1 . Word Banker English-Chinese is a kind of software（软件）which allows users to practice their Chinese vocabulary in several different ways. Although the program isn’t the most convenient one you’ve ever used, it can help improve your Chinese vocabulary.

The program’s interface（界面）isn’t very attractive so many people don’t like it when they first see it. Also, it can sometimes be hard to operate（操作）. Each function（功能）holds a window, but if you close the window, it will take you back to the main menu or close the program. But if you continue using the program, you will find there are several useful exercises in it. Users can read a word or phrase（词组）in English and then click（点击）on the matching word in Chinese, hear the Chinese word spoken and choose the matching English word, or see the English word written and then type（打字）the Chinese word. The program allows users to practice not only their vocabulary, but also their reading, listening and spelling skills. Once users know a word, they can save it so that it stops appearing in the exercises. The program also allows users to practice vocabulary by seeing the English and Chinese words and hearing the Chinese spoken. The “Help” provides good instructions for users to use. Nothing is perfect. Word Banker English-Chinese has many advantages and certain disadvantages as well. We can use it according to our needs.

2 . Have you ever had an experience where you meet someone new, learn their name and think to yourself, “Wow, they really look just like their name!” What does this mean, exactly? Scientists are suggesting that humans tend to associate people’s names with their appearance, and can even guess someone’s name based on how they look.

Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel collected thousands of photos of people faces. They labeled each photo with four names. Then, they asked volunteers to guess which of the four names was correct.

The volunteers were able to guess the right name 38 percent of the time. It seems that humans are able to recognize certain characteristics of faces that can give them clues about someone’s name, Reader’s Digest reported.

However, this only works when we’re looking at names within our own culture. In addition, the volunteers were not as good at guessing the real names of people who use nicknames more often than their real names. This shows that a person’s appearance is affected by their name only if they use it often.

“This kind of face-name matching happens “because of a process of self-fulfilling prophecy, as we become what other people expect us to become,” Ruth Mayo from the university told science news website EurekAlert.

Previous studies have shown that gender and race stereotypes can affect a person’s appearance. The researchers believe there are also similar stereotypes about names. For example, people tend to think that men named Bob should have rounder faces because the word itself looks round. People may think that women named rose are beautiful. They expect them to be delicate and feminine, just like the flower they are named for.

If English means endless new words, difficult grammar and sometimes strange pronunciation, you are wrong. Haven’t you noticed that you have become smarter since you started to learn a language?

According to a new study by a British university, learning a second language can lead to an increase in your brain power. Researchers found that learning other languages changes grey matter（脑灰质）. This is the area of the brain which processes information. It is similar to the way that exercise builds muscles.

The study also found the effect is greater, the younger people learn a second language. A team led by Dr Andrea Michelle, from University College London, took a group of Britons who only spoke English. They were compared with a group of “early bilinguals” who had learned a second language before the age of five, as well as a number of later learners.

Scans showed that grey matter density（密度）in the brain was greater in bilinguals than in people without a second language. But the longer a person waited before mastering a new language, the smaller the difference is.

“Our findings suggest that the structure of the brain is changed by the experience of learning a second language,” said the scientists. It means that the change itself increases the ability to learn.

Professor Dylan Vaughan Jones of the University of Wales has researched the link between bilingualism and math skills. “Having two languages gives you two windows on the world and makes the brain more flexible（灵活的）,” he said, “You are actually going beyond（超出） language and have a better understanding of different ideas."

The findings were matched in a study of native Italian speakers who had learned English as a second language between the ages of two and thirty-four. Reading, writing and comprehension were all tested. The results showed that the younger they started to learn, the better. “Studying a language means you get an entrance to another world,” explained the scientists.

4 . Anger (愤怒) often makes us uncomfortable. Seeing your child’s anger can be especially uncomfortable. In order to relieve (缓解) this feeling, parents often encourage children to “stop crying” and say things like “It’s nothing to cry about.” It’s moments like those that plant the seeds (种子) of unhealthy anger. The “stop crying” parents are just doing what they were taught by their own parents, who were probably taught that by their parents on and on. However, we should learn how to create healthy anger in our kids.

If a child never sees his or her parents express anger, he or she should never express anger, either. But if parents always express their anger loudly, their child may start to think of anger as something that is always frightening.

The first thing you can do to create healthy anger in your children is to practice creating healthy anger in yourself. Once you’re better at experiencing anger and expressing it in a healthy way, you’ll be able to set a good example for your kids.

Stopping kids from expressing their feelings is wrong. You may feel bad when you believe you are wrong. When children express their feelings and are told that it’s nothing to cry about, they come to know that they themselves are bad.

We need to raise them in an environment where it’s safe to express feelings. Once you feel more comfortable with your own anger, you can teach your children why anger is a helpful feeling. When your kids express anger, help them examine what it is that has made them angry. Why did it make them angry? How did it do that? Then, you can teach them that those feelings are never wrong and our expressions of feelings are in our control.

Anger is natural and normal, and it can be experienced and expressed in a healthy way.

