To master a language one must be able to speak and understand the spoken language as well as to read and write．Lenin and his wife Krupskaya translated a long English book into Russian．But when they went to England in 1980, English people couldn’t understand what was said to them．These days more foreigners are coming to China and more and more Chinese are going out to foreign countries to work or study．So the spoken language is becoming more and more important．Speaking, of course, can’t go without listening．If you want to pronounce a word correctly, first you must hear it correctly．The sounds of the Chinese and English language are not exactly the same．If you don’t listen carefully, you’ll find it difficult or even impossible to understand the native speakers．
Well, what about writing? Like speaking, it’s to exchange ideas．People generally use shorter words and shorter sentences in their writing．The important thing is to make your idea in your head and then to write it in clear lively language
Chinese students read far too slowly．If you read fast, you understand better．If you read too slowly, by the time you have reached the end of a page you have forgotten what the beginning is about．When you meet with new words, don’t look them up in the dictionary．Guess the meaning from the context．You may not guess quite correctly the first time, but as new words come up again and again in different contexts, their meaning will become clearer and clearer．If you look up every word, you’ll never finish a book．
Students of a foreign language need a particular knowledge, the knowledge of the life, history and geography of the people whose language they’re studying．They should study these subjects in the foreign language, not only in translation．In this way one can kill two birds with one stone: learn a foreign language and get some knowledge of the foreign country at the same time．
小题1:How many points are there in the passage?
A．Two
B．Three
C．Four
D．Five小题2:In his first point the writer told us
A．how to speak English
B．how to read and write
C．why spoken English is important
D．why English people couldn’t understand Lenin小题3:In his last point the writer advised us
A．to kill two birds with one stone
B．to learn two languages at a time
C．to study all the subjects in a foreign language
D．to get some knowledge of the foreign country whose language you are studying．小题4:“To kill two birds with one stone” means
A．to get some particular knowledge
B．to get more than what one pays
C．the stone is too big
D．the birds are blind enough
