Language shows the environment where we live. We name the things around. Usually, the important things own many specific names, while the less important things only have some general names. So in one culture, people may have a large vocabulary to describe a certain object, while in another culture, such vocabulary is small.
For instance, the Chinese have many words for “rice” and for “family members”. The British use many different expressions for “rain”. Kids growing up on a farm may be able to offer ten different words for plow, a farming tool.
In some cultures, there is an amazingly large vocabulary to describe a certain thing. Eskimos have about 100 words for snow. For them, snow is so important to life that each of its forms and conditions has to own a name. They divide snow into four main categories, such as snow lying on the ground, snow floating in the sky, snow piling up, and snow piles. These different kinds of snow will tell them different weather conditions. It’s the same with the Arabians, whose life depends much on camels. In the Arabic language, according to camels’ appearance, characters, drinking behaviours, and the roles they play, there are hundreds of different words for the camel and all of its parts. Snow and camel are far less important in English-speaking cultures, and the single words “snow” and “camel” can usually satisfy their needs. When the needs become more specific, however, they can make up longer phrases to meet the needs: “corn snow”, “flying snow”, “big camel”, “funny camel”, etc.
As we can see, there is a 4 between the words and the ideas of that culture. So it’s not hard to understand that each culture passes on its ideas and thoughts through word.
1. What does Paragraph 2 serve as?| A．Opinions. | B．Examples. | C．Conclusions. | D．Reasons. |
| A．cold | B．dry | C．hot | D．wet |
| A．By inventing new words. | B．By using other sentences. |
| C．By making up longer phrases. | D．By translating from another language. |
| A．difference | B．connection | C．change | D．distance |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】If you want to sound more “native” when speaking English, using some idioms in it is quite useful. An idiom is a sentence, or a phrase we use a lot. It is a way to stress (强调) something and to make the expression more interesting.
“We are going to have a surprise party for Anna. Don’t let the cat out of the bag.” Can you guess the meaning of “let the cat out of the bag”?
When someone says “That jacket is not my cup of tea”, do you know what he wants to express? It suggests he doesn’t like that kind of jacket. Or when you want to praise someone who is clever or intelligent, you can say, “You are such a smart cookie”. Another common one about food is “bread and butter”, which refers to the income (收入) or basic needs.
根据短文内容，将下面方框内的选项还原到文中空白处，使短文内容完整、通顺，每个选项只能用一次，其中有一个选项是多余的。
| A．There are also some idioms about color. |
| B．“He is green.” just means someone is a newcomer or a beginner in a team. |
| C．Many people like light colors such as light blue or light purple. |
| D．You have to think about what to do to earn your bread and butter for a living. |
| E．Yes, it means someone can’t keep it a secret. |
| F．Here let’s learn some useful idioms. |
How do you communicate with your family and friends? A lot of people choose to use Mandarin (普通话) over dialects (方言) in daily lives these days. As a result, some local dialects are in danger of disappearing. To save them, the Chinese government started the Chinese Language Resources Protection Project a few years ago.
This project looks at how people talk in 1,712 places. Their languages include 103 dialects that are almost gone. It has helped China to build the largest language resource library in the world. There’s an online library where people can learn dialects from over 5.6 million audio clips (音频) and over 5 million videos.
Scholar Zhang Hongming talked about his worries. “For about over 10 years, in the Wu dialect areas such as Shanghai and Suzhou, children aged 6 to 15 can understand but hardly speak the dialect. Meanwhile, young people above 15 years old sometimes speak it, but not very well. If this keeps happening, the dialect might disappear,” he said.
So how did China make this big library? A big national effort has been put into the project to make it happen. Over five years, more than 4,500 experts and more than 6,000 dialect speakers joined in. The project is now entering into its second part. This includes creating tools like apps and mobile dictionaries to help people learn dialects.
Language protection matters to all of us. For ordinary people, posting audio clips and videos of dialects can also help keep them alive.
1. Why was the Chinese Language Resources Protection Project started?| A．To keep dialects from disappearing. | B．To provide people with more choices. |
| C．To encourage more people to use Mandarin. | D．To help people communicate with each other. |
| A．103 popular dialects. | B．More than 5 million videos. |
| C．Offline libraries in 1,712 places. | D．Less than 5.6 million audio clips. |
| A．Bright. | B．Hopeful. | C．Unsure. | D．Worrying. |
| A．The library. | B．The project. | C．The effort. | D．The tool. |
| A．Languages in Danger | B．Main Dialects in China |
| C．Action to Save Dialects | D．Tools for Creating Dialects |
【推荐3】
Chinese oracle bone inscriptions (甲骨文) over 3, 000 years old are now widely used as emojis (表情符号) by young WeChat users, thanks to a person who made them closer to people's life.
"The ancient characters are not as cool and far as they are supposed to be.
