Здравствуйте, дорогие подписчики!
Для тех, кто присоединился к нас совсем недавно советую посетить архив рассылки
http://subscribe.ru/archive/job.lang.english100

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А в этом выпуске вы узнаете о:

1. Употребление артикля 
2. Устная тема о Великобритании
3. Диалоги на все случаи жизни
4. Анекдот
5. Начинаем читать художественную литературу
6. Идиоматические выражения
   
7. Упражнение

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Предлагаю вам рассмотреть употребление артикля с географическим наименованиями.

Континенты:
 Мы не ставим артикль the перед названиями континентов:

Africa (но не the Africa') Asia, Europe, South America

Страны и штаты:
Обычно мы не используем the с названиями стран и штатов:

France (но не the France') Japan, Germany, Nigeria, Texas

Однако мы ставим the перед названиями, в которые входят слова republic, union, kingdom, states:

the German Federal Republic the United States (of America)
the United Kingdom the United Arab Emirates
the Republic of Ireland

и перед названиями, стоящими во множественном числе:

the Netherlands the Philippines

 Города:
Мы не употребляем the с названиями городов / деревень:

Cairo (но не the Cairo') New York Glasgow Madrid

Но: The Hague

 Острова:
Группы островов имеют названия во множесвенном числе с артиклем the:

the Bahamas, the Canaries / the Canary Islands, the British Isles

Отдельные острова обычно имеют названия в единственном числе и без артикля the:

Corfu, Sicily, Bermuda, Easter Island

 Регионы:

the Middle East, the Far East
the north of England, the south of Spain, the west of Canada

(но без the: northern England / southern Spain / western Canada)

Горы:
Для названия горной гряды обычно используется множественное число с артиклем the:

the Rocky Mountains / the Rockies, the Andes, the Alps

Однако названия отдельных вершин обычно бывают без the и без 'mount':

(Mount) Everest, (Mount) Etna, Ben Nevis (Ben = Mount)

Озера:
 С названиями озер обычно бывают с 'Lake' и без the:

Lake Superior, Lake Constance

Перед названиями океанов/морей/рек/каналов ставят the ( кроме названий на картах)

the Atlantic (Ocean), the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean (Sea)
the Red Sea, the Nile, the Amazon
the Thames, the Rhine
the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal, the (English) Channel

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Some Facts About London.

London has been home of many famous Englishmen. Some were born there. Some lived there all their lives. Others lived in London only for a short time but all gave something to this great city
One of the first names of importance is that of Geoffrey Chaucer, the poet. He lived most of his life in London. He knew the courts of King Richard II d King Henry IV. His most famous work, 'The Canterbury Tales", opens at the Tabard Inn, in Southwark. Chaucer held official posts in London and is buried in Westminster Abbey.
William Shakespeare also lived in London. He lived there for more than twenty years. He acted at the Globe Theatre and wrote his plays in London. But London's famous men are not only writers. Sir Christopher Wren, the architect, spent most of his life in London. He designed many beautiful churches, including St. Paul's Cathedral. He also designed palaces and fine houses.
Music is represented by a very interesting figure. This is George Frederick Handel. He came to London from Hanover in 1710. He lived for a time at Burlington House, Piccadilly, now the Royal Academy. After some success and some failure he at last became famous. This happened when he composed "The Messiah". "Judas Maccabeus". and 'The Music for the Royal Fireworks". Like Chaucer and many other great artists. Handel is buried in Westminster Abbey.
Another famous London figure is one of England's greatest seamen. Admiral Lord Nelson. He has a very special memorial in Trafalgar Square. The monument consists of a very tall column. On top of it stands a figure of Nelson. It is called the Nelson Column. Equally famous is the general who led the army at the battle of Waterloo in 1815. This was the Duke of Wellington. His house stands at Hyde Park Comer. It is sometimes known as Number One, London. Like Admiral Nelson, the Duke of Wellington is buried in St. Paul's Cathedral.

Знаете, эта тема просто необходима, так как на экзаменах (на собеседованиях) они любят спрашивать то, что не входит в обычные (стандартные)  топики, чтобы проверить вашу начитанность или подготовленность.

