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Файл:Соединенные Штаты Америки. Учебное пособие
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IV. Below are words from the active, each followed by a group
of synonyms and antonyms. Decide which is a synonym and which
is an antonym referring to the context the word is used in:
incentive: stimulus, hindrance, provocation, motive, barrier
opponent: adversary, associate, antagonist, competitor, foe, rival,
critic, friend, enemy, assistant
coach: tutor, instructor
cute: attractive, pretty, unpleasant, charming, clever, keen-witted,
sharp, shrewd, ugly, plain
DISCUSSION
1. Which of the two points of view from the text do you agree with?
a) “…what’s the point in playing if you don’t win?”
b) “… winning isn’t everything.”
2. What should an incentive for sportsmen in the Olympics be:
representing one’s nation and doing one’s best or being paid a lot of
money?
3. Would you like your child to take up a career of a professional
athlete?
4. What do sports mean to you/your family?
5. What opportunities do sports give to people?
6. What can a sportsman do when his/her sports career is finished?
7. Should the state provide sportsmen with social benefits?
8. What skills are developed in baseball/tennis/ track-and-field/
chess / soccer?
READING
Read the following article and say how it relates to the text.
Which of the opinions do you support and why?
Why won’t they let my son win the egg and spoon race?
Early summer is sports day season and it seems that we are living
at my son’s school, watching with pride as their little legs pump
across the field, their eyes screwed up in concentration, as they
attempt to keep that pesky egg on the spoon.
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But I find myself wondering why they try so hard when their
teachers are so determined that there should be no winners, no matter
how far a child streaks ahead of his classmates.
Last Friday was my five-year-old son Jacob’s first sports day at his
primary school, and when he powered over the finish line ahead of all
his little classmates, he held his arms aloft and shouted ‘I’m the
winner’, only to be taken aside and gently told by the teacher that
there were no winners and it was all just a bit of fun. His face fell as
he felt as if he was being reprimanded for celebrating his success.
This misguided philosophy is meant to make it easier on those
children who forever train in last, but it’s an insult to their
intelligence. My son knew he had won the race, and so did all his
friends. Telling him not to enjoy his moment of glory didn’t make the
slowcoach at the back of the pack feel any better — he was still last
and everyone knew it — it just took the joy away from my son and
made him wonder why he had pushed so hard to cross the finishing
line first.
It was the same at my younger son Max’s pre-school, where each
child was handed a pretend gold medal at the end of the day, no matter
if they had performed as well as an Olympic hopeful or as abysmally
as a teetotaller in a drinking game.
How are the children supposed to understand the point of
competitive sport, when the whole point of it — winning — is
expunged from it?
We Brits like to blame our sporting failures on lack of resources,
bad weather or sheer bad luck. But is it any wonder <…> when our
children are taught from infancy that coming first just isn’t sporting?
With the 2012 Olympics around the corner, we are breeding a
generation of children who think that ‘winner’ is a dirty word and
aren’t allowed to taste the glory of victory for fear of making those
they beat feel bad about themselves. <…>
We are deceiving our children by perpetuating the myth that
everyone is equal, and denying them the joy of their achievements and
the chance to learn how to cope with their failings and strive to
improve. How is this a kinder education than the harsher realities I
learned at school? <…>
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It seems to me that the modern everyone’s-a-winner school of
thought actually means that everyone loses.
(Ursula Hirsehkorn. Daily Mail, July 16, 2009)
ESSAY TOPICS
1. Sports as a temporary job.
2. Sports as a lucrative business.
3. Popular sports and sportsmen in the U.S.A./Russia.
4. Fan movements.
5. Sports: to watch or participate?
6. Your personal experience in sports. Has it changed you or your
life? How?
7. Amateur and professional sports: advantages and disadvanta-
ges.
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Unit 10
THE PEOPLE
PREREADING
Answer the questions:
1. Have you ever had to move from one place to another? What
kind of place was it?
2. Was it a pleasant or frustrating experience? What was your
neighbors’ attitude towards the new-comers (strangers)?
3. What difficulties do people face when they move far away
from the place where they used to live?
TEXT 1
FRIENDLY PEOPLE
There are many wonderful things about the United States of
America that deserve praise — the Bill of Rights, the Freedom of
Information Act and free bookmatches are three that leap to mind —
but none is more outstanding than the friendliness of the people.
When we moved to this little town in New Hampshire, people
received us as if the one thing that had kept them from total happiness
to this point was the absence of us in their lives. They brought us
cakes and pies and bottles of wine. Not one of them said, ‘So you’re
the people who paid a fortune for the Smith place’ which I believe is
the traditional greeting in England. Our next-door neighbours, upon
learning that we were intending to go out to eat, protested that it was
too dreary to dine in a strange restaurant on one’s first night in a new
town and insisted we come to them for dinner there and then, as if
feeding six extra mouths was the most trifling of burdens.
