A rabbit is running into his hole. You may ask, “What happened?”
Well, when a rabbit sees something dangerous, it runs away. Its tail moves up and down as it runs. When other rabbits see this tail moving up and down, they ran, too. They know there is danger. The rabbit has told them something without making a sound. It has given them a signal.
Many other animals use this kind of language. When a bee finds some food, it goes back to his home. It can’t tell the other bees where the food is by speaking to them, but it does dance in the air. This tells the bees where the food is.
But animals say things by making sounds. A dog barks, for examples, when a stranger comes near. A cat purrs(发出呼噜呼噜的声音) when pleased. Some birds make several different sounds, each with its own meaning.
But human beings have something that no animals have---- a large number of words about things, actions, feelings or ideas. We are able to give each other information to tell or inform other people what is in our mind or how we feel. By writing words down we can remind ourselves of the things that have happened, or send messages to people far away. No animals can do this. No animals has the wonderful power of language.
No one knows how man learned to make words. Somehow he learned to make them. As centuries went by, he made more and more new words. This is what we mean by language.
People in different countries made different kinds of words. Today there are about fifteen hundred different languages in the world. A very large English dictionary, for examples, contains four or five hundred thousand words. But we don’t know all these. The words we know are called vocabulary. We should try to make our vocabulary larger. Read as many books as possible. When we met a new word, look it up in the dictionary. A dictionary is the most useful book.
【小题1】What’s the meaning of the underlined word?

A year ago，I paid no attention to English idioms (习语), though my teacher told us the importance again and again. But soon, the importance of English idioms was shown in an amusing experience.
One day, I happened to meet an Englishman on the road, and soon we began to talk. As I was talking about how I was studying English, the foreigner seemed to be surprised. Gently shaking his head，shrugging his shoulders, he said，“You don’t say!” “You don’t say!” I was puzzled. I thought , perhaps this is not a right topic. “Well, I’d better change the topic.” So I said to him. “Well, shall we talk about the Great Wall? By the way, have you ever been there?” “Certainly, everyone back home will laugh at me if I leave China without seeing it. It was wonderful.” He was deep in thought when I began to talk like a tourist guide. “The Great Wall is one of the wonders in the world. We are very proud of it.” Soon I was interrupted (打断) again by his words: “You don’t say!” I couldn’t help asking, “Why do you ask me not to talk about it?” “Well, I didn’t ask you to do so,” he answered, greatly surprised. I said, “Didn’t you say ‘you don’t say’？” Hearing this, the Englishman laughed to tears. He began to explain, “ ‘You don’t say’ actually means ‘really!’ It is an expression of surprise. Perhaps you don’t pay attention to English idioms.” I realized I had made a fool of myself. Since then I have been more careful with idiomatic expressions. Remember: what the English teachers said is always right to us students.
【小题1】A year ago, I paid no attention to English idioms because       .