Put 10 questions to the text.

3. Give the synonymous words from the text to the following:

· to change place of living

· recently

· speak to

· to pass away

· impecunious, necessitous

· consequently

· pseudonym

· reside

Text B

1. Translate into Russian using a dictionary:

PRINCE CHARLES, SUPERSTAR

It is his complexion that first strikes you: the ruddy, weathered face of the country­man, its rosy cheeks offset by tired and deeply bagged blue eyes. You can see that he once broke his nose playing rugger. He lets his sideburns advance, wedge-shaped, across his cheeks. When talking to him, it is hard to take your eyes off him.

In private, the automatic public gestures remain. The wringing of the hands, for want of being able to put them in his pockets. The nervous smile, the apprehensive frown whenever the conversation takes an unexpected and possibly undesired direction. He inclines his head, like a child, and looks at you through his eyebrows, wondering what you're after. His guard is never down.

Onstage or off, he lives on his nerves. He grinds his signet ring around his little finger, he licks his lips, he strokes the contour of his nose. His mouth has an involuntary tic, which drags its corner down towards his chin, unhappily giving an impression of disapproval. He can get so wrapped in his own thoughts, remem­bering what he must do next, guarding against the unexpected, that he can appear unduly solemn; he forgets to laugh at people's jokes, lets glowing compliments pass by without his practiced, graceful smile.

His voice has the unmistakable huskiness of his father's, but his vowel sounds remain his mother's. Whatever he is saying they remain in danger of under­standing it. They are not of the real world ... It is as well people read, rather than hair, most of what he says.

And yet it is not; he has an excellent line in repartee, which falls limply on the printed page. His comic eye is for the absurd, and he is both quick and remorseless with puns. Meanwhile, he has his own ways of amusing himself. The tiniest detail, he knows, can create an enormous effect. He will occasionally substitute "My mother..." for the more correct "The Queen...", to insert a calculated frisson into the conversation. It helps him take control.

At 5ft. l0 in. he is slightly shorter than you expect; his 11-stone frame wears its fitness and strength lightly, its slight shoulders and trunk settled on generous hips. His waist, thanks to constant exercise, remains a trim 31 in., but his chest a rather disappointing 37. His movements are sudden and awkward - he has a tendency to knock things over - but furiously ever onward. Wherever he is in the world, he is the focal point of an ebb tide flowing his way and that on the tightest of schedules. The pace in his company is exhausting. When he stops for a conversation his eyes keep moving, working out where to go next, unable to igurve the frantic activity going on around him.

From Charles, Prince of Wales by Anthony Holder

 

Put 10 questions to the text.

Decide whether these statements are true or false according to the passage.

1) When talking to him, it is easy to take your eyes off him.

2) In private, the automatic public gestures remain.

3) Charles never lives on his nerves.

4) He forgets to laugh at people's jokes, lets glowing compliments pass by without his practiced, graceful smile.

5) His voice has the unmistakable huskiness of his mother's, but his vowel sounds   remain his father's.

Make a short summary of the text. Do it according to the following plan:

1. The title of the text is...

2. The text is devoted to ...

3. It consists of ...

4. The first passage deals with ...

5. The second (third, forth, etc.) passage deals with ...

6. The main idea of the text is ...

 

C

1. Read and translate into Russian using a dictionary:

 

DANIELLE STEEL

 

Danielle Steel (born 1947) is an internationally best selling author of over thirty romance novels. Since publishing her first book in 1973, Steel has acquired an enormous following of loyal, avid reader.

Steel was born on August 14, 1947 in New York. Her parents were John Schulein Steel, a descendant of the founders of Lowenbrau beer and Norma da Câmara Stone Reis, the daughter of a Portuguese diplomat. Steel spent much of her early childhood in France where from an early age she was included in her parents' dinner parties, giving her an opportunity to observe the habits and lives of the wealthy and famous. Her parents divorced when she was seven, however, and she was raised primarily in New York by her father, rarely seeing her mother, who had moved to Europe. Steel started writing stories as a child, and by her late teens had begun writing poetry. A graduate of the Lycée Français de New York, class of 1965, she studied literature design and fashion design, first at Parsons School of Design in 1963 and then at New York University from 1963-1967.

In 1965, when she was only 18, Steel married banker Claude-Eric Lazard While a young wife, and still attending New York University, Steel began writing, completing her first manuscript the following year, when she was nineteen. After the birth of their daughter, Beatrix, in 1968, Steel became a copywriter for an advertising agency, then worked for a public relations agency in San Francisco. A client was highly impressed with her press releases and encouraged her to concentrate on writing books.

After nine years of marriage, Steel's relationship with Lazard ended. Shortly before their divorce was finalized her first novel, Going Home, was published. The novel contained many of the themes that her writing would become known for, including a focus on family issues and the impact of actions taken in the past on events of the present or future.

Steel married again, in a jailhouse ceremony with Danny Zugelder. The marriage ended quickly and Zugelder was later convicted of a series of rapes. Steel married her third husband, heroin-addicted William Toth, the day after her divorce from Zugelder was final, while she was 8 1/2 months pregnant with Toth's child. This marriage ended within two years, and Steel successfully petitioned to have Toth's parental rights to their son Nicholas terminated.

Still optimistic about finding love, Steel married for the fourth time in 1981, to vintner John Traina. Traina subsequently adopted Steel's son Nick and gave him his family name, and Steel adopted his two sons Trevor and Todd. Together they had an additional five children, Samantha, Victoria, Vanessa, Maxx and Zara.

Coincidentally, beginning with her marriage to Traina in 1981, Steel has been a near-permanent fixture on the New York Times hardcover and paperback bestsellers lists. In 1989, she was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for having a book on the New York Times Bestseller List for the most consecutive weeks of any author – 381 consecutive weeks at that time.

Steel married for a fifth time, to Silicon Valley financier Tom Perkins, but the marriage lasted less than two years, ending in 1999.

After years of near-constant writing, Steel took a four-month break in 2003 to open an art gallery in San Francisco. The Steel Gallery of Contemporary Art exhibited the paintings and sculptures of emerging artists, especially those whose work Steel collects. The gallery subsequently closed June 4, 2006.

In 2006 Steel reached an agreement with Elizabeth Arden to launch a new perfume, Danielle by Danielle Steel. The new fragrance, made of mandarin, jasmine, orchid, rose, amber and musk scents, is available only in selected stores. The target audience for the fragrance is readers of Steel's novels, and she believes that the new scent reflects her characters, saying "Fragrances represent so many aspects of life that my characters experience – commitment, love, and emotion."

Steel lives in San Francisco, but also maintains a residence in France where she spends several months of each year and a beach house in La Californie near St. Tropez. Despite her public image and varied pursuits, Steel is known to be shy and because of that and her desire to protect her children from the tabloids, she rarely grants interviews or public appearances. Her San Francisco home was built in 1913 as the mansion of sugar tycoon Adolph B. Spreckels.

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