阅读下面短文，在空白处填入一个恰当的单词或括号内所给单词的正确形式。

China is a large country. It has special cultures with a very long history.

Chinese food plays ____（1）____ important role for Chinese families. Chinese people eat their meals with chopsticks. One of the main foods ____（2）____ (be) rice. Tea is a favorite drink.

Chinese calendar is different from the one in ____（3）____ (west) countries. New Year’s Day is in late winter. It is also called the Spring Festival. And it also has some special ____（4）____ (tradition) cultures. For example, sweeping the floor ____（5）____ New year’s Day sweeps away all the old year’s bad ____（6）____ (lucky).

The Chinese zodiac, known as Sheng Xiao, follows a twelve-year cycle. Each year is ____（7）____ (name) after an animal. For example, the year that begins in 2022 is the year of the tiger.

Chinese is a little difficult language. Chinese writing ____（8）____ (develop) for over 4,000 years. It has thousands of characters. A character stands for a word and also a ____（9）____ (mean). Besides Putonghua, Chinese people speak some other ____（10）____ (form) of the language, and there are many kinds of dialects (方言).