It can be really hard to learn a language well without living in a country full of native speakers! You have to find something interesting! Here's the solution: TV Series.
Game of Thrones
You should really start watching it. The language is beautiful and easy to understand. Drama, love and good characters mark the show and there are actors from all around the world. You won't know what's going to happen at the ending. This is a must-see!
Sherlock
A British masterpiece. Is there any language learner who has not heard of Sherlock Holmes and his friend John Watson? The writers placed the stories into London in the 21st century, so it's basically a modern version of the original stories. Here you have everything that an English language learner could wish for: British accents, good acting, long and interesting conversations with a lot of humour.
Friends
Everybody knows Friends, which couldn't be missed off of this list. With many different accents to be heard and lots of dialects, this is the perfect show for English learners. The plot is relatively simple to understand. Six friends battle with tough jobs, complicated relationships and life in Manhattan, New York. In parts of the show there are also British accents to listen to and learn.
How I Met Your Mother
It is one of the most successful situation comedies in the United States, attracting the audience all around the world. It's about the life of five friends that live in New York, focusing on their work and their favorite free time activity: sitting in their favorite bar. You get to know many modern American expressions and can enjoy a lot of dialects that make the show even more interesting.
I was born with a rare condition. Living with no hands and no feet has made me who I am today.
My parents helped me develop tools to overcome my challenges. When I was two, my dad decided that my family would stop helping me eat. He knew that one day I'd live on my own, so I'd have to look after myself. I learned to eat with a spoon, and then with a knife and fork. It gave me a huge sense of achievement.
My darkest moment fell when I was 10. My family had moved from Indiana to Georgia. In Indiana, friends treated me as normal. But in Georgia, it was different. I felt very aware of my disability. I worried I'd have to live at home forever. I felt hopeless about the future.
My world changed when I got into sports. I started playing football. Everything came together when I made my first tackle at age 11. It was my first real achievement.
Everyone I played against was able-bodied. At first, I struggled. But I threw everything I had into learning to be the best player. I turned my lack of height into a weapon.
Then I decided to start wrestling. I lost 35 games, but then I had a breakthrough. I had an amazing coach who helped me invent moves that took advantage of my strength. My different body type was a psychological advantage-opponents didn't know how to handle it. I eventually finished 12th in the103-pound weight class in the championships.
I keep going in the face of difficulties. Instead of thinking about the final goal, I focus on the near future. I just figure out how to do the best I can with the next few feet in front of me.
While ChatGPT answered a variety of questions raised by testers successfully, some responses were noticeably off. In fact, Stack Overflow—a website for programmers—didn't allow users to share information from ChatGPT, saying that it's "harmful to the site and to users who are asking or looking for correct answers. "
Beyond the issue of spreading incorrect information, the tool could also be used to explain problematic thoughts, and as with all AI tools, spread biases (偏见) based on the pool of data on which it's trained. Typing something involving a CEO, for example, could arouse a response assuming that the individual is white and male, for example.
"While we've made efforts to make the model refuse unsuitable requests, it will sometimes respond to harmful instructions or exhibit biased behavior," OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT, said on its website. "We're using the Moderation API to warn or stop certain types of unsafe content, but it still has some false negatives and positives for now. We're eager to collect user feedback (反馈) to aid our ongoing work to improve this system. "
Still, Lian Jye Su, a research director at market research company ABI Research, warns the chatbot is operating "without understanding the context of the language. "
"It is very easy for ChatGPT to give plausible-sounding (听起来合理) but incorrect or senseless answers," he said. "It guessed when it was supposed to explain and sometimes responded to harmful instructions or exhibited biased behavior. It also lacks regional and country-specific understanding. "
While ChatGPT is free, it does put a limit on the number of questions a user can raise before having to pay. When Elon Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI, recently asked Altman on Twitter about the average cost per ChatGPT chat, Altman said:"We will have to monetize (货币化) it somehow at some point; the compute costs are eye-watering. "
The e-commerce company that retailers(零售商)talk about most these days is neither Amazon, the American giant, nor Alibaba, China's biggest. It is Pinduoduo(PDD), a Chinese firm that started in 2015 as an online food supplier, but whose success has driven its market value above $200bn. Last year it was China's fastest-growing Internet stock(股票), rising by 330%.
PDD attracts attention for two reasons. One is its business model. David Liu, vice-president of strategy, explains that it has drawn on the popularity of smart phone in China to create an e-commerce experience in which people club together to buy products from robot vacuum-cleaners to bananas. During the pandemic(疫情)this has expanded into a fast-growing business across thousands of towns and villages, in which PDD's users gather to buy local farm produce at low prices. Some call this "community group-buy". Mr. Liu calls it "interactive commerce". It is one of the hottest parts of the Chinese Internet.
The second is the way PDD has broken the record of giants of online shopping. Until a few years ago, China's e-commerce market seemed a two-way competition between Alibaba and JD. com, a competitor platform. Elinor Leung of CLSA expects PDD's share of online retail in China to go beyond that of JD in 2021. She expects the number of users over Alibaba. And although PDD put a huge amount of money to lower the prices of goods, ensuring the customers from poorer parts of China easy access to its app, she thinks it may turn profitable this year.
