Солнцева Практический курс английского языка Ч.1 2011

News: Where to Find?

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Listening and Speaking: Interview with Annanova

Before you listen make sure you know these words:

a virtual character, a creator, to look like, to deliver (news), simultaneously, on demand, to put it another way, in other words, to access sth, what I‘m getting at.

Language Spot: The language of headlines

1. Read the text and say what rules are used in the headlines. Why?

The language of the newspapers is quite special and the writer of a certain article should be really careful in choosing the right word or phrase. In England the quality papers use a serious tone, a wide vocabulary and standard English.

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The language of headlines, though, is completely different from the English

―inside‖ the article and can be analysed from many points of view: lexically, grammatically and stylistically.

Headlines give a summary of the article, but they have to do it so as to

stimulate the interest of the reader for the content of the story. That‘s why there is often an exaggeration of the meaning.

Analysing the vocabulary of headlines we can observe a dominant characteristic which is brevity, a clear condition of any headline, short, snappy and rhyming words are preferred.

Because a headline needs to be short the language of headlines often breaks linguistic rules. Authors make use of such syntactical conventions as:

- use of the infinitive to express - future events or plans,

When the Present Tense is used instead of the Past, it gives a sense of reality to the article, for example: ―Prime Minister fails to attend a summit‖ instead of ―Prime Minister failed to attend a summit‖.

2. Look at the usual vocabulary of headlines. Why are these words used instead of regular English? What are the regular English equivalents for these words?

Reading and Speaking: And Now the Sports News

1.Split into pairs, read 2 different articles than retell your article to your partner. When you are done, ask your partner if there was something in your summary that he/she didn‟t understand. Then listen to him/her.

Do the same with the rest of the articles.

2.What rules of „Headline Language‟ do the titles of the articles display?

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Study Skills: Spelling

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Study Skills: Summary. Where Computers Can‟t Go – Translation

1. Read the text about computer translation. Match sentences A-E with gaps 1-5. Decide whether the sentences are a) a thesis statement, b) a topic sentence or c) a concluding sentence.

1.Computer Assisted Translation (CAT) was the biggest hope for automatic translation on computers.

2.In conclusion, it seems to be that most people now agree that the dream will stay a dream.

3.This article will look at what has happened over the last few years and show that the dream still hasn't come true.

4.There seems to be a number of reasons why CAT has not provided good translations.

5.There are many types of CAT programmes, other than the one I used in the

above example.

In each paragraph of a text there is usually one sentence that gives you the general meaning of that paragraph. There are 3 kinds of sentences:

1.The Thesis Statement – it gives you the overall topic of the text and is usually found at the end of the introductory paragraph.

2.The Topic Sentence – it provides you with the topic of the paragraph. It is usually the 1st sentence of the paragraph but not always.

3.The Concluding Sentence – it summarises the whole text and is usually found at the beginning of the conclusion.

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2. Translate the text, find these vocabulary units, be ready to recall the

situations in which they were used: a barrier, It was thought that…, Once voice recognition was in place, to expire, to be far from + adj, in short.

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3. There are several ways to translate the Russian phrase „быть похожим на что-то/кого-то, напоминать‟, study these ways, then do the translation:

Translate the sentences into English, using one of the structures above:

1) Ваш сын очень похож на вашего отца. 2) Тебе не кажется, что сумка этой девушки очень напоминает мою, украденную в ночном клубе? 3) Вы совсем не изменились, выглядите как и десять лет назад. 4) По вкусу (in taste) фейхуа напоминает землянику. 5) Они близнецы и потому похожи, как две капли воды. 6) Этот дом с балконами, напоминающими черепа, был построен знаменитым архитектором Гауди. 7) На вкус это мороженое соленое, попробуй! 8) Ты звучишь простуженной, болеешь?

5. Study the difference between the usages of “as” and “like” and then do the exercise below:

Circle the correct answer.

