Thank you for listening！

Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to this class 【小题1】 English words. I am Professor John Morris ; I 【小题2】 ( be) your teacher for the next thirteen weeks. As you can 【小题3】 ( probable) tell, this is one of the most popular — and crowded — classes; indeed, every time this course 【小题4】 ( offer), this room is very full. Why is that? Well, in order to use the English language, it is very important to have at least a basic 【小题5】( understand) of how words are formed. Just to mention one figure — and there are many — there are about one million words in English. If you are an English learner, you might wonder 【小题6】 you can possibly remember all of these words. Well, you know, there are shortcuts. For example,【小题7】 you know how words are formed by using parts of words from other 【小题8】 (language), such as Greek and French, you’ll understand a good number of English words when you first come across 【小题9】 ( they) . Let me put it this way,【小题10】 (know) the rules will help you to master a large number of words. This is probably the number one reason why this class is so popular.

I am glad that you are interested in Chinese idioms. _______________________________________________

Yours,

Li Hua

What is American Sign Language?

American Sign Language （ASL）is a complete, complex language that employs signs made by moving the hands combined with facial expressions and postures of the body. 【小题1】 It is also one of several communication options used by people who are  deaf or hard of hearing.

Is sign language the same in other countries?

No one form of sign language is universal. 【小题2】 For example, British Sign Language（BSL）is a different language from ASL, and Americans who know ASL may not understand BSL.

【小题3】

The exact beginnings of ASL are not clear, but some suggest that it arose more than 200 years ago from the intermixing of local sign languages and French Sign Language （LSF）. Today's ASL includes some parts of LSF plus the original local sign languages , which over the years have combined and changed into a rich,complex, and mature language. Modern ASL and modern LSF are distinct languages. 【小题4】

How does ASL compare with spoken language?

【小题5】 But for people who are deaf （particularly those who are profoundly deaf）, the sounds of speech are often not heard, and only some speech sounds can be seen on the lips. Sign languages are based on the idea that vision is the most useful tool a deaf person has to communicate and receive information.

Different Cultures

The cultures of the East and the West really distinguish themselves from each other a lot. 【小题1】.

The origin of the Eastern culture is mainly from two countries:China and India. Both of the two cultures are developed by rivers — the Yellow River in China and the Indus River in India. 【小题2】

When the two mother rivers gave birth to the Eastern culture，another famous culture was brought up on the Mesopotamian plain（美索不达米亚平原）一the Mesopotamian Civilization. This civilization later on developed into the cultures of Ancient Rome and Ancient Greek.【小题3】 Like the Chinese culture，the European culture also crossed waters. When the British settled down in America，their culture went with them over the Atlantic Ocean. So the American culture doesn't distinguish itself from the European culture a lot.

【小题4】 Take the language system for example. In the East，most languages belong to the pictographic language while the Western languages are mostly based on the Latin system. Other causes like human race differences count as well. But what's more，due to the far distance and the steep areas between the East and the West，the two cultures seldom communicate until recent centuries. So they grew up totally in their own ways with almost no interference（干预）from the other.

The differences are everywhere. 【小题5】 But different cultures make the world in the 21st century more varied. The cultural gap should not be the obstacle to the civilization of human beings. It ought to be the motivation for our going farther.