Remarkably the key to its success focused on parts of the market they have been unable to reach instead of defeating its bigger competitors. Although online sales of groceries have rocketed during the pandemic, less than a tenth of the 8. 1trn yuan ($1. 25trn) farm-produce market is bought and sold digitally. " We are continuing to grow the pie,"says Mr Liu. That lesson applies elsewhere too. However, no matter how a future market looks, there is opportunity for new online businesses because e-commerce is at an early stage of development.
Many people regard sharks as dangerous monsters. But human beings cause a far greater danger to them than they do to us. Although shark attacks do occur, they are quite rare. According to a survey, however, humans kill 100 million sharks every year.
Why should we save the sharks?
Sharks take up the top position on the food chain in the ocean. As sharks die off, the population of the animals that sharks eat will increase. This, in turn, means that the number of the creatures those animals eat will drop. Fish that eat algae(藻类)are also included. This can cause algae to spread so much that it damages coral reefs(珊瑚礁).
The ocean not only produces more oxygen than all the rainforests on Earth combined, but also removes half of the man-made greenhouse gas from the atmosphere. Once sharks die off, the global ecosystem will be upset, affecting all creatures including human beings.
Don't use shark products
First, vitamin energy drinks and leather goods can be made from shark parts. In addition, shark meat is sold around the world, sometimes under misleading names such as rock salmon or whitefish.
Shark fin soup is a popular dish. However, the process of getting fins is cruel. Fishermen cut the shark's fins off and then throw the shark back into the water, still alive. Sharks breathe by swimming, so a shark that can't swim will die.
A. Actually, the killing of sharks will affect the whole planet.
B. Shark oil is also used in many popular beauty products.
C. Then the shark dies slowly, sometimes over several days.
D. It is time for children to learn about sharks.
E. People in some countries are especially keen on shark products.
F. This number is a warning that many kinds of sharks may die out.
G. Among them are some sea fish that humans eat every day
This was my first year teaching in a special needs school. I was uncertain what to 1 at our annual Special Sports Meeting. My students had different 2 , from mild learning disabilities to severe brain diseases.
Mark was one with the latter, limited to a 3 . However, he 4 greeted everyone with huge smiles. His classmates loved him and often took their time to make sure of his participation in group activities, especially Mike, Andy and Lucas, all 5 at sports. Mark imagined being like them. Watching and cheering for their elegant 6 on the playground seemed to fill him with wonder.
The big day came at last and the final 7 was the 400-meter race. Everyone was invited to 8 according to their own ability. Mike, Andy and Lucas 9 to prove who the best athlete was. But when they reached the finish line they paused and looked behind them. At the back, determined not to be left behind, was Mark, 10 on the track in his wheelchair with half the distance left to 11 . Looking at each other, a 12 thought passing between them. Slowly, they jogged back towards their friend, 13 him on as he had done for them before.
The progress was 14 , but eventually they crossed the finish line together to the cries of their teachers and classmates. I came to understand what makes the Special Sports Meeting so 15 .
Tu Youyou was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2015 for her research, led to the discovery of artemisinin. Artemisinin (save) a large number of lives since it was discovered. After (graduate) from university, Tu Youyou worked at the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine. In 1967, Tu Youyou (choose) as a researcher of a team of scientists with purpose of discovering a new treatment for malaria. They(evaluate) 280. 000 plants and tested 380 distinct ancient Chinese medical(treat). One medical text suggested using the extract from sweet wormwood to treat a fever. Tu Youyou analyzed the medical texts again, and chance, she found one sentence suggesting a different way. Soon she found a substance that worked by(boil) the sweet wormwood at a lower temperature. The team's hard work (event) paid off in 1971.
Tu Youyou thought the discovery of artemisinin was a team effort and the Nobel Prize was an honor for China's scientific research and Chinese medicine to be spread around the world.
That night, I quarreled with my mother, then stormed out of the house. While on the road, I remembered that I did not have any money in my pocket, and I did not even take my cell phone with me to make a call home.
At the same time, I went through a noodle shop. Picking up the sweet fragrance, I suddenly felt very hungry. I wished for a bowl of noodles, but I had no money! The seller saw me standing before the counter and asked, "Hey, little girl, you want to eat a bowl?"
"But…but I do not carry money…" I shyly replied.
"Okay, I'll treat you. " the seller said. "Come in, I will cook you a bowl. "
A few minutes later the owner brought me a steaming bowl of noodles. After eating some pieces, I cried.
"What is it?" He asked.
"Nothing. I am just touched by your kindness!" I said as I wiped my tears. "Even a stranger on the street gives me a bowl of noodles, and my mother, after a quarrel, chased me out of the house. She is cruel!"
The seller sighed, "Girl, why do you think so? Think again. I only gave you a bowl of noodles and you felt that way. Your mother has been taking care of you since you were little, why were you not grateful and why did you hurt your mom?"
I was really surprised after hearing that.
Why didn't I think of that? A bowl of noodles from a stranger made me feel grateful, and my mother has raised me since I was little and I have never felt so, not even a little. I thought she was supposed to take care of me and love me.
On the way home, I thought in my head what I would say to my mother when I arrived home: "Mom, I'm sorry, I know it is my fault, please forgive me…"
注意：1. 所续写短文的词数应为150词左右；2. 续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好。
Paragraph 1：Meanwhile many memories came back into my mind.
Paragraph 2：When arriving home, I saw my mother sitting at the dinner table, worried and tired.
