[10-20 18:11:12] 来源：http://www.67xuexi.com 高一英语 阅读：85996次
C. away from the sun D. away from the star
English is a language spoken all around the world. There are more than 42 countries where the majority of the people speak English. Most native speakers of English are found in the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Ireland and New Zealand. In total, for more than 375 million people English is their mother tongue. An equal number of people learn English as a second language. These people will perhaps speak the language of their own country at home with their family, but the language of the government, schools, newspapers and TV is English. This situation is found in countries such as India, Pakistan, Nigeria and the Philippines.
However, the number of people who learn English as a foreign language is more than 750 million. Everywhere in the world children go to school to learn English. Most people learn English for five or six years at high school. In China students learn English at school as a foreign language, except for those in Hong Kong, where many people speak English at school as a first or a second language.
In only fifty years, English has developed into the language most widely spoken and used in the world. English is the working language of most international organizations, international trade and tourism. Businessmen and tourists often come to China without being able to speak Chinese. Chinese businessmen, taxi drivers and students talk with them using English. English is also the language of global culture, such as popular music and the Internet. You can listen to English songs on the radio or use English to communicate with people around the world through the Internet. With so many people communicating in English every day, it will become more and more important to have a good knowledge of English.
59. How many people learn English as a second language?
A. 37,500,000 B. 375,000,000 C. 750,000,000 D.75, 000,000
60. In China we are learning English as a ______.
A. first language B. second language C. foreign language D. mother tongue
61. Most international organizations use ______ as their working language.
A. English B. French C. Chinese D. Japanese
62. Which of the following best expresses the main idea of the passage?
A. There are more than 42 countries where the majority of the people speak English.
B. The number of people who learn English as a foreign language is more than 750 million.
C. English is the language of global such as popular music and the Internet.
D. English is the most important and widely used language in the world.
63. From the passage we can infer that ______.
A. English will be the only language to be used in the world
B. Native speakers of English might find it unnecessary for them to learn a foreign language
C. The number of learners of English will become smaller in the future
D. With the development of China’s economy, Chinese will become more important than English
C
Throughout history, people have been interested in knowing how language first began, but no one knows exactly where or how this happened. However, we do know a lot about languages, the languages of today and also the languages of earlier times. There are probably about three thousand languages in the world today. Chinese is the language with the most speakers. English, Russian and Spanish are also spoken by many millions of people. On the other hand, some languages in the world have less than one hundred speakers.
There are several important families of languages in the world. For example, most of the languages of Europe are in one large family called Indo-European. The original( 最初的 ) language of this family was spoken about 4,500 years ago. Many of the present day languages of Europe and India are modern forms of the language of 4,500 years ago.
Languages are always changing. The English of today is very different from the English of 500 years ago. In time some even die out completely. About 1,000 years ago English was a little –known relative of German spoken on one of the borders （边界）of Europe.
If a language has a lot of speakers or if it is very old, there may be differences in the way it is spoken in different areas. That is, the language may have several dialects. Chinese is a good example of dialect differences. Chinese has been spoken for thousands of years by many millions of speakers. The differences between the dialects of Chinese are so great that speakers of Chinese from some parts of China cannot understand speakers from other parts.
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