Тексты на английском языке
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Тексты на английском языке
Чтение текстов на английском языке - один из способов изучения языка. Тексты на английском языке, если они правильно подобраны, могут помочь в изучении языка. Неправильно и неумело подобранные тексты на английском языке способны отбить охоту и желание изучать язык у самых стойких и упорных. Важно не только правильно подобрать тексты, но и правильно с этими текстами работать. Основной принцип работы с текстами на английском языке заключается, и это ни для кого не секрет, в их чтении. Но чтение текстов может быть разным, как по своим целям, так и по способам, котрыми эти цели достигаются. Самыми распространенными целями, которых добивается читатель текстов на английском языке, являются: пополнение общего или тематического словарного запаса, обучение и тренировка в произношении английских слов и выражений, закрепление правил английской грамматики путем разбора типичных примеров встречающихся в тексте и их многократное повторение с целью запоминнания и т.д. Очевидно, что для их достижения необходим подбор соответствующих этим целям текстов на английском языке.
Другим критерием по которому должны выбираться тексты для чтения на английском языке является их сложность (лексическая, грамматическая). Для начинающих изучение языка необходимы тексты попроще и покороче, чтобы не успеть рассеять их внимание и не утомить раньше времени. Для опытных обучаемых соответственно нужны сложные тексты большим многообразием грамматических форм и лексического материала. Выбор английских текстов для чтения может осуществляться самостоятельно - опытным путем, либо с помощью преподавателя. Второй способ предпочтительнее, так как професиональный преподаватель может более точно определить ваш уровень знания языка и подобрать соответствующие тексты. Если вы занимаетесь изучением английского языка самостоятельно, то вам следует выбирать тексты на английском языке исходя из следующих соображений - количество незнакомых слов в английском тексте не должно превышать 10-15%. Чтение английских текстов с большим количеством новых слов будет отнимать много времени на обращения к словарю и снизит эффективость запоминания новых слов. Хорошим вариантим работы с текстами на английском языке является чтение небольших фрагментов с приведенным в конце переводом наиболее сложных слов и выражений. Перевод слов сэкономит времы на обращение к словарю а транскрипция поможет научиться правильно произносить слово.
Источником текстов на английском языке могут служить учебники английского языка из курса средней школы. Они хороши тем, что английские тексты в них обычно расположены в порядке возрастания сложности, учебный материал тщательно дозирован а в конце текста обычно приводятся задания и упражнения по прочитанному тексту. Они помогают лучше усвоить новый лексический материал. Для начинающих изучение английского языка идеально подойдут старые советские учебники, отличающиеся от современных образцов очень тщательной проработкой учебного материала и высоким качеством его подачи.
Газетные статьи могут также использоваться в качестве источничов учебного материала. Однако следует обратить внимание, что язык прессы отличается специфичностью, в нем много сокращений, мало художественных оборотов, и в целом он предназначен для краткой подачи информации читателю, освещении определенных фактов и событий с минимумом отступлений и максимальной экономией печатного пространства.
Более оптимальным источником текстов на английском языке являются художественные произведения англоязычной прозы. Рассказы на английском языке, главы из повестей и романов будут прекрасным источником новых слов.
^ ПРОСТЫЕ ТЕКСТЫ:
1. Big Вen
The big clock on the tower of the Palace of Westminster in London is often called Big Ben. But Big Ben is really the bell of the clock. It is the biggest clock bell in Britain. It weighs 13.5 tons.
The clock tower is 318 feet high. You have to go up 374 steps to reach the top. So the clock looks small from the pavement below the tower.
But its face is 23 feet wide. It would only just fit into some classrooms.
The minute-hand is 14 feet long. Its weight is equal to that of two bags of coal. The hour-hand is 9 feet long.
The clock bell is called Big Ben after Sir Benjamin Hall. He had the job to see that the bell was put up.
Sir Benjamin was a big man. One day he said in Parliament, "Shall we call the bell St. Stephen's?" St. Stephen's is the name of the tower.
But someone said for a joke, "Why not call it Big Ben?" Now the bell is known all over the world by that name.
2. ^ About libraries
There are many big and small libraries everywhere in our country. They have millions of books in different languages. You can find there the oldest and the newest books.
Every school has a library. Pupils come to the library to take books on different subjects.
The school library where Oleg studies is good. It is a large clean room. There are four big windows in it. The walls are light blue. There are a lot of shelves full of books. You can find books on literature, physics, history, chemistry, geography, biology and other subjects. There are books in English, too.
On the walls you can see pictures of some great writers and poets.
