarese than to point your feet towards him.

So, if you want to win the heart of your Myanmarese friends, next time when you drop in on him or he visits you, try not to put your feet on the living room table or point your feet towards him. Indeed, your feet should never be pointing to the direction of a person or a sacred place.{#blank#}4{#/blank#}

Possibly, your Myanmarese friend will not say anything even if you do it. But it does not mean that he is OK with your behavior or approves of your behavior.{#blank#}5{#/blank#}Even if that person is your employee or your house maid, you should never do it to him or her.

A. This seems a normal habit to them.

B. In his heart he will consider you as a rude person.

C. Whatever you do, don't touch the head of a Myanmarese.

D. This is the rule that you must strictly follow in Myanmar.

E. Being the lowest part, they are also considered the dirtiest part.

F. For Myunurese，the dirty part should only be in the lowest place.

G. Myannmarese people do not express themselves as directly as Westerners.