Author's tone

Как проверять выражения на английском like a pro

Как проверять выражения на английском like a pro

Изучение языков

Представьте, что вы читаете текст и наткнулись на новую интересную фразу. Всегда ли вы знаете, как её правильно произнести и использовать в речи? Или, например, вы пишете письмо и не можете решить правильно ли использовали выражение. Эти ситуации типичны для изучающих английский. Что вы обычно предпринимаете? Скорее всего вы открываете гугл и, может быть, даже используете кавычки при поиске. Неплохая стратегия, но есть альтернативы получше. Меня зовут Дарья, я преподаю английский язык в EPAM, и в этой статье я расскажу про эффективные подходы и инструменты для поиска примеров использования лексики.

Как быть уверенным в том, что найденные примеры актуальны и достоверны? Начнём с очевидного. Если вам нужен контекст использования фраз, а не пространные обсуждения, есть маленький трюк — просто перейдите на вкладку News в Google поиске и вы найдёте множество примеров с вашей фразой из разных статей. Хоть это и самый быстрый и простой вариант, не лишним будет пробежаться глазами по источникам — если там известные издания вроде The Guardian или The New York Times, это хороший знак. Но если же в списке всего пара примеров из сомнительных интернет-журналов, пожалуй, стоит продолжить поиск. 

Например, можно открыть вкладку Books. Там вы найдете результаты из книг и, соответственно, большую уверенность в достоверности источника. 

Если же вы хотите чего-то большего, чем просто текст, советую обратить внимание на два прекрасных сайта — Youglish и Tubequizard, которые ищут вашу фразу по видео на Youtube. То есть вы получаете не только контекст, но и можете услышать примеры использования в речи. Куда уж достовернее? Здорово, что здесь можно сфокусироваться ещё и на произношении. Хотите узнать, как произносят какую-то фразу носители американского, британского или австралийского английского? Теперь это не составит труда.

Похожий, но ещё более увлекательный способ послушать живые примеры, это использование сайта Playphrase.me. Главное отличие от предыдущих вариантов в том, что Playphrase находит результаты в фильмах. К сожалению, не так давно этот сайт перестал быть полностью бесплатным, но он всё ещё работает и показывает по три примера на каждый поисковый запрос в бесплатной версии.

«Так, подождите, а как же Reverso Context?» — возможно многие сейчас подумали. Ведь это первый результат, если искать примеры использования фраз в гугле. Конечно, можно использовать и его, но результаты могут содержать ошибки, так как примеры будут в основном из субтитров, в том числе неофициальных и непроверенных. Так что, лучшей стратегией будет использовать более надёжные сайты для поиска примеров. Например, онлайн корпусы.

Корпус (corpus) — это «подобранная и обработанная по определённым правилам совокупность текстов, используемых в качестве базы для исследования языка». Ими обычно пользуются лингвисты для своих научных нужд, так что, когда вы их используете, то можете сказать, что сами в каком-то роде учёные. Есть много хороших корпусов, но самые популярные вот эти:

The iWeb corpus

The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA)

Sketch Engine for Language Learning

FLAX (Flexible Language Acquisition)

Лично я бы порекомендовала FrazeIt — очень хороший сайт где видно не только пример, но и источник откуда он взят. Можно даже кликнуть на него и прочитать статью целиком. Но это не единственное преимущество! Ещё есть определения, синонимы и картинки, помогающие запомнить фразу, которую вы проверяете. А ещё внизу есть встроенная страница Youglish и можно сразу прослушать примеры.

В случае, если вы хотите сравнить две или больше фраз, чтобы понять какая из них правильная или более часто употребляемая, Google Books Ngram Viewer — ваш выбор. Этот корпус позволяет проверить как часто слова и выражения появляются в более чем 5 миллионах книг. Результаты наглядно представлены в виде графика, а здесь можно почитать подробнее про возможности этого инструмента.

Сегодня, любой человек, изучающий английский (да и любой другой иностранный язык), должен стремиться быть автономным — способным самостоятельно находить ответы на возникающие вопросы. Прошли те дни, когда учитель был единственным источником знаний. Настало время, когда навыки поиска информации и использования разных инструментов стали самыми важными в обучении. Поэтому пора подружиться с корпусами, монолингвальными (eng-eng) словарями и техниками поиска.

На этом сегодня всё. Надеюсь, что эти советы помогут вам эффективнее работать с новой лексикой и чувствовать себя увереннее при её использовании. 

