Speech is one of the most important ways of communicating. It consists of far more than just making noises. To talk and also to be understood by other people, we have to speak a language, that is, we have to use combinations of sounds that everyone agrees to stand for a particular object or idea. Communication would be impossible if everyone made up their own language. Learning a language properly is very important. The basic vocabulary of English is not very large, and not only about 2,000 words are needed to speak it quite well. But the more idea you can express, the more precise you can be about their exact meaning. Words are the main thing we use in communicating what we want to say. The way we say the words is also very important. Our tone of voice can express many emotions and show whether we are pleased or angry, for instance.