【推荐2】When I was 16 years old，I made my first visit to the United States. It wasn’t the first time I had been abroad. Like most English children，I learned French at school and I had often been to France，so I was used to speaking a foreign language to people who didn’t understand English. But when I went to America I was really looking forward to having a nice easy holiday without any language problems.

How wrong I was! The misunderstanding began at the airport. I was looking for a public telephone to give my friend Danny a ring and tell her that I had arrived. A friendly old man saw me looking like being lost and asked if he could help me.

“Yes，” I said.“I want to give my friend a ring.”

“Well，that’s nice，” he said.“Are you getting married? But aren’t you a bit young？”

“Who is talking about marriage？” I replied.“I just want to give my friend a ring to tell her I’ve arrived. Can you tell me where there’s a phone box？”

“Oh！” he said.“There’s a phone downstairs.”

When at last we did meet up，Danny explained the misunderstanding to me.

“Don’t worry，” she said to me.“I had many difficulties at first. There are lots of words which the Americans use differently in meaning from us British. You’ll soon get used to all the funny things they say. But most of the time British and American people can understand each other！”

【推荐1】For some people, walking or running outdoors is a great way to work out. What may not be so pleasant is seeing trash all over the ground. Well, some people are doing something about it. They are plogging!

“Plogging” began in Sweden. The name combines the Swedish word “plocka,” which means to pick up, and the word Jogging, which means to run slowly. A Swedish man named Erik, started the movement in 2016. On the World Environment

Day website, Erik says that he moved to Stockholm from a small community in northern Sweden each day he would ride his bike to work. Concerned about the amount of trash and litter he saw each day on his way to work, he took matters into his own hands.

Plogging, by that term, may have officially begun in Sweden. But many people who exercise outdoors have been doing this for years. Take Jeff Horowitz for example. He is a personal trainer in Washington, D.C. He often picks up trash while running outside. He even has turned it into a game; he will try to pick up the trash without stopping. “I didn’t know it was a thing really. This is just my personal ethics (道德标准), where I go for a run and if I happen to see a piece of garbage lying around and it’s within reach — it is a kind of a little test for me to see if I can grab it and throw it in a near trash can without stopping. And that way, I think, it gives me a little exercise and a little focus for my run. And it helps clean up the neighborhood,” he announced.

Today, plogging is an official activity, one that is becoming increasingly popular. Cities around the world now hold logging events, “I would just hope people would think twice before dropping a garbage on the ground. We have containers seems on every block. So, it’s easy to put your garbage in the trash cans. I just think people should think about it a little bit more. I do hope one day there will not be a need for plogging.” said an interviewee.

【推荐3】The ancient village of Machu Picchu is one of the most popular tourist destinations in South America. It’s in Peru, high in the Andes Mountains, 8, 000 feet above sea level.

The village contains 200 buildings. Houses are in groups, and each house has a large courtyard inside its walls. The Incas(印加人) used the areas outside the groups of houses to grow corn and potatoes and to raise animals. The Incas were very good at building strong walls. Visitors to Machu Picchu still cannot fit a knife between the stones of a village home.

Machu Picchu seemed to be a healthy, busy village. So why was it lost? That is a mystery, but experts have some ideas. Machu Picchu was hard to reach. Few people outside the village knew about it. Experts think that many residents died of disease. Others fought a war. The survivors left the village.

The tourists are good for Peru’s economy, but they are not good for Machu Picchu. The village is old and fragile. Tourists damage the ruins. Thousands of footsteps from visitors wear down the walkways in the village. Salt and oil from people’s hands damage the walls. Air pollution from buses hurts the stones. Tourists do not want to damage the village, but they want to see this beautiful, ancient place.

The Peruvian government and conservation groups are trying to solve the problem. A group from the United Nations wants to limit the number of tourists each year. They also want cars and buses to use cleaner fuel.