Fiction helps a lot to develop language skills, and when we readstories in english, then we effectively improve our level and have an interesting time.
Books in English
Books play a big role in language learning. When reading literature, we learn new words, assimilate constructions. Of course, no one canceled the importance of oral language practice, but in a conversation we only hone what we received earlier, we translate theory into practice. In a conversation, we do not have time to work out the vocabulary, and when reading, we have the opportunity to refer to the dictionary, understand everything and, if necessary, re-read the incomprehensible.
Literature develops good taste and shapes our idea of correct language. In addition, through books in English, you are immersed in a foreign language culture, you begin to better understand native speakers.
On initial stage, When lexicon very small, they help a lot to parse special vocabulary. They are also called adapted. In such books, information is divided into certain topics, and dictionaries of words used in the text are attached. Adapted texts are simplified in terms of vocabulary and sentence construction, and can be read by those who have recently started learning. But what is lost in them is what unadapted literature gives - the language of native speakers, which does not adapt to the level of knowledge of foreigners.
Why are short stories good?
Of course, reading literature is important for anyone who is learning a language. But what? It’s not worth taking on huge novels right away: such a path will not be effective, and it can discourage the desire to read English literature in the original - not everyone can handle such ambitious goals.
The language in small texts is more concise, since it is necessary to fit all the events into a small volume of the work. Big role details play in the stories, they allow a capacious description of the situation. For language learners, such bright strokes that are significant for the plot are much easier to remember, which means it is easier to learn the words corresponding to them.
When parsing stories, it is convenient to memorize grammar and words. You always have the opportunity to re-read the text again after you have analyzed the translation of words and sentence structures. After all, reading a story does not take much time, and when you read it again, new phrases will be deposited in your memory much better.
Reading interesting stories in English, we immediately see our progress. After all, each text here is a finished work, which serves as a stepping stone in mastering English. After reading a story, we learn vocabulary on a certain topic, after which we can move on to another topic and thus quickly improve our language.
How to work with texts
- Read the text without translation. No need to immediately translate every word in a dictionary. In the beginning, we just get acquainted with the text, and our task is to understand what the story is about. You can guess the meaning of many words from the context.
- Now you can translate unfamiliar words. When you understand the essence of the story, then you already have guesses - this way the new vocabulary will be remembered much better. In addition, it will be easier for you to navigate desired values multi-valued words.
- Pay attention to the construction of sentences, the choice of grammatical tenses. Reading non-adapted texts is a good test of your understanding of why certain grammatical forms are put. Look also at stylistic features, note in which situations expressions from the story may be appropriate.
- Starting from the story, reflect on what you have read. Think about why the characters act the way they do and why the author has framed the story the way they do.Interesting stories on English language will give a good impetus to the formulation of your opinion on certain topics, which is extremely important for language practice.
- Retell the story. Try to use the words and structures you have learned from the text to learn how to apply what you have learned. short stories are very convenient for retelling: you can quickly read the work and immediately get the finished story.
What text to choose
We have already talked about the effectiveness of reading stories. But in this genre there are works of very different complexity, and you need to choose the text in accordance with your level of knowledge of the language.
Assess your strengths. Choose a text that has a moderate amount of new words. If you have been learning a language for a long time, theneasy stories in english for beginnerswill be simply useless for you: you will not learn anything new. If the entire text consists of unfamiliar words for you, then you have overestimated your capabilities. In this case, it is better to choose a simpler material.
When the text is not full of unfamiliar vocabulary, it is much easier to learn it. You can guess the meanings from the context, which is the easiest way to remember new words and expressions. In addition, you will have the opportunity to pay attention to the construction of sentences and the use of grammatical indicators. And you will get much more pleasure from reading, because the constant looking into the dictionary will prevent you from enjoying literature.
If you have recently started learning a language, takestories in english for beginners with translation, fairy tales or children's stories. Works for children are simpler, while you can learn a lot of useful things for yourself. When you feel confident, move on to more complex literature.
Stories in English can be found at the most different writers. There is always an opportunity to choose which of the authors is closer to you: O. Henry, Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, Jack London, Ray Bradbury, Rudyard Kipling, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Kurt Vonnegut.
Stories for beginners
To give you an idea of the texts, we will use Mark Twain's parable short story "The Five Boons Of Life" as an example. The story is short, consisting of five short passages. The first snippet looks like this:
In the morning of life came a good fairy with her basket, and said: “Here are gifts. Take one, leave the others. And be wary, chose wisely; oh, choose wisely! for only one of them is valuable”.
The gifts were five: Fame, Love, Riches, Pleasure, Death.
The youth said, eagerly: “There is no need to consider”; and he chose Pleasure.
He went out into the world and sought out the pleasures that youth delights in. But each in its turn was short-lived and disappointing, vain and empty; and each, departing, mocked him.
In the end he said: “These years I have wasted. If I could but choose again, I would choose wisely.”
