According to Albert Estrada, a Spanish student, studying Chinese is one of the best ways to get closer to the culture.

Estrada     1     (study) at the Confucius Institute of Barcelona in Spain for five years. He says the huge     2     (difference) between the two languages mean that Chinese people find some aspects of Spanish grammar hard while Spanish people find the pronunciation of Chinese, as well as Chinese characters,     3     (challenge). “I wouldn’t say I speak Chinese right now.     4     the last few times I’ve been to China, I have been able to shop, buy food and talk to people without turning to English,” he says.

The Confucius Institute     5     (found) in Barcelona in 2009 as part of a collaborative effort between Spanish and Chinese universities,     6     offers Chinese language courses at 14 different levels. Estrada is     7     (current) on the fourth of the six HSK levels. He stresses that it is important to mix with Chinese people, both at home and in China.     8     (break) the linguistic barrier is the first step, and once they see that you are learning     9     language, they feel more relaxed and then it is easy to establish a relationship.

Estrada spent two months in China last summer, and he hopes to visit it again at the end of this year     10     (experience) Chinese New Year.

Primary school students in Changsha, Hunan province have started to learn the Changsha dialect(方言) in an elective course     1     (new) offered by the school this semester.

More than 20 third-grade students from the Affiliated Primary School of Hunan Normal University have signed up     2     the course. A dozen language     3     (professor) at universities are teaching the course.

Apart from listening, speaking, reading and     4     (write), students will also gain knowledge about the culture behind the dialect, according to Luo Xinru, a Chinese language professor at Hunan Normal University and one of the teachers of the course.

The Ministry of Education     5     (start) the National Language Resource Protection Project in 2015 to protect its language resources. The country has established     6     largest language resource database in the world, according to the ministry.

“Dialect protection is the future trend and different dialects     7     carry diverse culture and value should not and will not disappear,” she said,

Dialect is a valuable language resource and should     8     (protect). “We do not expect all children     9     (take) the course to learn perfect Changsha dialect,     10     they should understand the importance of different dialects and perhaps be willing to div e into the research and protection of them as they grow older.”

“Hello”,     1     always makes a point about the importance of how we greet (问候) others, is a very common word in our daily life. The word we choose sets the     2     (begin) for the whole communication, and in turn, shapes the future of     3     (we) relationship with others. At times we may use something like a formal “good day” in certain situations, and a more informal “hey” or “hi” in others. Knowing how     4     (say) hello in different languages is always the first step when it     5     (come) to becoming more communicative with the rest of the world. “Hello” is     6     (important) than any other word for you to remember when you’re learning a new language. Now let’s learn some different     7     (form) of “hello” in different languages around the world: in English— Hello; in Chinese— Nin ho; in French— Bonjour; in Spanish— Hola. Isn’t it     8     (interest) to get you ready for some situations? There are even more ways to say hello in every language. The way of greeting someone can change depending     9     the time of the day, or your relationship with the person you’re saying hello to. Beyond the words, people also use a mixture of body language and physical (身体的) touch to greet each other, from handshakes to hugs or cheek kisses. Learning to greet someone is all about making a connection, so have     10     try and do your best.

So popular is learning Chinese that more and more     1    (ambition) foreign parents are signing their children up for Chinese courses. For example, Mary-Jo Saunders is learning a Chinese poem today.     2     is special is that she is able to recite it without an accent. Her mother says that     3    (learn) the world’s most spoken language might give her     4     head start in her future career.

The reasons why Chinese is enjoying great popularity are as follows. First, China is already a global economic power,     5     influence is growing. As we know, China’s Belt and Road Initiative     6    (motivate) more countries to cooperate more closely so far.     7    (additional), studying Chinese provides access     8     wonderful Chinese culture, which is one of the most appealing aspects of the recently     9    (add) Chinese course. By learning Chinese, overseas students can see life from a new perspective and broaden their     10    (mind) to the outside world.

Memorizing hundreds of English words     1     (be) always a big headache for students. Why not let     2     amazing app BaiCiZhan help you? First of all, the app helps you divide your work into daily tasks.     3     you have chosen the vocabulary list and the end date, the app then quickly tells you how many words you need to learn everyday. For example, you can spend just 10 minutes     4     (memorize) 15 words every day. Doesn’t that sound much     5     (easy) than trying to do everything at once? That’s not all—it can also be very fun. The learning process is like playing a guessing game. Instead     6     just showing the Chinese and English meanings of a new word, the app asks you to first choose the correct picture from four,     7     (base) on an English     8     (describe). This helps you memorize the words     9     (clear). And all of the English is read by native speakers. You can also listen to     10     (it) “English words radio” feature while you are walking.

More than one century after being unearthed, hundreds of pieces of oracle bones (甲骨)     1    (keep) in a top university in Jiangsu province now have the chance to be decoded (破解), thanks to a new academic project. In early November, Nanjing University in the provincial capital made an    2    (announce) of the launch of a comprehensive study and categorization of the bones that date back to the late Shang Dynasty ( 16th century-11th century BC). Systematic recordings of these pieces through traditional ink rubbings (拓片) and digitized     3    (approach) will also begin.

    4    (present), about 600 pieces of oracle bones are now housed at Nanjing University Museum,     5    (make) it the third-largest collection of its kind among Chinese colleges after Peking University and Tsinghua University.

According to Shi Mei, director of the museum and host of the academic program, the about 3, 300-year-old bones were owned by some well-known collectors around 1900. Some of the bones     6    (donate) by John Calvin Ferguson, an American Sinologist, who was president of the University of Nanking, a predecessor of Nanjing University that was formed in 1952. “However, due to the lack of enough     7    (talent) scholars, detailed studies on the bones hadn’t started for a long time,” Shi says.

Oracle bone inscriptions (铭文) compose the oldest-known Chinese writing system. The findings,     8    are mostly from the Yinxu site in Anyang, Henan province, not only prove that Shang Dynasty history is more than myth, but also indicate the beginning of Chinese language, as present-day written characters can trace their history to the inscriptions. Owing to the high status of oracle bones, relevant studies to decode the writings were    9    high demand.

Scattered fragments of oracle bones first began to emerge around Anyang in     10    late 1890s. In 1924, the University of Nanking became the first Chinese university to include a course on oracle bone inscriptions in its subjects. Four years later, the first linguistics (语言学) essays on the inscriptions was also published in Nanjing.

It’s said that the Chinese characters were invented by Cangjie. They were deciphered (破译) in the Song Dynasty     1     whether these are the correct answers is still debatable.

In his life Cangjie observed mountains and rivers, footprints of birds and beasts, as well as shapes of plants and objects. Inspired by these, Cangjie invented various symbols     2     (base) on the shapes and     3     (appear) of different things and named them zi (character). These most ancient Chinese pictographs (象形文字) have ended the time     4     people tied knots to record their lives.

According to the Han Dynasty’s Chinese dictionary Shuo Wen Jie Zi, Cangjie wrote two scrolls, which     5     (lose) during wars in the Sui Dynasty.

Scholars in contemporary times tend     6     (believe) it is probably a beautiful tale that Cangjie invented the Chinese characters alone. Many Chinese characters actually came into being before Cangjie. He is more like the one who     7     (collect) Chinese characters. Chinese ancestors accumulated and developed the Chinese characters, updating them through hundreds of years, during which time the Chinese characters evolved from oracle bone script     8     bronze script, seal script, clerical script, and     9     (final) to standard script. Nowadays Chinese people commonly use the standard script, whose     10     (tradition) version was gradually simplified and modernized.