When word got round that our furniture was on a container ship
making its way from Liverpool to Boston, evidently by way of Port
Said, Mombasa and the Galapagos Islands, and that we were
temporarily without anything to sleep on, sit on, or eat from, a stream of
friendly strangers (many of whom I have not seen since) began traipsing
up the walk with chairs, lamps, tables, even a microwave oven.
It was dazzling, and it has remained so. At Christmas this year we
went to England for ten days, and returned home late at night and
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hungry to find that a neighbour had stocked the fridge with both
essentials and goodies, and filled vases with fresh flowers. This sort of
thing happens all the time.
Recently I went with one of my children to a local college
basketball game. We arrived just before game time and joined a queue
at one of the ticket windows. After a minute a man came up to me and
said, ‘Are you waiting to buy tickets?’
No, I wanted to reply, I’m standing here to make the line more
impressive, but of course all I said was, ‘Yes, I am.’
‘Because you can have these,’ he said and thrust two tickets at me.
My immediate thought, born of years of stupidly misreading
situations, was that he was a tout and that there must be some catch.
‘How much?’ I said warily.
‘No, no, you can have them. For free. We can’t go to the game,
you see.’ He indicated a car outside with the motor running and a
woman in the passenger seat.
‘Really?’ I said. ‘Well, thank you very much.’ And then I was
struck by a thought. ‘Did you make a special trip here to give away
two tickets?’
‘They were going to go to waste otherwise,’ he said apologetically.
‘Enjoy the game.’
I could go on and on about this sort of thing — about the young
man who returned my son’s lost wallet with nearly all his summer’s
wages in it and wouldn’t take a reward, about the employees of the
cinema who go out if it starts to rain and roll up all the windows of
cars parked along nearby streets on the assumption that at least some
of them will belong to cinema customers who don’t know it is raining,
how after the wife of the local police chief lost her hair during
chemotherapy treatment every member of the force had his head
shaved to raise money for a cancer charity and to make the chief’s
wife feel less conspicuous.
That people leave their cars unlocked and the windows open tells
you something more about the town, of course. The fact is, there is no
crime here. None. People will casually leave a $500 bicycle propped
against a tree and go off to do their shopping. If someone did steal it, I
am almost certain the victim would run after the thief shouting, ‘Could
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you please return it to 32 Wilson Avenue when you’ve finished? And
watch out for the third gear — it sticks.’
No one locks anything. I remember being astounded by this on my
first visit when an estate agent took me out to look at houses and she
kept leaving her car unlocked, even when we went into a restaurant
for lunch and even though there was a portable phone on the seat and
some shopping in the back.
At one of the houses she discovered she had brought the wrong key.
‘Back door’ll be unlocked,’ she announced confidently, and it was. I
subsequently realized that there was nothing unusual in this. We know
people who go away on holiday without locking their doors, don’t know
where their house key is, aren’t even sure if they still have one.
Now you might reasonably wonder why, then, this is not a thief’s
paradise. There are two reasons, I believe. First, there is no market for
stolen goods here. If you sidled up to anyone in New Hampshire and
said, ‘Wanna buy a car stereo?’ the person would look at you as if you
were off your head and say, ‘No, I already have a car stereo.’ Then
they would report you to the police and — here is the second thing —
the police would come and shoot you.
But of course the police don’t shoot people here because they don’t
need to because there is no crime. It is a rare and heartwarming example
of a virtuous circle. We have grown used to this now, but when we were
still new in town and I expressed wonder about it all to a woman who
grew up in New York City but has lived here for twenty years, she laid
a hand on my arm and said, as if imparting a great secret, ‘Honey,
you’re not in the real world any longer. You’re in New Hampshire.’
NOTE
Pay attention to the difference in the following British and
American terms:
line
AmE
AmE
CULTURAL ASSOCIATIONS
Look up the following entries in the Dictionary of U. S. Life and
Culture (Жизнь и культура США: Лингвострановедческий
словарь) or other dictionaries and encyclopedias:
cf. BrE queue — очередь
vacation
cf. BrE holiday — отпуск, каникулы
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Bill of Rights
Boston
dinner
doughnut
Freedom of Information Act
lunch
New Hampshire
New York City
police
supper
COMPREHENSION CHECK
I. Find English equivalents in the text:
обедать в неизвестном ресторане в первый раз по прибытии в
новый город
нам временно было не на чем спать, сидеть и не из чего есть
поток дружелюбных незнакомцев
забить холодильник необходимыми продуктами и разными
приятными мелочами
занять очередь у кассы
он указал на машину с з
переднем сидении
я могу до бесконечности продолжать рассказ о такого рода
вещах
брать вознаграждение
закрывать окна машин, припаркованных вдоль улицы, на тот
случай, если хотя бы некоторые из них принадлежат посетителям
кинотеатра
впоследствии я осознал, что ничего необычного в этом нет
это редкий греющий душу пример «заколдованного кру
я выразил свое удивление женщине, выросшей в Нью-Йорке
II. Answer the following questions:
аведенным мотором и женщиной на
га»
1. What things in the U.S. deserve praise, in the author’s opinion?
2. How were the Brysons welcomed by their neighbors when they
moved to a little town in New Hampshire?
