I. Reading On the morning of January 24, 1848, James Marshall, who lived and built saw mills in the Mexican territory known as California, found a gold-coloured piece of rock in one of the deep pools along the bank. He was wondering if it were gold. He made some tests to check if it were gold and they proved his idea. James Marshall and John Sutter, the owner of the mill were then sure that it was a gold nugget. They decided to keep the find a secret and they told the mill crew to keep quiet about the news. However, one of the workers on the mill wrote to his friends about his own efforts at gold mining. Soon the arrival of the Gold Rush to California was almost unavoidable. Over ninety per cent of the people in San Francisco took off in the direction of Sutter's mill in search of gold.
II. Writing Dear Margaret, I've found your letter on the pen friend international website and decided to respond. My name is Ann Ivanenko and I'm a 17-year-old student from Ukraine. This year I'm finishing my school and am going to enter the university. My home town is Chernivtsi. This is the administrative centre of Chernivtsi Oblast in southwestern Ukraine. The city is situated on the upper course of the River Prut, in the northern part of historic region of Bukovyna. My city is considered one of modern Ukraine's greatest cultural and educational centres. The Chernivtsi sightseeing tour comprises its main square and town hall, the museum of arts and the Shevchenko monument. Several others include the German House, Theatre Square, Roman Cathedral and the others. Exhausted from a long day of sightseeing? Videnska Kava is an excellent coffee house with an impressive selection and variety of teas, coffees and local foods such as varenyky, holubtsi and traditional Ukrainian borshch. The most popular kinds of sports in Chernivtsi include arching, judo, field hockey, karate, power-lifting and orienteering. Youth like going in for these kinds of sport. I would be very glad to have you as a pen friend as I believe that we have something in common and can share our interests. What is your home town? Are there any customs and traditions you have in the area? Write me soon and tell me all your news. I am looking forward to hearing from you. Best wishes, Ann.
III. Speaking Most of the European Union has been able to adopt a single currency, but it still has eleven official languages. At the United Nations, every word spoken at an official meeting must be translated and printed in six languages, and it costs hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Is it possible for the world to agree on a single language for all international communication?
For centuries, many people have promoted the idea of adopting one language for use in the international communication. Simple, easy-to-learn languages have been invented for that purpose.
Esperanto has been the most successful of them, but it has failed to catch on. Proponents of Esperanto movement believed that international understanding and tolerance would be furthered if everyone spoke the same language. Esperanto faced competition from national languages as well as other invented languages. Many people object to invented languages because such languages lack the richness, vitality, and expressiveness that existing languages have built up. They resist giving up a "natural" language for an "artificial" one.
In the early twentieth century, as nationalism grew in Europe, many governments viewed the Esperanto movement as a threat to their national identity and goals. Since World War II, English has become the international language of commerce, science, and technology because English-speakers have dominated in those fields. Even so, the world's nations have not adopted English as the single official language for international forums. Each of the world's languages has evolved over a long period of time, and each reflects the history and the culture of its speakers. Each language contains many words, expressions that have gained associations and feelings (connotations) specific to a given culture and cannot be easily translated, or imported into an invented language. English, like other languages, contains thousands of idioms that are culture specific and are difficult, if not impossible, to translate. An idiom such as "bringing coals to Newcastle," which is based on British geography and industry, would be meaningless if translated literally into another language. Take away a people's language, and you take away part of their being. A Welsh proverb expresses this idea: "A nation without a language is a nation without a heart." Knowing more than one language can broaden your opportunities and affect your life greatly. First of all, you can understand information in foreign languages that you get from the media; you can travel, study or work abroad, communicate with native speakers and make new friends around the world.