The 46-year-old teacher of fine arts at Tsinghua University has been working to make oracle bone inscriptions into emojis. For example, the character for "zui", which means " drunk" in English, was created to look like a sturnbling (摇摇晃晃行走的) person.
To make more people understand this old language, Chen made them on the postcards.
| A．In fact, they are cute and humorous. |
| B．Now the library has 3, 500 characters. |
| C．He has also put them together with cartoon characters. |
| D．Such emojis have been well accepted by WeChat users. |
| E．Chen started to do such a job in a creative way 19 years ago. |
【推荐1】Around the world, there are many different systems (体系) for secondary education (中学教育). Students may start their studies at different ages and have holidays at different times of a year. Here are three examples.
In Australia, most children begin secondary school when they are 12 or 13 years old. Every one must study until they are 17. Australian students go to school from Monday to Friday, with weekends off. The school day is six and a half hours long. The school year has four terms of 10 weeks, with a two-week break between each term and a five-week summer holiday.
Students in France begin secondary school when they are 11 or 12 years old. They go to a college for four years till they are 16. The school day is about eight hours. In some schools, there aren’t any classes on Wednesday afternoons, so teenagers have more time for sports and hobbies. But most students have classes on Saturday mornings. There are four two-week breaks. Then students enjoy eight weeks of holidays in summer.
South African (南非的) students usually begin secondary school when they are 12 years old, and must study till they are 15. Classes are from Monday to Friday, for about seven hours a day, and they begin and end early. The school year has four terms and three holidays for breaks.
1. What does the school year in Australia have?| A．A break for ten weeks. | B．A summer holiday for five weeks. |
| C．Eight weeks of holidays in summer. | D．Four terms and three holidays for breaks. |
| A．Australia. | B．France. | C．America. | D．South Africa. |
| A．Secondary school takes 3 years. | B．The school day is six and a half hours long. |
| C．They must study until they are 17. | D．There aren’t any classes on Wednesday afternoons. |
A． | B． | C． | D． |
【推荐2】Can you imagine an AI chatbot (聊天机器人) competing with you in an examination? Do you think you could get higher scores than it? A new AI chatbot called ChatGPT recently got a passing grade in a law school exam. Sounds crazy? The use of ChatGPT has raised heated discussions in the education world. Please check out the discussion in the story.
Type in “A cat wants to go to space” and ask ChatGPT to write a bedtime story. Just one second later, you’ll get the story of Max, who went his way past many difficulties to sing among the stars.
Developed by US company OpenAI, ChatGPT has taken the Internet by storm, winning 100 million users since it came out in November 2022. People can ask the robot to write stories and emails, translate languages, and answer all kinds of questions.
Compared with Siri or other chatbots, ChatGPT uses a much bigger database (数据库) for training. It also learns things by itself. For example, if it provides a wrong answer to your question, you can tell it the right one and it will make it right. The knowledge level of ChatGPT is similar to a college student. That’s why it surprised the world.
But one big problem with ChatGPT is that it makes mistakes or even gives wrong information. These are things that need to be dealt with.
1. How does the writer develop Paragraph 1?| A．By telling stories. | B．By giving examples. | C．By asking questions. | D．By listing numbers. |
a. It can learn things by itself. b. It has a big database for training.
c. It won’t give people wrong answers. d. It is smarter than any college student.
| A．ab | B．ac | C．bc | D．bd |
| A．It makes mistakes or even gives wrong answers. |
| B．It can’t pick up wrong answer information on the Internet. |
| C．It is developed by UK company OpenAI. |
| D．It needs to be further improved in some ways. |
【推荐3】A lot of families in Britain grow vegetables. A few people grow unusual or strange vegetables. Although a great many people grow tomatoes, my neighbor grows the biggest, sweetest and happiest tomatoes in the world. “How do you do it?” I ask. “Why can’t I grow tomatoes like yours?”
My neighbor says “I’ve been talking to my tomatoes for years.” Up to now, I have always laughed at this.
This summer some scientists carried out an interesting experiment (实验) and I have just read their report. Three sets of tomato plants were grown. Nobody talked to the first set every day for a month. A man’s recording always talked to the second set. and a woman’s recording always talked to the third set. At the end of the month, the second set of plants had grown four centimeters taller than the first, and the third set of plants had grown five centimeters taller than the second. The plants liked the woman’s voice best.
“We can’t explain it.” A scientist said. Sound waves surely help the tomatoes to grow Plant growers always paid attention to light and water.
Now we advise you to think of sound waves in the same way.
1. The writer’s neighbor grows better tomatoes because he ________.| A．laughs at them | B．stays with them | C．watered more | D．talks to them |
| A．enough light | B．a woman’s voice | C．a man’s voice | D．more water |
| A．Sound waves are very important to help the potatoes grow. |
| B．Potatoes like the men. |
| C．Potatoes like the women. |
| D．Potatoes can grow without light and water. |