On the table near the window you can always see beautiful spring and autumn flowers.
Oleg likes to go to the library. He can always find there something new, something he needs.
3^ . Charles Darwin (1809—1882)
A hundred years ago people believed that plants and animals had always been as they are now. They thought that all the different sorts of living things, including men and women, were put in this world by some mysterious power a few thousand years ago.
It was Charles Darwin, born at Shrewsbury on the 12th of February, 1809, who showed that this was just a legend. As a boy Darwin loved to walk in the countryside, collecting insects, flowers and minerals. He liked to watch his elder brother making chemical experiments. These hobbies interested him imuch more than Greek and Latin, which were his main subjects at school.
His father, a doctor, sent Charles to Edinburgh University to study medicine. But Charles did not like this. He spent a lot of time with a zoologist friend, watching birds and other animals, and collecting insects in the countryside.
Then his father sent him to Cambridge to be trained as a parson. But Darwin didn't want to be a doctor or a parson. He wanted to be a biologist.
In 1831 he set sail in the Beagle for South America to make maps of the coastline there. Darwin went in the ship to see the animals and plants of other lands. On his voyage round the world he looked carefully at thousands of living things in the sea and on land and came to very important conclusions.
This is what he came to believe. Once there were only simple jelly-like creatures living in the sea. Very slowly, taking hundreds millions of years, these have developed to produce all the different kinds of animals and plants we know today. But Darwin waited over twenty years before he let the world know his great ideas. During that time he was carefully collecting more information. It showed how right he was that all living things had developed from simpler creatures.
He wrote a famous book 'The Origin of Species'.
People who knew nothing about living things tried to make fun of Darwin's ideas.
The development of science has shown that Darwin's idea of evolution was correct.
- ^ Great Britain
The British Isles lie in the north-west of Europe. They consist of two large islands, Great Britain and Ireland, and many smaller ones. Great Britain, the largest island in Europe, includes England, Scotland, and Wales. It is separated from Ireland by the Irish Sea, and from the Continent by the English Channel and the Straits of Dover. Great Britain and Northern Ireland form the United Kingdom (UK).
The surface of England and Ireland is flat, but the surface of Scotland and Wales is mountainous. The mountains are almost all in the western part. The highest mountain in the United Kingdom is Ben Nevis in Scotland (1343 m). The longest river is the Severn. It is in the south-west of England. The Thames is not so long as the Severn, it is shorter. The sea enters deeply into the land and has a great influence on the climate, which is damp but rather mild: the winter is not very cold and the summer is not very hot.
Over 57 million people live in the United Kingdom. Most of the people of Great Britain live in big towns and cities.
The capital of the country is London. The main industrial centres are Sheffield and Birmingham where iron goods are made, Manchester, the cotton centre of England, and others.
The important ports of the country are London, Liverpool, Glasgow and others
- Meals
There are four meals a day in an English home: breakfast, lunch, tea, and dinner.
Breakfast is the first meal of the day. It is at about 8 o'clock in the morning, and consists of porridge with milk and salt or sugar, eggs — boiled or fried, bread and butter with marmalade or jam. Some people like to drink tea, but others prefer coffee. Instead of porridge they may have fruit juice, or they may prefer biscuits.
The usual time for lunch is 1 o'clock. This meal starts with soup or fruit juice. Then follows some meat or poultry with potatoes — boiled or fried, carrots and beans. Then a pudding comes. Instead of the pudding they may prefer cheese and biscuits. Last of all coffee — black or white. Englishmen often drink something at lunch. Water is usually on the table. Some prefer juice or lemonade.
Tea is the third meal of the day. It is between 4 or 5 o'clock, the so-called 5 o'clock tea. On the table there is tea, milk or cream, sugar, bread and butter, cakes and jam. Friends and visitors are often present at tea.
Dinner is the fourth meal of the day. The usual time is about 7 o'clock, and all the members of the family sit down together.
Dinner usually consists of soup, fish or meat with vegetables — potatoes, green beans, carrot and cabbage, sweet pudding, fruit salad, ice-cream or cheese and biscuits. Then after a talk they have black or white coffee.
This is the order of meals among English families, But the greater part of the people in the towns, and nearly all country-people, have dinner in the middle of the day instead of lunch. They have tea a little later — between 5 and 6 o'clock, and then in the evening, before going to bed, they have supper.
So the four meals of the day are either breakfast, dinner, tea, supper; or breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner.