One language, three accents

accents

GUIDE TO LITERARY ANALYSIS / EVALUATING A STORY

 

GUIDE TO LITERARY ANALYSIS / EVALUATING A STORY 

A close scrutiny of a fine literary text may be in itself a richly satisfying and rewarding experience as it enhances our intercultural sensitivity and awareness that there are universal truths and sentiments that bind us. To be able to do it a student should be aware of the literary devices writers use to enrich their language and create complexity within a story. The short story is usually concerned with a single effect conveyed in only the one or a few significant episodes or scenes. The form encourages economy of setting and concise narrative; character is disclosed in action and dramatic encounter but is seldom fully developed. The way a story is presented is a key element in fictional structure.

     Any work of fiction consists of relatively independent ele­ments — narration, description, dialogue, interior monologue, digressions, etc. Narration is dynamic, it gives a continuous ac­count of events, while description is static, it is a verbal portrai­ture of an object, person or scene. It may be detailed and direct or impressionistic, giving few but striking details. Through the dialogue the characters are better portrayed, it also brings the action nearer to the reader, makes it seem more swift and more intense. Interior monologue renders the thoughts and feelings of a character. Digression consists of an insertion of material that has no immediate relation to the theme or action. It may be lyrical, philosophical or critical. The interrelation between different components of a literary text is called composition.

     Most novels and stories have plots. Every plot is an arrangement of meaningful events. No matter how insignificant or deceptively casual, the events of the story are meant to sug­gest the character's morals and motives. Sometimes a plot fol­lows the chronological order of events. At other times there are jumps back and forth in time (flashbacks and foreshadowing). The four structural components of the plot are exposition, com­plication, climax and denouement. Exposition contains a short presentation of time, place and characters of the story. It is usually to be found at the beginning of the story, but may also be" interwoven in the narrative by means of flashbacks, so that the reader gradually comes to know the characters and events leading up to the present situation. Complication is a separate incident helping to unfold the action, and might involve thoughts and feelings as well. Climax is the decisive moment on which the fate of the characters and the final action depend. It is the point at which the forces in the conflict reach the high­est intensity. Denouement means "the untying of a knot" which is precisely what happens in this phase. Not all stories have a denouement. Some stories end right after the climax, leaving it up to the reader to judge what will be the outcome of the conflict.

     The way a story is presented is a key element in fictional structure. This involves both the angle of vision, the point from which the people, events, and other details are viewed, and also the words of the story. The view aspect is called the focus or point of view, and the verbal aspect the voice. It is important to distinguish between the author, the person who wrote the story, and the narrator, the person or voice telling the story. The author may select a first-person narrative, when one of the characters tells of things that only he or she saw and felt. In a third-person narrative the omniscient author moves in and out of peoples thoughts and comments freely on what the char­acters think, say and do.

     Most writers of the short story attempt to create characters who strike us, not as stereotypes, but as unique individuals. Characters are called round if they are complex and develop or change in the course of the story. Flat characters are usually one-sided, constructed round a single trait; if two characters have distinctly opposing features, one serves as a foil to the other, and the contrast between them becomes more apparent. Round and flat characters have different functions in the conflict of the story.

     The conflict may be external, i.e. between human beings or between man and the environment (individual against nature, individual against the established order/values in the society). The internal conflict takes place in the mind, here the character is torn between opposing features of his per­sonality. The two parties in the conflict are called the protago­nist and his or her antagonist. The description of the different aspects (physical, moral, social) of a character is known as characterization when the author describes the character him­self, or makes another do it, it is direct characterization. When the author shows the character in action, and lets the reader judge for himself the author uses the indirect method of char­acterization.

     A short story is more than just a sequence of happenings. Its setting may be no less important than the events themselves. The term setting is generally taken to include not only the geographical place in which the events in a story happen, but also a historical era, the daily lives and customs of the characters. The particular time and physical location of the story form the setting. Such details as the time of the year, certain parts of - the landscape, the weather, colours, sounds, or other seemingly uninteresting details may be of great importance. The setting can have various functions in a given story:

1) it can provide a realistic background,

2) it can evoke the necessary atmosphere,

3) it can help describe the characters indirectly.

     The author's choice of characters, events, situations, details and his choice of words is by no means accidental. Whatever leads us to enter the author's attitude to his subject matter is called tone. Like the tone of voice, the tone of a story may communicate amusement, anger, affection, sorrow, contempt. Of the clearest indications of the tone of a story is the style in which it is written. In this sense, the notion of style means the language a writer and includes such traits as the length and complexity of sentences, the choice of words (abstract or concrete, bookish or colloquial) and the use of such stylistic devices as simile, metaphor, synecdoche, etc. One of the chief devices is the symbol. It may be a person, an object or an action that represents sometimes else because of its association with it. It is frequently a visible sign of something invisible.

