【推荐1】People use languages to communicate. Any language has its ways to express people’s minds. One of the ways in common is the use of idioms. An idiom is a group of words. It has a special meaning that is different from the usual meaning. For example, under the weather means ill. So when people say “I’m under the weather”, they are saying that they’re not feeling well. Another example, in all weathers means in all kinds of weather. So, “There are homeless people sleeping on the streets in all weathers.” tells us that they sleep on the streets no matter whether it’s cold or hot.

Metaphor(比喻) is often used in idioms. Let’s read some:

●It makes my blood boil(煮沸) when people litter.

●The night was dark and quiet; my blood ran cold when I heard a strange noise at dark night.

In neither situation above, our blood can reach the point so high or so low in temperature. But with the situations the two sentences created, it is not difficult to work out the unhappy feeling of really angry in the first example and very afraid in the second.

Of course, not all idioms are easy to understand. When we come to idioms of a foreign language, a good dictionary of idioms is always suggested.

【推荐3】There are not enough Chinese language teachers in the world. It has become a big problem. Didi Dawis, president of the Indonesia Fujian Association(印尼福建商会), said Indonesia has only about 1,000 Chinese teachers.

“With increasing trade and communication between China and Indonesia, more and more companies from the two countries have established language offices. These new companies need a large amount of people who are good at Chinese,” he said.

Didi Dawis hoped that China would take Indonesia’s language needs into consideration and send more Chinese teachers.

In recent years, the Chinese language has become more and more popular worldwide, the United States government also noticed the importance of the Chinese language. In New York and California, it has become the second language of many students. In the future, more and more schools will open Chinese course, so they need many high-level Chinese teachers.

China is working out many ways to solve the problem. President Xi Jinping said, during his visit to the US in September in the next three years, China will support the studies of 50,000 Chinese and US students in both countries, and the US will provide chances for as many as one million students to learn Chinese by 2020.

【推荐3】Kate, 11, was trying to fall asleep when her 8-year-old brother, David, came into her room. He looked around, but seemed really out of it. Then David went back into the hallway and stood there looking straight up at the light. This was really strange. Kate didn’t know what to do. Just then, Kate’s father appeared and explained David was sleepwalking.

Not all sleep is the same every night. We experience some quiet sleep and some active sleep, which is when dreams happen. You might think sleepwalking would happen during active sleep, however, sleepwalking usually happens in the first few hours of sleep in the period called deep sleep.

Not all sleepwalkers actually walk. Some simply sit up or stand in bed or act like they’re awake when, in fact, they’re sleep! Most, however, do get up and walk around for a few seconds or for as long as half an hour.

Sleepwalkers’ eyes are open, but they don’t see the same way they do when they’re awake. They tend (倾向于) to go back to bed on their own and they won’t remember it in the morning.

You also might have heard that sleepwalkers can get frightened (受惊的) if you wake them up. That’s true, so what do you do if you see someone sleepwalking? You should call for a grown-up who can lead the person back to bed. And once the sleepwalker is tucked (捂好被子) back in bed, it’s time for you to get some sleep, too!