It’s difficult __________ old people __________ learn English well．

A．for，it             B．to，to              C．for，to            D．to，for

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 language 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 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 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 of Europe.
If a language has a number 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 people. The differences between the dialects of Chinese are so great that speakers of Chinese from some parts of China can’t understand speakers from other parts.
【小題1】The first paragraph mainly tells us that_______.

If you are one of those who want to know how to increase your vocabulary, there are some ways you may find useful. In fact, it is not that difficult to learn new words, but to remember them for a lifetime seems not to be so easy.
To make it easier, you can try word associations（聯(lián)想）. Try to find a connection between a new word and things or people you know. For example, if your neighbour is an unselfish person who cares about the needs of other people, think about this person every time you see the word, and very soon you'll start actively using it.
Try to use the words you learn as often as possible. Perhaps you are not sure which situations they should be used in, or whether you pronounce（發(fā)音） them correctly, but practice is the best way to understand that. It is not enough to find out the meaning of a word. You should hammer (敲打) it into your mind by using it in actual conversations in everyday life.
Also, it may be helpful to know the meaning of the word roots, prefixes (前綴) and suffixes （后綴）， especially if they have a Greek or Latin origin（起源）． Even if you meet a long unfamiliar word, it will be easy to know its meaning if you know the general meaning of its parts.  For example, if you see the word "philanthropy", it won't be difficult to surmise what it means if you know that "anthropo" means "human" and "philo" means "loving". Not only can ancient Greek and Latin be helpful, but a number of modern languages as well. So, if you speak French,  Italian, Spanish or Portuguese, guess the meaning of an unfamiliar English word if it sounds like  a word from another language you know.
【小題1】 Which of the following old sayings can show the main idea of Paragraph 3?