197
3. Why did strangers start bringing furniture, kitchen appliances,
and other stuff to their house? Did they want anything in
return?
4. What happened once when the author’s family went to
England for Christmas?
5. Retell the situation with tickets for a local college basketball
game and give your comments.
6. Give more examples of the friendliness encountered by Mr.
Bryson and his family.
7. What are the two reasons for the lack of crime in New
Hampshire? Why can’t it become a thief’s paradise?
8. Do you think friendliness is typical only of the town described
in the story or it is an American national feature?
III. Explain your understanding of the following phrases from
the text:
1. “…as if feeding six extra mouths was the most trifling of
burdens.”
2. “…our furniture was on a container ship making its way from
Liverpool to Boston, evidently by way of Port Said, Mombasa and the
Galapagos Islands…”
3. “If someone did steal it, I am almost certain the victim would
run after the thief shouting, ‘Could you please return it to 32 Wilson
Avenue when you’ve finished? And watch out for the third gear — it
sticks.’”
4. “Now you might reasonably wonder why, then, this is not a
thief’s paradise.”
5. “But of course the police don’t shoot people here because they
don’t need to because there is no crime. It is a rare and heartwarming
example of a virtuous circle.”
6. “‘Honey, you’re not in the real world any longer. You’re in New
Hampshire.’”
ACTIVE VOCABULARY
friendly — 1. to / toward(s) somebody — behaving in a kind and
pleasant way because you like somebody or want to help them: a
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warm and friendly person. Antonym: unfriendly. 2. (with
somebody) treating somebody as a friend: We soon became
friendly with the couple next door. 3. [often in compound
adjectives] that is helpful and easy to use; that helps
somebody/something or does not harm it: environmentally-friendly
farming methods; ozone-friendly cleaning materials.
to dine v — [formal] to eat dinner.
microwave oven — a device that uses microwaves to cook food.
goody n [pl –ies] — something pleasant to eat, as candy: She had got
all sorts of delicious goodies for tea. 2. anything that is attractive
and that people want to have: They had all the goodies — new
cars, a big house, holidays abroad — that a higher income brings.
conspicuous adj — 1. easily seen or noticed; attracting special
attention: a conspicuous building; conspicuous clothes. Antonym:
inconspicuous.
casual adj — 1. showing or feeling little interest; indifferent;
apathetic: Mark’s casual attitude annoyed her. 2. without a clear
aim, plan, or intention, not serious: not a real lecture, just a few
casual remarks. 3. (of clothes) appropriate for informal occasions:
casual shoes. 4. irregular; occasional: casual users of the library
service.
casually — adv.
estate agent — a person whose job is to sell houses and land for
people.
to astound v — to overwhelm with amazement: His arrogance
astounded her. Synonyms: astonish, surprise.
astounded (at/by something) adj — very surprised or shocked by
something, because it seems very unlikely.
shopping n — 1. the goods bought in one visit to a store: Let me carry
your shopping. 2. an act or occasion of visiting the stores to buy
things: The Browns normally do their shopping on Saturdays. Why
don’t we go shopping together?
199
to realize cf. to understand — [not used in the progressive tenses] to
understand or become aware of a particular fact or situation: I
didn’t realize (that) you were so unhappy. 2. to achieve something
important that you very much want to do, to achieve: She never
realized her ambition of becoming a professional singer.
NOTE
Pay attention to the difference between the following terms:
salary — [pl. — ies] money that employees receive for doing their
job, esp. professional employees or people working in an office, usu.
paid every month: an annual salary of $40 000.
wage [also wages] — a regular amount of money that you earn,
usu. every week, for work or services: wages of £200 a week.
fee — an amount of money that you pay for professional advice or
services: legal fees; an amount of money that you pay to join an
organization, or to do something: membership fees.
pay — the money that somebody gets for doing regular work: a
pay raise; a 3% pay offer; holiday pay.
WORD COMBINATIONS AND PHRASES
to go out to eat — поесть вне дома (в кафе или ресторане)
word got round — прошел слух
to raise money — собирать деньги
to be off one’s head — быть не в своем уме
to stock the fridge with food — забивать холодильник едой
ASSIGNMENTS
I. Translate into Russian paying attention to the active
vocabulary:
1. Mary’s red hair always made her conspicuous at school.
2. They
3. We dined with my friends in a restaurant in town.
4. We’re giving away lots of free goodies — T-shirts, hats, and
chatted casually on the phone.
videos.
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