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A JOB VACANCY   
                  
Victor was watching TV when the telephone rang.It was his American  friend Dick Jones.     

Dick:Victor,I hope  I'm not calling  too late.  
                       
Victor:No,Dick.I was watching television. How are you?    
                       
Dick:I am fine.I'm calling you at such  a late hour because there is good news for you.An hour ago, I spoke to a friend of mine.
He's on the board of directors  at "A & B Instrument Company".They have an immediate opening for a software  programmer.
They are looking for  a  specialist in this field.I told my  friend about you.He wants to know if  you can come tomorrow for an interview.    
You shouldn't miss this opportunity.   

Victor: Dick,you are absolutely right.I agree with you completely.I realize  that I should see the interviewer;but  what about my job at the gas station? 

Dick:Oh,come on.Don't tell them where  you are going.Just tell your supervisor  you have some personal business to attend to. 
Promise him to make up the time.      

Victor:That makes sense,Dick.But I'm a bit afraid because of my poor English.         

Dick:Stop worrying about it.All you have to do is to explain your previous experience.You can do it perfectly well.You've  
to show your experience but not English stylistic subtleties.Even a few grammatical  errors won't harm you.I'm sure you'll feel 
at ease with the interviewer.      
      
Victor:I hope so.But I'm still confused about the use  of English tenses.Nevertheless I've made up my mind.I'm going   
to see the interviewer.        
       
Dick:Okay.Would you write down the address? 

Victor:All right.I'm listening.   

Dick:620 Broadway,25th floor.Ask for personnel.Don't leave home without your resume. Good luck. 

Victor:Thank you,Dick.               

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Anecdote
An American couple is visiting Russia for the first time, and while in Moscow, they decide to hire a guide. Using the telephone book, it didn't
take them long to hire a tour guide, a young man named Rudolph. The tour began at the Kremlin, proceded to the Bolshoi, and then on to Red Square.
Just after they'd arrived at the square, it began to drizzle a little and Rudolph commented, "It's starting to rain. Perhaps we should return to your
hotel." "No," said the husband. "It is only snowing. Let's continue the tour." Rudolph again insisted that it was raining and the husband again argued
that it was snowing. Two or three more comments about the weather passed  before the little woman poked her husband in the ribs and whispered,
"Better let him have his way. This is Russia and Rudolph the red knows rain, dear!"

Ну вот я нашла анекдот и про Россию. надеюсь вы хоть улыбнетесь:)))

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Эта новая рубрика, в которую я буду помещать отрывки из художественных произведений,  это помогает  научиться понимать английскую литературу, именно здесь вы найдете интересные формы предложений, сочетания слов, внизу каждого отрывка будtт помещен перевод наиболее трудных фраз и слов, так что это чтение доставит вам только интерес и пользу конечно.

В моей библиотеке есть несколько книг и я не знаю какая из них понравится наибольшему количеству подписчиков,
поэтому помещаю из двух книг маленькие отрывочки и если вам не трудно,
то пришлите мне сюда  сообщение с цифрой 1 или 2, я думаю это не составит большого труда, а я смогу понять какие предпочтения у моих читателей, заранее благодарю вас.

1.  Stephen King: The Green Mile
The Two Dead Girls

This happened in 1932, when the state penitentiary was still at Cold Mountain. And the electric chair was there, too, of course.

The inmates made jokes about the chair, the way people always make jokes about things that frighten them but can't be gotten away from. They called it Old Sparky, or the Big Juicy. They made cracks about the power bill, and how Warden Moores would cook his Thanksgiving dinner that fall, with his wife, Melinda, too sick to cook.
But for the ones who actually had to sit down in that chair, the humor went out of the situation in a hurry. I presided over seventy-eight executions during my time at Cold Mountain (that's one figure I've never been confused about; I'll remember it on my deathbed), and I think that, for most of those men, the truth of what was happening to them finally hit all the way home when their ankles were being clamped to the stout oak of "Old Sparky's" legs. The realization came then (you would see it rising in their eyes, a kind of cold dismay) that their own legs had finished their careers. The blood still ran in them, the muscles were still strong, but they were finished, all the same; they were never going to walk another country mile or dance with a girl at a barn-raising. Old Sparky's clients came to a knowledge of their deaths from the ankles up. There was a black silk bag that went over their heads after they had finished their rambling and mostly disjointed last remarks. It was supposed to be for them, but I always thought: it was really for us, to keep us from seeing the awful tide of dismay in their eyes as they realized they were going to die with their knees bent.

