A Canadian's Language Problems

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7.

1. There were both British English speakers and American ones in the del­
egation.

2. The government has produced a number of reports on violence on tele­
vision, the most recent one only six months ago.

3. Help yourself to some apples.

4. Is this your umbrella? - No, mine's the big black one.

5. I want a stamp for my letter. I must go and buy one.

6. If you haven't got enough money, I can lend you some.

7. They say his recent films are very successful, but I haven't seen them
yet.

8. You've got an excellent secretary in your office. We've got one too, but
she doesn't speak any foreign languages.

9. Your garden is so nice. We've got one too, but it is very small.
10. If you are making a cup of coffee, could you make one for me?

11. " Look! Isn't that house beautiful! " " Which one? The tall one? " " No, the
one next to the tall one".

12. " Let's have a snack in a cafe today! " " Good idea! I know one round the
corner. It is very nice."

13. " We haven't got any milk." " Ok! I'll buy some on the way home."

14. Have you read all the articles in today's paper? There are a few very
interesting ones.

15. My friend isn't a lawyer. He is a businessman and a very successful one.

16. Have you read his recent publications yet? They are very interesting.

8.

1. He was invited to a few parties last month, but he didn't go to any of them.

2. He was invited to two parties last week, but he didn't go to either of
them.

3. There were a lot of e-mails this morning but none of them were (was)
important.

4. I asked two people the way to the station but neither of them could
help me.

5. Neither of her parents is English. Her mother is Welsh and her father
is Scottish.

6. We tried to book a room in a few hotels but none of them had any
rooms available.

7. We can meet on Tuesday or Thursday. Would either of these days be
convenient for you?

8. I couldn't answer any of the questions they asked me.

9. We took a few photos but none of them were (was) any good.
10. He showed me two photos, but neither of them was very good.

10.

The most common form of English used by the British ruling class is that originating from southeast England (the area around the capital, London, and the ancient English university towns of Oxford and Cambridge). This form of the language is known as «Received Standard», and its accent is called Received Pronunciation (RP), which is improperly regarded by many people outside the UK as 'the British accent'. Earlier it was held as better than other accents and referred to as the King's (or Queen's) English, and then «BBC English». Originally, this was the form of English used by radio and television. However, there is now much more tolerance of variation than there was in the past; for several decades other accents have been accepted and are frequently heard, although stereotypes about the BBC persist. English spoken with a mild Scottish accent has a reputation for being especially easy to understand. Moreover, only approximately two percent of Britons speak RP, and it has evolved quite markedly over the last 40 years.

Keys

Even in the south east there are significantly different accents; the local inner east London accent called Cockney is strikingly different from RP and can be difficult for outsiders to understand.

There is a new form of accent called Estuary English that has been gaining prominence in recent decades: it has some features of Received Pronunciation and some of Cockney. In London itself, the broad local accent is still changing, partly influenced by Caribbean speech. Londoners speak with a mixture of these accents, depending on class, age, upbringing, education and so on.

12.

Internet - A New Medium

Do you know that although the basic applications and guidelines that make the Internet possible had existed for almost a decade, the network did not gain a public face until the 1990s?

Since then the world has changed immensely because of the Internet. And its arrival has already given some clear indications about the way in which languages are going to be affected. The signs are that we are facing a development whose consequences for English (and indeed for languages in general) are profound.

The Internet is a genuine new medium of linguistic comminucation, taking some of the properties of the two traditional mediums, speech and writing, synthesizing them in a new way, and adding further properties which were unavailable to either in the past. Because people are typing their messages on a screen, there are obvious similariraties with written language; but there are some important differences. To begin with, most of the interactions are in the form of a dialogue - doing the job of speech, only in written forms. Moreover, it is a fast-moving dialogue, especially in chatgroups and virtual worlds, where people are exchanging messages as fast as they can type. E-mails are also dialogic in character. Although there can be quite a lag before a reply is received, the language in which the reply is often written is that of a face-to-face conversation. It is this dialogic character which has led some commentators to describe Internet communication as 'written speech'.

But in our real conversations we do not only pronounce words. We pronounce them with a definite intonation, stress, speed, rhythm and tone of voice. The limitaions of the keyboard enable only some of the properties of spoken language to be expressed on the screen (punctuation marks, repeating letters, spacing or capitalization of letters, for example, can be used to stress the meaning of the word.). But it is impossible to communicate the other properties which add so much meaning to face-to-face conversation - facial expressions and gestures. Remember the saying 'It ain't what you say, nor the way that you say it, but the way that you look when you say it'? Has anything been done to

compensate for this obvious defect of the Internet communication? Yes, here they are- 'smileys'!