Airships can fly because they are lighter than air, like balloons. But they also have engines, so they can fly long distances. In the 1920s and 1930s, airships flew with passengers in them. They could fly from Europe to the US in two days. That was much faster than traveling by ship. There were even restaurants and bedrooms in the biggest airships, which could carry up to 100 passengers.

However, the safety of airships during that time was surely a big problem. It was reported that many of airships crashed. In 1937, a famous airship called the Hindenburg crashed near New York and thirty-six people died. After that, passenger airships stopped flying. Planes became the most important kind of air transportation because they were faster and safer.

Now a number of companies around the world are making airships again. They are much safer than the airships of the 1920s and 1930s, but they are not for passengers. Instead, they carry cargo.

Why use airships instead of planes? There are four main reasons:

●They don’t need airports. They can land in places where planes can’t.

●They can carry much more cargo than planes can.

●They use much less fuel than planes, so they are better for the environment.

●They can stay in the air for a long time, so they are good for scientific work.

Today most cargo still travels on planes, ships, trains and trucks. But in the future, much more cargo could travel by airship because it’s cheaper and better for the environment. Maybe there will be airships for passengers again too.

Having video calls is normal in our daily life, but have you imagined being able to touch the person on the other end of the line?

These days, a soft skin stretch device (SSD) has been invented by the researchers from the University of New South Wales, Australia.

It is a new kind of haptic device which can recreate the sense of touch and make it possible for us to touch people through a video call.

Haptic technology can mimics the experience of touch in ways that are similar in the real world. Today, vibration is the most common haptic technology and it has been built into many electronic device. At present, however, the haptic technology has great difficulty recreating the sense of touch with objects in virtual environments or at a distance, according to Mai Thanh Thai, lead author of the study.

Luckily, the research team introduced a new method to deal with the problem. The new technology can recreate the sense of touch through soft, man-made skin. “Our skin stretch device can be built into the finger parts of a haptic glove. It is like wearing a second skin —— it’s soft, stretchable and mimics the sense of touch. And it will make new forms of haptic communication to improve everyday activities.” said Thanh Nho Do, senior author of the study.

It works like this: Imagine you are at home and you call your friend who is in Australia. You wear a haptic glove with the SSDs and your friend wears a glove with 3D force sensors. Then when your friend picks up an object, it will physically press against your friend fingers. And the glove with 3D force sensors will measure these interactions. After that, the force signals can be sent to your glove, making you experience the same sense of touch as your friend.

The new haptic technology could be used in various situations, allowing users to feel objects inside a virtual world or at a distance. This could be especially helpful when people use video calls to stay connected with loved ones, it could also be used in medical practices. Doctors can feel a patient’s organ* with medical tools without touching them.

7 . Whenever the sun dropped and the blue sky came up, my father and I used to climb the mountain near our house. Walking together, my father and I used to have a lot of conversations through which I learned lessons from his experiences. He always told me, “You should have goals like climbing the mountain. ” Without the mountain-climbing that we both enjoyed, we couldn’t have enough time to spend together because my father was very busy. I really got a lot from mountain-climbing. It gave me time to talk with my father and to be in deep thought as well as develop my patience.

Once we climbed a very high mountain. It was so challenging for me because I was only ten years old. During the first few hours of climbing, I enjoyed the flowers and trees, and the birds singing; but as time passed, I got a pain in both of my legs. I wanted to quit climbing. In fact, I hated it at that moment, but my father said to me, “You can always see a beautiful sky at the top of the mountain, but you can’t see it before you reach the top. Only there at the top, can you see all the nice things, just like in life.”

At that time, I was too young to understand his words. But later after that, I got new hope and worked hard. I made great progress and found myself standing at the top of the mountain. And there, I could see the whole of the sky, which was as clear as crystal（水晶）.

8 . Beijing Opera is the most representative（典型的）of all Chinese traditional dramatic art forms and the largest Chinese opera form. With a history of about 200 years, it is developed from taking in many other dramatic forms, mostly from the local drama “Huiban” Huiban was popular in South China during the 18th century. It is a beautiful art integrating（整合）music, performance,…an face painting.

Theatrical（戏剧的）art forms in many other countries do not present singing, dancing and spoken parts in one single drama. An opera singer, for example, neither dances nor speaks on stage; there are no singing or dancing parts in a modern play; in a dance drama, the dancer has no speaking role and does not sing either. Traditional Chinese drama, including Beijing Opera, is a kind of entertainment which includes spoken parts, singing, dancing and acrobatics（杂技）.

Besides in China, Beijing Opera has also spread to many other places. Mei Lanfang, one of the most famous performers of all time, was the first to introduce Beijing Opera to foreigners and made highly successful tours to foreign countries.

“You will be puzzled（困惑）all the way through and a little bored from time to time; but you will be charmed and interested. You will be strongly attracted to Beijing Opera even if you know nothing of the dramatic background.” This is how one American traveller described his first experience in watching Beijing Opera.

Beijing Opera is China’s national opera and it is full of Chinese cultural traditions. Welcome to China and enjoy Beijing Opera!