Languages and Language Diversity

A. Vocabulary

1. There are many different writing Systems. The English language uses the Roman alphabet.

2. A dermatologist is a doctor who specializes in problems of the skin.

3. The united States is divided into fifty states.

4. In the past fifty years, the population of the world has increase rapidly.

5. Can i borrow your pen for just a minute?

6. Its much easier to form wet snow into balls than to use dry snow.

7. In some countries, students refer to their professors by their first names.

8. Noam Chomsky, a professor at MIT, is one of the most famous linguists in the world.

9. A team of workers can built a car at a faster rate than people working alone.

10. The world diversity has nice characters.


b. Vocabulary

1. The best way to become bilingual is to live in a foreign country.

2. His friends began to worry about him when he said that there was no longer anything meaningful in his life.

3. If you want to study how people learn languages, you should take a linguistics course.

4. Motorcyclists wear helmets to prevent brain injury in an accident.

5. I dont know the exact population of my city, but i estimate that there are about 2 million people.

6. My dentist said that i need to go to a specialist to get my tooth fixed.

7. During the presidents speech, she made reference to an important new medical study.

8. The computer system for the whole office was down for two days.

9. We had such a large class that the instructor had to rate goes up.

10. We had such a large class that the instructor had to divide it up into three groups.


c. Vocabulary Review: Antonyms

1. Harmless: hazardous
2. instructor: student
3. Once in a while: Often
4. Lift: drop
5. maybe: certanily
6. terrify: calm
7. empty: full
8. positive: negative
9. demand: request
10.take off: land


e. Comprehension Questions

1. What is the definition of a language?

A language is considered to be a system of communicating with other people using sounds, symbols and words in expressing a meaning or idea.

2. What is a sign language?

A sign language is like a sign of communications and also you can communicate with other people by using the hands.

3. In English, the basic order of words in a sentence is subject, verb, object. What is the basic order of words in your first language?

Our language is a simphonic language you read it as the same way u write it.

4. What is an example of a borrowed word?

The word tomatoe

5. What is an example of an inveted word?

The word byte

6. What is one difference between the Austronesian language family and the Indo-European language family?

That Austronesian have more languages than Indo-European.

7. Why is it useful to group languages into families?

Because it help you to find out where the languages come from

8. Should we try to keep languages alive? Why or why not?

Yeah, because our languages cant die and it is important to use them when u talk.

9. Why is it more difficult for adults than children to learn a second language?

Because is more easier for the childrens to learn a second language.


f. Paraphrasing

1. There are about 150 American Indian languages spoken today. These languages have many differences among them and have been divided into more than fifty language families. Most children learn their language easily and sometimes other languages as well. Adults often must work harder at learning a second language.

2. Most children learn their first language easily and sometimes other languages as well. Adults often must work harder at learning a second language.


g. Main idea

1. Write a sentece for the main idea for paragraph 4 (lines 19-27).

The main idea

2. Write a sentence for the main idea for paragraph 7 (lines 46-51).







i. Words Forms: Active and Passive

1. The lecture on safe driving was very invent

2. Honest is an important characteristic for someone working in a bank.

3. That mystery program was very imagine. I dint know how it was going to end until the last minute.

4. The telephone invent by Alexander Graham Bell.

5. The Minister of Health didnt like some of the questions that the instructor asked him. He by a foreign journalist.

6. Marge started a fight with her sister. This was very of Marge: she is usually nice to her sister.

7. Barbara is going to study. Then she will work with people who have problems.

8. Dan his friends to lend him his car.

9. Mr. Thompson is a person. You know that he will do what he says. You can him.



J. Noun Substitutes

1. page 134 line 15 it is in

2. page 134 line 19 they change

3. page 134 line 30 they came

4. page 135 line 61 they were

5. page 135 line 68 they are



K. Articles

1. Some languages are used by million of people.

2. Many hearing impaired people use sign languages, in which gestures do the work of sound system of spoken languages.

3. Word order is more important in English than it is in some other languages such as Russian.

4. English word byte was inveted by computer specialists in 1959.

5. English word meat once referred to food in general.

6. Experts estimate that, on average, the world loses language every two weeks.

7. Today, 50% of world's population speaks one of top fifteen languages.

8. Recent research indicates that child's brain learns new language differently than adult's brain does.


I. Two word Verbs

1. U.N. stand for United Nations.

2. Tom had a big party. Afterwards, he had to pick up the house.

3. Ali studied at New York University for five years. When he left, twenty people went to the airport to pick him up.

4. Lets go to the party together. I'll pick you at 9:00


m. Guided Wrinting


1. compare your first language to the English language. How are they similar? How are they different?

2. What is easy about learning a second language? What is difficult?