There was no death row at Cold Mountain, only E Block, set apart from the other four and about a quarter their size, brick instead of wood, with a horrible bare metal roof that glared in the summer sun like a delirious eyeball. Six cells inside, three on each side of a wide center aisle, each almost twice as big as the cells in the other four blocks. Singles, too. Great accommodations for a prison (especially in the thirties), but the inmates would have traded for cells in any of the other four. Believe me, they would have traded. There was never a time during my years as block superintendent when all six cells were occupied at one time-thank God for small favors. Four was the most, mixed black and white (at Cold Mountain, there was no segregation among the walking dead), and that was a little piece of hell. One was a woman, Beverly McCall. She was black as the ace of spades and as beautiful as the sin you never had nerve enough to commit. She put up with six years of her husband beating her, but wouldn't put up with his creeping around for a single day. On the evening after she found out he was cheating, she stood waiting for the unfortunate Lester McCall, known to his pals (and, presumably, to his extremely short-term mistress) as Cutter, at the top of the stairs leading to the apartment over his barber shop. She waited until he got his overcoat half off, then dropped his cheating guts onto his two-tone shoes. Used one of Cutter's own razors to do it. Two nights before she was due to sit in Old Sparky, she called me to her cell and said she had been visited by her African spirit-father in a dream. He told her to discard her slave-name and to die under her free name, Matuomi. That was her request, that her death warrant should be read under the name of Beverly Matuomi. I guess her spirit-father didn't give her any first name, or one she could make out, anyhow. I said yes, okay, fine. One thing those years serving as the bull-goose screw taught me was never to refuse the condemned unless I absolutely had to. In the case of Beverly Matuomi, it made no difference anyway. The governor called the next day around three in the afternoon, commuting her sentence to life in the Grassy Valley Penal Facility
for Women-all penal and no penis, we used to say back then. I was glad to see Bev's round ass going left instead of right when she got to the duty desk, let me tell you.
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penitentiary - тюрьма
inmate -  заключённый
spark - искорка
They made cracks - Они "подкалывали"
bill - законопроект
preside - председательствовать, присутствовать
deathbed ( to be on one's ~ ) - быть на смертном одре.
stout  - крепкий
dismay -  смятение
rambling  -  несвязный;  беспорядочно
row - ряд
apart - в стороне
brick- кирпич
bare - голый
glare - свирепый взгляд
delirious - быть  в бреду
aisle-проход.
accommodation- жильё;  помещение
superintendent- завeдующий
segregation -сегрегация;  раздельное обучение
hell - ад
spade- лопата
sin - грех
commit - совершать
presumably -наверно
razor - бритва
due- предполагаемый
refuse - отказываться
condemn-осуждать
commute- смягчать  наказание.
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2. HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE
CHAPTER ONE THE BOY WHO LIVED
Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.
Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large mustache. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors. The Dursleys had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere.
The Dursleys had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. They didn't think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Potters. Mrs. Potter was Mrs. Dursley's sister, but they hadn't met for several years; in fact, Mrs. Dursley pretended she didn't have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband were as unDursleyish as it was possible to be. The Dursleys shuddered to think what the neighbors would say if the Potters arrived in the street. The Dursleys knew that the Potters had a small son, too, but they had never even seen him. This boy was another good reason for keeping the Potters away; they didn't want Dudley mixing with a child like that.
When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the dull, gray Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. Mr. Dursley hummed as he picked out his most boring tie for work, and Mrs. Dursley gossiped away happily as she wrestled a screaming Dudley into his high chair. None of them noticed a large, tawny owl flutter past the window. At half past eight, Mr. Dursley picked up his briefcase, pecked Mrs. Dursley on the cheek, and tried to kiss Dudley good-bye but missed, because Dudley was now having a tantrum and throwing his cereal at the walls. "Little tyke," chortled Mr. Dursley as he left the house. He got into his car and backed out of number four's drive. It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign of something peculiar — a cat reading a map. For a second, Mr. Dursley didn't realize what he had seen — then he jerked his head around to look again. There was a tabby cat standing on the corner of Privet Drive, but there wasn't a map in sight. What could he have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the light. Mr. Dursley blinked and stared at the cat. It stared back. As Mr. Dursley drove around the corner and up the road, he watched the cat in his mirror. It was now reading the sign that said Privet Drive — no, looking at the sign; cats couldn't read maps or signs. Mr. Dursley gave himself a little shake and put the cat out of his mind. As he drove toward town he thought of nothing except a large order of drills he was hoping to get that day.
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involve - вовлекать
drill - дрель
mustache-усы
amount- количество
fence-забор
craning -здесь:  вытягивать шею
bear- здесь: выносить
pretend -притворяться
shudder- дрожь, содрогаться
wrestle- бороться
tawny- желтовато-коричневый
owl- сова
flutter- взмах
tantrum- истерика
cereal -хлопья к завтраку
chortle - хохотать
peculiar=strange
jerk-дёргать
tabby - полосатый кот
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Естественно сказка про Гарри Поттера для понимания намного легче, чем фантастика от Стивена Кинга. Если кто-нибудь видел фильм или читал книгу, то ему будет намного легче понять о чем идет речь.
Но выбор за вами.

