阅读理解。
What do you call someone who speaks three languages? Trilingual. What do you call someone who
speaks two languages? Bilingual. What do you call someone who speaks one language? An American.
To people in many countries, being bilingual or even trilingual is a way of life. But since the mother
tongue of most Americans is English-a language widely spoken around the world-they often don't feel the
need to learn a foreign language. Moreover, people who live in the heartland of America have little contact
with other linguistic groups, making foreign language skills irrelevant.
Actually, though, this"land of immigrants" has always had people of many different nationalities and
languages. The 1990 census indicates that almost 14% of Americans speak a non-English at home. Yet
only 3% reported that they spoke English "not well" or "not at all". That means that slightly more than one
out of 10 Americans could be considered bilingual. Besides that, many high school and college students and
even some elementary school students are required to take a foreign language as a part of their curriculum.
In addition to old standbys like Spanish, German and French, more and more students are opting (选择)for
Eastern European and Asian languages. Of course, not all students keep up their foreign language abilities.
As the old saying goes, "If you don't use it, you lose it," But still, a growing number of Americans are coming
to appreciate the benefits of bein multilingual.
1. What can we learn from this passage?
A. Many Americans don't speak English at home.
B. All Americans speak English very well.
C. Most Americans can only speak one language.
D. In America most students only study one language.
2. Why do most Americans consider foreign languages are not important?
A. Because they think foreign languages are hard to learn.
B. Because English, their mother tongue, is a language widely spoken around the world.
C. Because they don't like foreign languages at all.
D. Because they have poor abilities to learn foreign languages.
3. What does the underlined word "multilingual"mean?
A. Bilingual.
B. Trilingual.
C. Language skill.
D. Speaking many languages.
4. What is happening to Americans now according to this passage?
A. More and more Americans are coming to appreciate the benefits of being multilingual.
B. Most Americans are studying foreign languages.
C. Most students in America are studying foreign languages.
D. Many elementary, high school and college students are required to learn five languages.