14.

My dear colleagues,

Yes, colleagues. I meant what I said. Five years ago I became one of your teachers and you were my first-year students at this college. I have been trying to teach you all I know myself about the art of teaching foreign languages.

Language is one of the most wonderful media of communication mankind possesses. Young children learn to use their mother tongue by themselves, but as they grow up they need the languages of other peoples and you have learned how to teach them. Anyhow, I did my best to tell you all I know about the rules, the joys and pitfalls of our profession. Today I would just like to remind you about something you might not consider worth speaking about because it is self-un­derstood. So I apologize for asking you to listen carefully.

Firstly, no matter how well you know the language you are going to teach, you cannot preserve this level without further efforts to keep it up. You either go on acquiring knowledge, improving your skills and making progress or you begin to forget what you have learnt and lose the skills you possess, and very quickly at that.

I realise that I might seem old-fashioned, but let me assure you that the most reliable way of keeping up your standards is reading. And, of course, there is no denying the fact that nowadays we have a lot of other possibilities. For ex­ample, we can listen to the radio and watch television and learn to understand different varieties of spoken English, especially the two main ones - British and American.

And last but not least, no matter how well you know the course-books you are using in class, never go to the lesson unprepared. Let me quote an out­standing Russian teacher of foreign languages: " A lesson is a carefully prepared improvisation".

There will be ups and downs in your activities as teachers. Do not be dis­couraged in any situation. The profession you have chosen is both creative and rewarding and I wish you every success in it.

ТАБЛИЦА ВРЕМЕННЫХ ФОРМ

 

	PRESENT	PAST
ш Q. СО ■ ■ --- --К ., '.	to write to translate	1. I hardly ever writeletters. 2. Alex often writesletters. 3. He usually translatesbusiness letters. 4.Do you translateletters? 5. Doeshe translateletters? 6. Don'tyou writeletters occasionally?	1. I wrotea letter to a friend yesterday. 2. When didyou writeto him? 3.When didhe last writeto you? 4.Why didn'tyou writeto him?
CONTINUOUS	to be writing to be translating	1. " What areyou doing? " " I'm writinga letter." 2. Alex is translatinga letter, so he can't talk to you just now. 3. Для выражения будущего действия. " What areyou doingtonight? " " I'm goingto the cinema."	1. I was writinga letter when you came. 2. What wereyou doingwhen I came? 3.I wasn't makingany calls at five o'clock.
PERFECT	to have written to have translated	1. I'vejust writtena letter to a friend. 2. Hashe answeredyour letter yet? 3.I haven't seenhim lately. 4.I haven't seenhim for a long time. 5.I haven't seenhim since we went to college.	1. I'd writtenall the letters when you came. 2. He said he'd already translatedall the letters. 3. How many letters hadyou translatedby the time the manager came?
PERFECT CONTINUOUS	to have been writing | to have been translating	1. I've been writingletters since morning. 2. What haveyou been writingall this time? 3.He's been translatingbooks all his life. 4. How long haveyou been translatingthis article?	1. He said he'd been lookingthrough the mail since morning. 2.We'd been walking through the forest for three hours when we realized that we'd lost our way.

АКТИВНОГО ЗАЛОГА

 

FUTURE	FUTURE IN THE PAST
1. I think I'll writeto him one of these days. 2. He'll probably writeto me soon. 3. I'll sendyou a fax as soon as I make all the necessary arrangements. 4. I'll callyou after I've seen everybody about it.	1. He said he'd writeto us as soon as he got to London, (...he would writeto us...)
1. I'll be waitingfor you at exactly ten. 2. Willyou be usingyour computer this afternoon? . 3. Tomorrow we'll be looking at the situation in Panama.	1. He said he'd be waitingfor you at exactly ten. (... he would be waiting...) 2.They said (on TV) they would be lookingat the situation in Panama tomorrow.
(Употребляется сравнительно редко) 1. We'll have writtenall the most important letters by one o'clock. 2. You'll understand the problem better after you've studiedit more carefully.	1. They said they would have writtenall the documents by the time you needed them next week. 2. He said you'd (you would) understandthe problem better after you'd (you had) studied it more carefully.
(Употребляется сравнительно редко) He 'II have been workingfor an hour by the time we come to help him.	(Употребляется сравнительно редко) He said he would have been workingfor an hour by the time we came to help him.

ТАБЛИЦА ВРЕМЕННЫХ ФОРМ

 

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