1.My sister's hair is dark brown, as /like mine.

2.He was employed as / like an engineer by a large construction company.

3.The election results were seen as / like a victory for the government.

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4.As / Like many young people, she's finding it hard to make ends meet.

5.The children dressed up as / like ghosts and witches for the party.

6.My brother has a car just as / like yours. What do you think of it?

7.We use the spare room as / like a study most of the time.

8.Fruits as / like oranges and kiwis have lots of vitamin C.

9.As / Like we reported earlier, the fire was probably started by arsonists.

10.So you went to the concert last night. What was it as / like?

11.As / Like most people, they would love to have a home of their own.

Reading and Speaking: How the Internet is Changing Lives Forever

1.In pairs discuss which of the following you have used / heard of. What

kind of sites are they?

Google, YouTube, eBay, Amazon, Wikipedia, MySpace, Second Life

2. Match these vocabulary units from the text to the correct translation:

3. In Ex. 2 Find synonyms to these words and phrases:

to post sth on the net, to think about doing sth, to buy sth, a mistake, to influence sth/sb, ordinary/widespread, dishonest.

4. Read the text and find answers to these questions:

1.Why do teens see the world as a smaller place than their grandparents did?

2.What point does the writer make about friendships in the second paragraph?

3.What examples are given of the power of the Internet with regard to:

a) buying and selling? b) getting information? c) social networking? 4. What warnings does the writer give about Internet sites?

How the Internet is Changing Life Forever

These days with inexpensive air travel, mobile phones, email and the Internet, teenagers see the world as a smaller place than it appeared to their grandparents. Of these innovations, the Internet appears to be the one with the most potential for global influence, and which will change lives the most.

For example, up until recently friendships developed over a lifetime but that has now changed. People often made friends locally at school and continued those friendships into adulthood, but many young people today find the majority of their friendships over the Internet. This is not restricted to teenagers. Paula

Sen, who has just turned 30, says: I‘ve met most of my best friends over the

Internet, through common interest forums. I couldn't live without the Internet. It's my lifeline.'

The Internet has also greatly influenced the way people buy and sell goods. International Internet shopping is now common, with people buying all sorts of goods, from sites such as Amazon, the most successful online retail site. The international auction site eBay allows millions of participants to buy from and sell to strangers, setting their own prices. But beware - there are as many unscrupulous salespeople online as on the high street.

One of the Internet's greatest success stories is Wikipedia, the free online encyclopaedia, which is compiled and updated by its users. It carries far more content than any other encyclopaedia and is a great starting point for research, but remember to double-check important facts as it does contain errors. If you don't have time to check your facts, consider purchasing a reliable online encyclopaedia such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The other major information resource on the Internet is Google, a search engine which finds and ranks web pages according to the number of links made to them.

Probably the biggest impact that the Internet has had is the way in which it has influenced social networking. The most frequently 'googled' word in the world recently was Bebo - the social networking site - followed by My Space. People can meet new friends through sites like these, they can renew old acquaintances through sites like Friends Reunited and they can also play games with each other in virtual worlds such as Second Life. This Internet-based, threedimensional virtual world is 'inhabited' by more than 6.6 million residents from around the world, and global companies such as Adidas and Toyota even have

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outlets there. It's now much easier to share experiences with others too. Sites such as YouTube allow people to upload and share videos, with unlikely clips becoming huge hits and a number of figures becoming Internet phenomena. Many people remember watching 'sabre boy' wielding an imaginary light-sabre, and laughing out loud at his antics.

Much of the power of the Internet lies in the fact that people are developing new ways to be creative and innovative, combining ideas and skills without an organisation or hierarchy. No one is in overall control. Collective creativity and collaboration are the key ideas. But even more powerful than this is its power to solve crimes, help change the world through giving to charities on sites like justgiving.com or find missing individuals: one website for a missing child was visited by over 40 million people within days of its being set up.

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