5StoryEveryday life1 min
What a Library Is For
A town library in an age of screens, seen from its reading room.
An opinion piece: quèshí for conceding a point, rán’ér for turning against it, and the closing pattern búguò shì … éryǐ, "is no more than …". Watch the shape: a view, a concession, a return.
在网上几乎什么都能查到的今天,有人认为图书馆已经没有必要了。确实,来图书馆借书的人比以前少了很多。
然而,上个星期我去了家附近的图书馆,发现里面的人比想象的多得多:有准备考试的中学生,有看报纸的老人,还有给孩子挑选书的父母。
图书馆的工作人员告诉我,现在图书馆不只是借书的地方,越来越多的人来这里学习和交流。图书馆还定期举办讲座和孩子们的读书活动。
当然,图书馆也有不少问题。很多读者希望延长开放时间,可是经费有限,工作人员也不够。
如果图书馆的作用只是借书,那么手机确实也能做到。但是一个人人都能免费进去、安静地待上一整天的地方,在城市里并不多见。
Click a word to look it up in this site’s vocabulary.
- Words
- 161
- Sentences
- 9
- Words per sentence
- 17.9
- in the vocabulary
- 100 %
- measured level
- 4
- Reading time
- 1 min
The words from 5 up in this text
Not the hard words in general, but those at your level: all 1 of the 99 words in this text are at 5 or above. You will know everything else by the time you get here.
经费
funds, budget (for an activity)
5
The word lists for this text
The words in this text appear in 40 lists on this site; the number after each says how many come from that list. Having read the text, you have just needed these very words — and can practise exactly them.
Comprehension questions
3 questions on the text. With each answer the sentence it comes from appears — a question whose answer you cannot find in the text tests nothing.
1. What did the writer find in the library?
发现里面的人比想象的多得多
2. What do more and more people come to the library for?
越来越多的人来这里学习和交流
3. Why is it hard to open for longer?
经费有限,工作人员也不够