The theme of a story is like unifying general idea about Life that the entire story reveals. In some stories the theme is unmistakable, in others, it is not obvious. That is, it  need not be a moral or a massage; it may be what the happenings add up to, what the story is about. Frequently writers are interested in suggesting rather than explaining the theme of a story, leaving it to the reader to infer, or deduce, the hidden meaning. They have a variety of means at their disposal, such as parallelism, contrast, repetition, artistic details, symbols, etc. Indeed, plot, focus and voice, and character are not so much interrelated, as they are fused and inseparable. The author rarely gives a direct statement of the theme in a story. It is up to the reader to col­lect and combine all his observations and finally to try to for­mulate the idea illustrated by the story. The most important generalization the author expresses is sometimes referred to as the message. The message depends on the writer's outlook, and the reader may either share it or not.

     There are few absolute rights or wrongs when it comes to analyzing a short story. Nevertheless, the underlying premise of our approach is that students must read each story twice at home.

    There are no hard and fast rules about text interpretation but one is usually expected to sum up the contents and ex­press his overall view of the story. The following questions will be useful in the analysis if a story.

COMPOSITION AND PLOT; FOCUS; VOICE

     What are the bare facts of the story? What is the exposi­tion, complication, climax and denouement? Are the elements of the plot ordered chronologically? How does the story begin? Is the action fast/slow moving? Which episodes have been given the greatest emphasis? Is the end clear-cut and conclusive or does it leave room for suggestion? On what note does the story end? Is the plot of major or minor importance? Does the author speak in his own voice or does he present the events from the point of view of one of the characters ? Has the narrator access to the thoughts and feelings"of all the characters? — Only a few? Just one? Is the narrator reliable? Can we trust his judge­ment? Is there any change in the point of view? What effect does this change have? Is the narrative factual/dry/emotional? Are the events credible or melodramatic?

CHARACTERS AND SETTING

     What are the characters names and what do they look like? Does this have any significance? Are the characters round or flat? Does the narrator employ interior monologue to render the thoughts and feelings of the characters? Are the characters credible? Do they act consistently? If not, why not? With what main problem is the protagonist faced? Is it a conflict with another individual? With society? Within himself? In the course of the story do the characters change as a result of their experience? Does the narrator sympathise with the characters? Remains aloof and detached? Is the particular setting essential or could the story have happened anywhere at any time? Has the narrator emphasised certain details? Which? Why? What functions does the setting have?

THEME AND ARTISTIC EFFECT

What is the general effect achieved? Has the writer caused characters, and settings to come alive? What was the conflict and how was is solved, if at all? Were there any striking repeti­tions of actions, words, thoughts or symbols? Has the protagonist learned anything? Has he or she acquired a greater knowledge or insight or reached a new awareness? Does the title of the story indicate anything about the theme? Are the theme and story fused and inseparable? How does the word choice and syntax contribute to the atmosphere? Does the story abound in tropes or does the narrator use them sparingly? What images lend the story a lyrical, melancholy, humorous effect? Are they genuine, poetic, fresh, trite, hackneyed, stale? Is the general tone matter-of-fact, sentimental, moralizing, bitter, ironical, sarcas­tic? What attitude to life does the story express? What seems to be the relationship between the author, the narrator and the reader?

 

Article 5

Myanmar coup: Military blocks Facebook for sake of 'stability'

Myanmar's military rulers have blocked access to Facebook, days after they overthrew the democratic government.

Officials said the social media platform - for many in Myanmar the main source of online information - would be blocked for the sake of "stability". Facebook has become a key rallying point for opposition to Monday's coup.

In further civil disobedience, lawmakers are refusing to leave their compound in the capital, and more pot-banging was seen in Yangon.

The coup, led by armed forces chief Min Aung Hlaing, installed an 11-member junta, ending a short period of majority civilian rule.

The military said an election in November had been fraudulent - though the country's election commission said there was no evidence of such fraud.

The elected civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, along with President Win Myint, were detained and on Wednesday police filed charges against them.

The charges against her include possession of unlawful communication devices - walkie-talkies used by her security staff.

President Myint is accused of breaching Covid rules while campaigning for last November's election, won decisively by Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.

What is Facebook's role?

The Ministry of Communications and Information said access to Facebook would be blocked until 7 February. However, it was still reported to be accessible sporadically.

Anthony Aung, who runs a tour agency in Yangon, the main city, told the BBC at one point he still had access to the site through WiFi but not cellular data.

He said "people around me are all rushing to download alternative apps and VPN" - virtual private networks which allow users to get round internet restrictions. Hours later, Mr Aung said Facebook had stopped working completely.

Yangon student Min Htet said her education due to the Covid pandemic. "Blocking Facebook today means that the freedom of young people is restricted from now on," she told Reuters.