Translation into Russian:
At the dawn of life, a fairy came to a man with a basket in her hands and said: “Here are the gifts. Take one, leave the others. Be careful, choose wisely, very wisely! Only one of them is truly valuable."
There were five gifts: Glory, Love, Wealth, Pleasure, Death.
The young man answered with passion: "There is nothing to think about" - and chose Pleasure.
He went out into the world and sought those pleasures that youth admires. But each turned out to be short-lived and brought disappointments, vanity and emptiness, each left him with ridicule.
In the end, the man said, “I wasted these years. If I could choose again, I would be wiser.”
We will not give the wholeEnglish story, but let's analyze his ending: the young man tried all the gifts except death, and each time he was disappointed. Then he again appeared before the fairy:
The fairy came, bringing again four of the gifts, but Death was wanting.
She said: “I gave it to a mother's pet, a little child. It was ignorant, but trusted me, asking me to choose for it. You did not ask me to choose.”
“Oh, miserable me! What is left for me?”
“What not even you have deserved: the wanton insult of Old Age”.
The fairy came and again brought four gifts, but Death was not among them.
She said, “I gave it to the baby. He did not know anything and trusted me, asked me to choose for him. You didn't ask me to choose."
"Oh, I'm unhappy! What is left for me?
"What even you don't deserve: a senseless insult to Old Age."
From these two fragments, you can see that key vocabulary is repeated throughout the story, so it can be remembered already in the process of reading. There are also no complex constructions and ambiguous sentences. The story serves a prime example, which type of text is suitable for beginners to read English literature in the original.
Choosing stories in english for beginners, you can stop at fairy tales. However, it is not necessary to select English works: you can read stories and translated into English. If you take a work with which you are already familiar, then it will be much easier to perceive the text, and you will quickly learn new vocabulary. For example, you can read English translations all the familiar fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen or Charles Perrault.
Stories in English for advanced
It is not necessary to assume that all stories are easy to read: a small volume does not necessarily indicate simplicity. Short texts can be written using complex grammatical structures.
Here is the beginning of Edgar Allan Poe's story " The Oval portrait” (“ Oval portrait"). His writing style is much richer, but also much more difficult to understand.
The chateau into which my valet had ventured to make forcible entrance, rather than permit me, in my desperately wounded condition, to pass a night in the open air, was one of those piles of commingled gloom and grandeur which have so long frowned among the Appennines, not less in fact than in the fancy of Mrs. Radcliffe. To all appearance it had been temporarily and very lately abandoned. We established ourselves in one of the smallest and least sumptuously furnished apartments. It lay in a remote turret of the building. Its decorations were rich, yet tattered and antique. Its walls were hung with tapestry and bedecked with manifold and multiform armorial trophies, together with an unusually great number of very spirited modern paintings in frames of rich golden arabesque.
The castle, into which my footman ventured to break in, lest I should be left in the street in my deplorable state, was one of the mixtures of gloom and grandeur which still frown among the Apennines no less than in the imagination of Madame Radcliffe. In appearance it seemed that the castle was temporarily and recently abandoned. We settled in one of the smallest and least luxurious apartments. He was in the far tower of the building. Its decoration was rich, although it had long since fallen into disrepair. The walls were covered with tapestries and decorated with a wide variety of spoils of war, along with an unusually large number of very animated paintings of our day in gold frames with arabesques.
Another example of whatstories in englishoften not easy to understand - the story of O. Henry "The Dream" ("Dream"). The piece starts like this:
Murray dreamed a dream.
Both psychology and science grope when they would explain to us the strange adventures of our immaterial selves when wandering in the realm of “Death's twin brother, Sleep”. This story will not attempt to be illuminative; it is no more than a record of Murray's dream. One of the most puzzling phases of that strange waking sleep is that dreams which seem to cover months or even years may take place within a few seconds or minutes.
Murray had a dream.
Both psychologists and scientists are lost in explanations strange adventures of our non-material "I", when we wander in the realm of the "twin of death" - in the realm of sleep. This story does not claim to be an explanation, it is just a description of Murray's dream. One of the most confusing aspects of these strange dreams is that in a dream, it seems to us months or even years pass, but in reality only a couple of seconds or minutes.
In the article, we have analyzed small passages to show how effective it is to read stories in English. You can choose collections of your favorite author or get acquainted with the work various writers through their stories: in the variety of works, everyone will find what he likes.
Our literature contains many beautiful works. And each of them is wonderful in its own way. But my favorite is Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. main character of this novel Tatyana Larina is my favorite literary hero. Tatyana attracts me with such qualities as:
- Modesty.
- Silence.
- Decency.
- Devotion.
What delights Tatyana Larina
Tatyana does not differ in some kind of bright appearance, unlike her sister Olga, but her beauty is beautiful. inner world. She loves nature and loneliness, reads romance novels. She feels like a stranger in her own family. Tatyana does not like a crowded society, she is naive and pure, thoughtful, modest. Tatyana truly believes in prophetic dreams and divination at Christmas. The author writes about her that his heroine is “Russian in soul”.