- New York
In 1607 Captain Henry Hudson left Europe to search for the famous North-West Passage. He didn't find it, because it didn't exist, but he reached a river to which he gave his name. Interested by the stories told them by the captain on his return, the Dutch sent other boats to take possession of the land discovered by Hudson and gave it the name 'New Netherland'. Two men dominate the history of this colony. The first bought the island of Manhattan from the Indians in 1626. The second arrived in 1647 as governor of New Amsterdam, the capital of New Netherland.
In 1664 this territory was taken over by the English and they changed the name of New Amsterdam to New York.
New York is one of the largest cities in the world. Its population is over 11 million people. New York is an industrial and cultural centre of the country. Most business is centred in Manhattan Island. The whole area is very small, that's why the skyscrapers were invented in New York and, especially, in Wall Street. Wall Street is a narrow street with big houses, but it is well known all over the world as the busiest street in the USA. People do business there.
There are two more world-famous streets — Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Broadway is the centre of the theatres and night life. It is known as The Great White Way because of the electric signs which turn night into day. It is the city that never goes to sleep. Buses and subway run all night. There are many drugstores and restaurants which never close their doors. There are cinemas with films that start at midnight.
Fifth Avenue is the great shopping, hotel, and club avenue. If you go along this avenue, you come to Harlem, where the black people of New York live, the coloured workers, teachers, doctors and musicians.
New York is the largest port in America. More than half the trade of the United States goes through this city.
There are many places of interest in New York. They are: the Statue of Liberty, the United Nations Building, Empire State Building, Columbia University, City Hall, New York Public Library and others.
- Scotland
Scotland lies to the north of England. People who live in Scotland arc Scots.
The capital of Scotland is Edinburgh, but Scotland has no separate Parliament, for the Scottish MPs (Members of Parliament) sit with the English ones in Westminster in London.
Edinburgh is not the largest city in Scotland. Glasgow, which lias a population of over one million, is twice as large as Edinburgh.
Even so, Edinburgh remains the centre of the life of Scotland. Here are the administrative centres of the Navy, the Army, and tlie Air Force, the chief banks and offices; and the famous university.
Edinburgh, unlike Glasgow, has no large factories. Publishing is its well-known industry. It has been famous for its printers since the early years of the sixteenth century, when the first Scottish printing-press was set up within its walls. The publishing of books is today a very important industry. Much printing is done for London publishing houses, and there are many paper-mills near Edinburgh.
Edinburgh is a beautiful city. The first thing you see in Edinburgh is the Rock -— the very large hill in the middle of the city, on which stands Edinburgh Castle.. The Castle looks like a castle from a fairy-tale, and parts of it are more than a thousand years old. From the top of the Castle there is a beautiful view of the hill and the sea.
Besides the Castle there are many other interesting buildings, such as Holyrood Palace which is the old royal residence, the Art Gallery, the University of Edinburgh.
Edinburgh is famous for many things: its festivals (plays and music), its college of medicine, its museums and libraries, and for its writers Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson and others.
- ^ The United Nations
The United Nations is an organization of sovereign nations representing almost all of humanity. It has as its central goal the maintenance of international peace and security. Additionally, its purposes call for the development of friendly relations among nations based on equal rights and self-determination of peoples and, through international co-operation, the solution of problems of an economic, social, cultural and humanitarian nature.
The United Nations is the meeting-place where representatives of all member states — great and small, rich and poor, with varying political views and social systems — have a voice and an equal vote in shaping a common course of action.
The United Nations has played, and continues to play, an active role in reducing tension in the world, preventing conflicts and putting an end to fighting already under way.
There are six main organs of the United Nations — the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the Secretariat and the International Court of Justice. The Court has its seat at the Hague, Netherlands. All other organs are based at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
Members of the General Assembly talk to each other in many languages, but officially there are only six - Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.
The Secretariat services the other organs of the United Nations and administers the programmes and policies laid down by them. Over 20,000 men and women are employed by the United Nations with about one-third of them at the Headquarters and the other two-thirds stationed around the globe. Staff members are recruited primarily from member states and are drawn from more than 140 nations. As international civil servants, each takes an oath not to seek or receive instructions from any government or outside authority.
Working for the United Nations, mostly "behind the scenes" at the Headquarters, are linguists, econbmists, editors, social scientists, legal experts, librarians, journalists, statisticians, broadcasters, personnel officers, administrators and experts in all the varied fields of activity covered by the United Nations. They prepare the reports and studies requested by various bodies of the United Nations; they issue press releases and produce publications, broadcasts and films giving information about the United Nations; and they perform the administrative duties needed to implement resolutions adopted by the various organs. In addition, there are stenographers, clerks, engineers and technicians, tour guides and also a body of security officers in blue-grey uniforms who arc responsible for the security of the United Nations Headquarters. At the head of the Secretariat is the Secretary-General.