What is happening on the streets?

A small protest has taken place in front of a university in Myanmar's second city, Mandalay, with reports of four arrests. In Yangon, residents banged cooking pots for a second night running.

A woman in the city told the BBC: "We bang drums as we want the military government and the world to know that we don't agree with this military coup... I want our leader Aung San Suu Kyi back."

At least 70 lawmakers with the NLD are refusing to leave a government guest house in the capital, Nay Pyi Taw, and have declared what they are calling a new parliamentary session, BBC Burmese reports.

The lawmakers are among hundreds who were confined by the military to guest houses before being told they were free to leave.

The streets are for the most part calm with no sign of major protest and a night-time curfew in force.

However, hospitals have seen protests. Many medics have either stopped work, or continued while wearing symbols of defiance.

But a rally by thousands in support of the military, known as the Tatmadaw, took place in Nay Pyi Taw. Some waved banners saying "Tatmadaw that loves people".

'Absolutely unacceptable'

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has meanwhile called for constitutional order to be re-established in Myanmar - also known as Burma. He said he hoped there would be unity in the Security Council on the matter.

"We'll do everything we can to mobilise all the key actors of the international community to put enough pressure on Myanmar to make sure that this coup fails," he said.

"It's absolutely unacceptable to reverse the result of the elections and the will of the people.

Western countries have condemned the coup unreservedly, but efforts at the Security Council to reach a common position failed as China dissented. China is one of five permanent members with a right of veto in the council.

Beijing has long played a role of protecting the country from international scrutiny, and has warned since the coup that sanctions or international pressure will only make things worse.

Alongside Russia, it has repeatedly protected Myanmar from criticism at the UN over the military crackdown on the Muslim minority Rohingya population.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Myanmar at a glance

Myanmar is a country of 54 million people in South East Asia which shares borders with Bangladesh, India, China, Thailand and Laos.

It was ruled by an oppressive military government from 1962 to 2011, leading to international condemnation and sanctions.

Aung San Suu Kyi spent years campaigning for democratic reforms. A gradual liberalisation began in 2010, though the military still retained considerable influence.

A government led by Ms Suu Kyi came to power after free elections in 2015. But a deadly military crackdown two years later on Rohingya Muslims sent hundreds of thousands fleeing to Bangladesh and triggered a rift between Ms Suu Kyi and the international community.

She has remained popular at home and her party won again by a landslide in the November 2020 election. But the military have now stepped in to take control once more.

Task 1. Read the headline of the article. Comment on it.

Task 2. Read the article and be ready to provide the translation.

Task 3. Give the English equivalents of the following words and phrases. Make your own sentences using the new vocabulary. Write out those words and phrases and transcribe them.

Заблокировать доступ; основной объединяющий фактор; госпреворот; гражданское неповиновение; законодатели; покинуть свой лагерь; установить хунту из 11 членов;  военные власти; фальсифицировать; избирательная комиссия страны;  лидер избранные народом; задержать; обвинения против; владение незаконными средствами связи; нарушение антиковидных правил; Министерство связи; спорадически доступный; данные сотовой связи; спешить в; виртуальные частные сети; приостанавливать; бить по кастрюлям; новой парламентской сессии; ограничить; комендантский час в ночное время; нарушение; митинг; Генеральный секретарь Организации Объединенных Наций; Бирма; Мьянма; мобилизовать; безоговорочно осудил переворот; расходиться во взглядах; право вето; защита страны от международного контроля; граничить с; полная(сокрушительная) победа на выборах.

Task 4. Make up a dialogue/story using the new vocabulary.

Task 5.Devide the text of the article into logical parts. Give short titles to each logical part. Find a key sentence to each logical part. Paraphrase them.

Task 6. Make up all types of questions to discuss the article with your group mates.

 Task 7. Be ready to discuss in the classroom with your group mates:

А) what was the author’s intention to tell the general public about

B) what is the main idea/problem raised.

Task 8. Watch the video “'Dark old days': What young Burmese fear about the Myanmar coup ”. Give a script of the video and say how is the video related to the information given in the article.

Go through the link to watch the video https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55923486.

Think and say whether all what is shown to us is really a true picture of events that take place? How to understand that?

Tasks for a second lesson

Task 9. Write a rendering of the article. Mind the rules of a rendering writing.

Task 10. Learn the new vocabulary from the article be ready to write the dictation-translation.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes\The Greek Interpreter

Task 1.Watch the screen version of "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" Chapter "The Greek Interpreter" by Arthur Conan Doyle.

Task 2. To improve your reading skills do listen to the recording of the extract "The Greek Interpreter" by Arthur Conan Doyle. 

Go through the link below👇

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ax7CKClqL8

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