【推荐1】With the Chinese language growing in popularity,the UK government plans to invest （投资）10 million pounds to help more kids learn Mandarin（普通话）.Do you think it is necessary for the UK pupils to learn Mandarin?Some people share their opinions online.

Tsd（UK）:The learning of any language can be valuable and rewarding,but it is not suitable for everyone. Chinese is a difficult language to learn and the UK has a poor reputation for teaching foreign languages.Why should they learn Chinese when most people in the world speak English?

Mark（US）:I studied French for 2 years in high school and German for 4 years in college.I studied Mandarin informally for about 4 months before moving to China.Now I speak Mandarin every day as my wife doesn’t speak English.But it is far from being fluent.learning additional languages is a great thing,which offers a different perspective on the world around us. Nowadays,it’s almost necessary to be able to speak more than just your native tongue.

George（UK）:No,unless they’re taught from a very early stage of childhood.Mandarin is so difficult. If China really is going to dominate the world, it’ll have to do so by speaking the world’s dominant language---English.

Sam（UK）:I don’t think Chinese will become as widely spoken throughout the world as English.It is too difficult to learn as a second language,To learn Chinese you completely have to devote yourself to learning how to write and read it.If you have to learn it besides other subjects you can’t be good at it.But Chinese will become more popular,and that is a good thing.

【推荐2】As parents, if you want to keep your children learning over this summer break, here is an idea. Parents and children can learn a second language together. No need to spend any money or sign up for a class. The Internet and the library are the only essentials (必需品) that are needed.

Together parents and children can select a second language that they can learn together. Once a language has been chosen, begin to search the Internet to find out much information about the history of that language and where it comes from. Then go to the library to check out books, videos, and audiotape on learning to speak that language. Together, read the books, watch the videos, and listen to the audiotape, while practicing, speaking and writing the new language to each other.

Parents and children can use their new language in the following ways. For example, go to a restaurant where that language is spoken. In addition, have daily conversations in the newly learned second language. By learning and using this language, it builds a bond (联系) between the parents and the children. Moreover, it promotes (促进) learning in a fun way during the summer break.

Furthermore, you can click https://translate.google. com, which is a great online resource to use when learning to speak a second language. This is an excellent Google free online translation service that allows people to select their first language and the second language that they are learning and to translate quickly. For example, a person’s primary language is English and the second language that he’s learning is French. He can put in words or sentences in English and it will translate them into French quickly. In a word, learning a second language can be fun for all ages.

【推荐3】When Adrian Black met his Italian partner 10 years ago, he was determined to learn her mother language. Having successfully picked up French a decade earlier when he lived in France, he felt the challenge was attainable.

Black, who is now50, explains,“I feel like French is deep down in my head somewhere, but with Italian it will take a lot more efforts for me to get to that level. I've noticed that my brain isn't as good as it was. ”

It's often said that you cant teach an old dog new tricks. Actually this saying is, for the most part, not true. It was generally believed that the adult brain was a fixed structure that, once damaged , could not be repaired. But research published since the 1960s has challenged this assumption（假设）, showing that it is actually a highly dynamic structure, which changes itself in response to new experiences, and adapts to injuries.

This research also suggests that young men can learn something new easily, but that the older they are, the harder it is for them to do so.

Some aspects of language learning become more difficult with age. Others may get easier. Picking up a new language's vocabulary is much easier for adults than learning the rules that govern its grammar. This is because new words can be easily connected with a learner's pre -existing knowledge. But older learners are less likely to have good pronunciation （发音）or accents, since the sound of a new language is picked up naturally by children.

Despite the difficulties, Black regards learning foreign languages as fun. “I'm doing it partly to keep my brain active,”he says. “When you have some success and can express yourself, it feels like you're using different parts of your brain that you weren't using before. ”

【推荐1】Spanish Wedding

Weddings are big and important things in Spain. You’re likely to find the whole family and the whole village turn out to celebrate.     1     Some of the customs are similar, such as throwing rice, but others are less familiar.