The life of my beloved heroine has a smooth, measured course, but from the first meeting with Onegin, her life changes dramatically. Tatyana is experiencing a wonderful feeling unknown to her before. Having met Onegin, Larina immediately understands "it's him." Feelings overwhelm Tatyana and she decides to take a desperate step, the first to confess her feelings. Each line of her letter is mesmerizing, there is so much love, tenderness and sincerity. But Eugene does not reciprocate. Soon Onegin leaves, and Tatiana is being prepared for the bridesmaids' ball. There, a worthy party is easily selected for her, and she humbly accepting her fate, gets married.
For his heroes, the author prepared another meeting, which took place many years later. But at this meeting, Onegin meets not a young naive girl from the village, but a chic, successful, beautiful young woman who is demonstratively cold with him. Having met new Tatyana, Onegin flares up feelings in which he confesses, but is refused. Tatyana delights me with her decency and honesty. Reading Onegin's confession, she wept bitterly, because she still loved him with all her heart, but could not reciprocate, because she was engaged to another.
neonatella
Lunch time. I walk past a Thai macaroon, a Thai cafe where, ninety percent of the time, only Thais eat. Russian tourists are afraid to buy food on the streets, despite the fact that it is on the streets that all the freshest is sold, as they say, “hot, hot”. I just bought two pork skewers, a bunch of bananas, and a pineapple cut into pieces for immediate consumption. That's exactly what I'm going to do. Now I'll sit down at the table and eat it all right there.
And, here, I go to myself, I go and suddenly among the Thai visitors of a street cafe I see a woman of European appearance. I bet it's Russian. When she sees me, she smiles kindly and waves her hand to me. I make my way between the tables and approach her. On her plate is a fatty fish, or rather what is left of it.
- Sit down, - she starts the conversation, and she sucks the fish bones of a young catfish, which was splashing alive and unharmed last night, - I remember, - she starts the conversation, - You work in a spa salon.
I look closely at the lady and also recognize in her our recent visitor. I take out my kebabs and fruits from a small bag and also start dinner.
My interlocutor begins to slowly talk about herself.
She is from Krasnoyarsk. It winters here, in Pattaya, for the fourth time. Together with her is a thirty-year-old son who divorced his wife a few years ago and is currently free. The son is a computer scientist, he has distant work, he is not tied to the workplace, and she is a pensioner. They rent a condo for 4,700 baht a month, and rent out their apartment in Krasnoyarsk. The owner of three huge hotels, which are located within a five-minute walk from her house, allows everyone who lives nearby to use the pools. For free.
Does she like it here? Oh yeah! She is just happy that every year she runs away from Russian frosts, insane prices and endless Russian problems.
- We have our own party here, - my interlocutor informs not without pride, - we meet, communicate, share news. We recently went to Cambodia. We went to extend our visas and stayed for a month. What an ocean! And what space! I'm delighted with South-East Asia!!! Yes, I forgot to introduce myself: my name is Neonatella.
I thought I misheard and asked again:
-What is your name?
"Neonatella," the lady repeated in a singsong voice.
- Stunned, what a name! - I do not hide my surprise, - I have never heard anything like it!
- Yes, the name is rare, - the lady agrees, - but I like the reaction of people to it. Is it possible to forget a woman with that name?
“Of course not,” I agree.
Here my interlocutor darkens and touches the scab on her slightly swollen lip.
- It's called, I did permanent makeup on my eyelids and lips, in a decent salon. Imagine, the needle fell to the floor, and the tattoo artist picked it up and, without processing it, continued to stuff the arrow into my eye. And this despite the fact that I saw the needle fall! And here is the result: an infection was brought in, and it got out on the lips. Now I'm on antibiotics. So what to do?
But after five seconds, Neonatella forgets about her unsuccessfully "clogged arrows" and smiles.
- Do you do anything here? I ask.
- In past winters, I worked as a consultant in a pharmacy of Thai traditional medicine, but this winter I didn’t do anything, I didn’t want to. Decided to take a break. I will soon have enough work at home in the country. We are leaving at the end of April and will be back in November. I can't live without Thailand anymore. I like everything here: the climate, the people, the ridiculous prices, and our jay (soi- lane (Thai), and security. I like everything!
I tell my story and timidly ask Neonatella if I can arrange my life and the life of my family here? She nods her head vigorously.
- Of course, you already do it! Everything will be fine for you, do not even hesitate! Pick up my phone and call if you need to. I know everything here: where they sell cheap fruits and fish; where to go for the weekend; where is the cheap hospital located. In short, call.
I sincerely thank my interlocutor with the amazing name Neonatella and get up from the table. I finished my kebabs and fruit, and she is still slowly picking up the rest of the fish from the plate.
Goodbye, Neonatella, I will definitely call.