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Idioms

Продолжаем тему еды

carrot and stick
- promising to reward or punish someone at the same time

The government took a carrot and stick approach to the people who were illegally protesting against the construction of the dam.

chew the fat
- chat

We stayed up very late last night chewing the fat about our university days.

coffee break
- a break from work to rest and drink coffee

We usually take a 15-minute coffee break every morning about 10 oclock.

cool as a cucumber
- calm, not nervous or anxious

He is always as cool as a cucumber and never worries about anything.

cream of the crop
- best of a group, the top choice

The company is well-known as a good place to work and is always able to hire the cream of the crop of university graduates.

cry over spilt milk
- cry or complain about something that has already happened

Dont cry over spilt milk. The past is past and you cant do anything to change it.

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Упражнение
Сегодня упражнение легкое на словарный запас, так что я думаю, что вам не составит большого труда выполнить его и проверить себя по  адресу
www.english5ballov.narod.ru/topics/keys10.html

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1. This new project looks like it might do really well. First results are really .......... .
   a) hard-working
   b) promising
   c) impossible
   d) understanding

2. He never seems to stop. He's really .......... .
   a) hard-working
   b) shocking
   c) serious
   d) impossible

3. This problem is very difficult to deal with. It's really .......... .
   a) convincing
   b) tricky
   c) serious
   d) impossible
 
4. He never tells anybody what he is doing and he is rude to everybody. He's a very .......... person.
   a) shocking
   b) serious
   c) impossible
   d) difficult

5. When I had a problem she listened to me and suggested solutions. She was really .......... 
   a) promising
   b) shocking
   c) serious
   d) understanding

6. Nobody can work with Allison. She's just an .......... person to deal with.
   a) shocking
   b) impossible
   c) promising
   d) convincing

7. I believed everything she said. She was really .......... .
   a) hard-working
   b) convincing
   c) serious
   d) impossible

8. I didn't want to make either of them redundant. The choice was really .......... .
   a) painful
   b) serious
   c) impossible
   d) shocking

9. He never smiles, jokes around nor gossips. He's a very .......... person.
   a) shocking
   b) serious
   c) impossible
   d) understanding

10. I thought the company was doing really well. I find the idea that there will be redundancies really .......... .
   a) impossible
   b) serious
   c) understanding
   d) shocking

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Ну вот и все.
До встречи!
Автор рассылки Ирина.