Dear readers, TuoiTreNews continues to bring you the most-read stories on Tuoitrenews.vn this year.
>> Part 1
6 – Tuoi Tre unveils new English study page
The 6th most read is an article introducing TuoiTreNews’ new English-teaching page two months ago.
Here, Vietnamese readers can enjoy free online English lessons in 7 areas: Lessons, Grammar, Listening, Articles, Quizzes – Fun, Vocabulary, and Ask Us.
Besides listening to audios with transcripts, readers can also send questions to nhipcauanhngu@tuoitre.com.vn for queries related to English grammar, usage, vocabulary, idioms and other language issues.
This is part of a series of English teaching and learning activities by TuoiTreNews that began with the opening of the Education page earlier in May, followed by a well-packed seminar discussing the most effective ways to learn English.
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Experts discussing effective ways to learn English at the seminar in May
Coming at number 5 is a big fire in Hanoi last week that sent thick black smokes billowing from the Hanoi twin towers and hundreds of people scrambling to find the exit.
5- Hanoi 33-storey twin towers on fire: live report
Fortunately, there were no casualties. However, dozens of people were injured and had to be hospitalized.
TuoiTreNews is the first newspaper in the world to break the news in English and to continuously update the article by the minute.
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The article, together with its many vivid photos, later spread virally and was quoted in numerous social media sites and international newswires including Twitter, Facebook, CNN, MSNBC, Huffington Post, Sky News, AsiaOne…
4- South Vietnam’s first lady dies in Rome
Next is the death of Tran Le Xuan, wife of Ngo Dinh Nhu, brother and political advisor of Ngo Dinh Diem, who served as South Vietnam’s first president from 1955 to 1963.
She passed away in April this year at 87 in Rome.
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Tran Le Xuan
Ranked third in readership is not a news article or a feature story but a novel. In fact, it is a bilingual excerpt from the novel “Open the window, eyes closed" by author Nguyen Ngoc Thuan.
3- Chapter 1: The most beautiful sounds - Part 1
The story is accompanied by an audio narrated by native-English speakers. This means readers not only can read but also listen, and in the process, improve their listening skills.
Two months after the first chapter of the novel was published, we officially launched the multimedia page where you can not just listen to audios but also watch our short video clips featuring the most prominent news.
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Specifically, our clips about the man with a 90-kg tumor and the woman in mid-twenties who suddenly turned into an old woman have widely been sought after by foreign agencies for syndication purposes.
The inclusion of a separate multimedia page - the first of its kind for English news sites in Vietnam - on our news website has once again confirmed our position as the most popular and trusted online English-language news source in the country, as ranked by Alexa.
Let’s now arrive at the second most read article about the erotic scenes in a movie by French director Jean-Jacques Annaud.
2- Sex scenes from “The Lover” filmed in Vietnam
This article has since been referred to in Wikipedia’s entry on the movie and reposted on numerous forums.
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A scene in the movie
Memorable lines:
“To make this scene, Annaud demanded that the two of them wear thick coats when it was 35 Celsius degree and run around the studio three times. The actor and actress then took off their coat and laid on each other.”
So far, we’ve listed 9 most popular stories. You must be curious about our number one story in 2011. What could possibly have bested all the previous stories about sex, crime, corruption, death, education and entertainment?
Ranked first is the mysterious case of Ms. Nguyen Thi Phuong, a beautiful woman in her mid-20s who suddenly aged into an old woman with a wrinkled face and saggy arms. Yet her voice remains as sweet as that of a young girl!
1- Young woman ages overnight, allergy suspected
She was hospitalized for two months at the University Medical Center in HCMC and was discharged last week.
According to the result of a skin biopsy conducted by medical experts at Baylor University in Texas, Ms. Phuong suffers from Mastocytosis and Acquired Cutis Laxa.
Her condition is very rare since she is the only second patient among 7 billion people in the world to have been diagnosed with these diseases.
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She is only in her mid-20s
This story and our accompanying video clip have since been cited by many news sites around the world, including the Huffington Post, Daily Telegraph, News.com.au, AsiaOne…
As of December 20, this article alone has garnered nearly 46,000 pageviews, quite impressive for a foreign-language news site like ours, and deservedly wins the title 2011’s most read article on TuoiTreNews.
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