    2     The main part of a traditional wedding is the groom presenting the bride with 13 coins, which represent his promise to support her. However, times have changed and today’s brides and grooms exchange the coins as a symbol of the wealth they will equally share.

Spanish weddings do not include bridesmaids(伴娘) or groomsmen(伴郎).     3     There is no Best Man or Maid of Honor. At the reception, the head table is traditionally set for 6 people: the bride, the groom and their parents.     4     Bridesmaids are a part of Spanish wedding.

During the wedding reception, the bride and groom go from table to table carrying a basket with small wedding presents. The men will be offered a cigar or a mini-bottle of wine. And the women will be offered a little present. This may be the time in which guests also “hand back” the preferred wedding gift: money in envelopes.     5    

【推荐3】Qixi Festival, the Chinese equivalent of Valentine’s Day that fell yesterday, was not only a disappointment for forgotten lovers, but also for businessmen left with empty pockets.

The cold reception has prompted cultural experts to seriously worry that the lovers’ festival, marked for generations since the Han Dynasty （206 BC-AD 220），is dying out. Some have even called for legislation to make the festival a legal ―Chinese Lovers’ Day, which falls on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar year.

But the effectiveness of such a measure is in doubt, although efforts to preserve traditional festivals deserve highly praise.

A growing number of traditional Chinese festivals, such as the Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival, share the same fate of the Qixi Festival.

Young people are showing less interest in traditional culture as symbolized by these festivals. Even if all traditional festivals are finally made legal, the risk of them becoming purely formalized celebrations with little meaning is not removed. If the younger generation fails to identify with the cultural significance of these holidays, there is little that can be done.

While complaining about traditional festivals fading appeal, decision-makers should reflect on cultural protection. Undeniably, our country has done a bad job of preserving culture and traditional festivals, compared to neighbouring Japan and the Republic of Korea（ROK）.

The 2,500-year-old Dragon Boat Festival falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. The traditional customs and ceremonies of the occasion, which originated in China, have been better preserved in the ROK.

Only a few years ago did China begin to realize the significance of preserving intangible（无形的）cultural heritage when the ROK planned to apply to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to list its version of the Dragon Boat Festival as an important example of intangible culture.

Concern about the traditional holidays also reminds people of the growing influence of foreign cultures as the country opens wider to the outside world. With traditional festivals becoming less important and imports such as Christmas and Valentine’s Day gaining widespread popularity, the public including cultural professionals have tended to measure traditional Chinese festivals in economic terms.

Business rather than culture has begun to play a dominant role. More and more people are preoccupied with how much money can be made during the holidays.

In fact, what makes traditional festivals unique and what keeps them alive is their cultural elements. After all, it is unique culture that contributes to the world’s diversity with globalization.

【推荐2】It’s not common that a grandmother aged 89 is crowned Queen of Icebergs in North America, but when it does happen it’s quite the sight.

On a recent trip to Iceland, Judith Streng became that grandma after her son attempted to take a photograph of her siting on an ice structure that looked like a throne (宝座) at Diamond Beach in Jokulsarloo. Shortly after Streng sat down to pose, the piece of ice broke off and floated into the water.

“I thought it was safe. One girl had been on it and then two girls at the same time, and it was very secure with them. When I got on it, it started to shake and a wave was coming in. A very large wave came in and made the throne kind of shake, and I could tell that I was slipping off,” Streng told ABC News.

Streng’s story went hot after her 24-year-old granddaughter Catherine tweeted a text message exchange she had with her father about the incident. “My grandmother almost got lost at sea in iceland today!”

Catherine, who teaches English in Seoul, Korea, explained via Twitter that her father described the scene vividly. He has a PhD in English, and described the event in the following words, “She climbed to the throne after a wave had pulled back and left it briefly exposed on the beach. Then a wave washed in and removed the ice throne, rocking it from side to side. When the wave left, it lifted the throne and carried her out into the sea with the tide.”

Luckily for the Streng family, Randy, a licensed boat captain from Florida with knowledge of water rescue strategies, witnessed the whole thing, and was able to save the day.