The main Headquarters of the United Nations are based in New York. The United Nations Organization Secretariat occupies the higher building. The General Assembly is held in the lower building.
- Weather
The weather is a subject we can always talk about. It often changes and brings cold and heat, sunshine and rain, frost and snow. One day is often unlike the next. In summer the sun shines, often there is no wind and there are no clouds in the sky which is blue and beautiful. We can see stars and the moon at night and people like walks, outdoor games and sports in the fresh air.
When autumn comes, the days become shorter and colder. It gets dark earlier and often heavy clouds cover the sky bringing rain with them.
Sometimes there is heavy rain, so that an umbrella or a raincoat is necessary if we don't want to get wet through. Then you can hear people say, "What bad weather! When is this rain going to stop?" Many people then catch cold and must go to bed. Then a fire at home is so pleasant. At last frost and snow come.
Fields, forests and houses are covered with snow and rivers and lakes with ice. But spring again brings sunshine and warm winds. Sometimes it snows but snow will not remain long, it will melt in the warm sun. Spring will bring bright sunshine, green grass and flowers.
We usually say: "A nice day", "Not a bad day" or "It's nice weather for the time of the year" if the weather is fine.
We can say: "It looks like rain", "It looks like snow" of "It's bad weather" when the weather is bad.
- ^ Yuri Gagarin
It was on the 12th of April, 1961, when the first flight by man into cosmic space took place. Yuri Gagarin, the first cosmonaut in the world, was a 27-year old Air Force pilot at that time.
The spaceship flew at the speed of 300 miles a minute. That's six times faster than man ever travelled before. His flight lasted 108 minutes, but a circuit round the Earth took 89 minutes.
It was a brilliant achievement on the part of our scientists and technologists, and on the part of Yuri Gagarin who risked his life to achieve a victory for his country and mankind.
This is what Yuri Gagarin said at his press conferenc : "On my flight the 'day' side of the Earth was clearly seen: the continents, islands, seas, and big rivers. Flying over the land I could clearly see the big squares of fields, and it was possible to distinguish which was meadow and which was forest. I could not see as well as from an airplane, but very, very well though.
I saw for the first time with my own eyes the Earth's spherical shape. I must say that the view of the horizon is very beautiful. You can see the noticeable change from the light surface of the Earth to trie completely black sky in which you can see the stars. This transition, from light blue to dark, is very gradual and lovely.
I did not see the Moon. In space the sun shines ten times more brightly than on the Earth. The stars can be seen very well.
I felt excellent as I entered space. When weightlessness developed, everything was easier to do. My legs and arms weighed nothing. Objects swam in the cabin. During this state of weightlessness, I ate and drank, and everything was the same as on the Earth. My handwriting did not change, though my hand was weightless. But I had to hold my notebook or it would have floated away.
The passage back from weightlessness to the force of gravity happened smoothly. Arms and legs feel the same as during weightlessness, but now they have weight.
I ceased to be suspended over the chair, then I sat in it.
When I returned to the Earth I was full of joy."
^ Сложные английские тексты для чтения
- Michelangelo
Michelangelo, the famous Italian sculptor, lived in Florence. Once a beautiful piece of white marble was brought to Florence, and the governor of the city told Michelangelo that he wanted him to make a statue out of the marble. He said that Michelangelo was the only man in Italy who could do it.
The sculptor worked for two years to make the statue as beautiful as possible. When the statue was ready, a lot of people gathered in the square where it stood. Everybody was waiting for the governor. At last he came, accompanied by the richest people of the city. The governor looked pleased, and seeing the expression on his face the people thought that he liked the statue. So they were all surprised to hear him say that he didn't like the sculptor's work at all because the statue's nose was too long.
"Can you make the nose shorter?' the governor asked Michelangelo.
Those who heard the question expected the sculptor to get angry, but to their great surprise Michelangelo answered calmly that he didn't mind changing the shape of the nose.
When the governor was not looking, he picked up a handful of marble dust and went up to the statue. He pretended to work hard. Standing with his back to the governor, he dropped the marble dust he had picked up little by little to make the governor believe that he was really changing the shape of the nose. The governor thought that the sculptor was doing as he had been told, and so when Michelangelo finished working, he said proudly, "Now the statue is wonderful."
The people, who had kept silent while the sculptor was working, realized now that he hadn't done anything to the statue, and shouted with joy.
The statue, which is called David, is one of Michelangelo's best works. We have a copy of it in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.