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Have you got problems with English? Does it sometimes seem too difficult or illogical? Read what American linguist Richard Lederer writes about his native language.English for Information Technology Учебно-методическое пособие
Ставрополь
Авторы: О.Г. Богданова, старший преподаватель кафедры иностранных языков Е.В. Карташева, кандидат педагогических наук, доцент кафедры иностранных языков А.М. Кириченко, кандидат педагогических наук, доцент кафедры иностранных языков Е.А. Макаренко, кандидат педагогических наук, доцент кафедры иностранных языков
Рецензенты: Е.В. Соцкая, кандидат философских наук, доцент кафедры английского языка ГОУ ВПО Ставропольский государственный университет В.С.Тоискин, кандидат технических наук, профессор кафедры прикладной информатики и информационных технологий ГОУ ВПО Ставропольский государственный педагогический институт Богданова О.Г., Карташева Е.В., Кириченко А.М., Макаренко Е.А. English for Information Technology. Учебно-методическое пособие. – Ставрополь, 2011. – 193 с.
Учебно-методическое пособие «English for Information Technology» предназначено для студентов 1-2 курсов очного отделения, обучающихся по специальностям: 050202.65 «Информатика» с дополнительной специальностью 050201.65 «Математика», 080801.65 «Прикладная информатика (в экономике)». Оно также будет интересно и полезно тем, кто только овладевает основами английского языка и, вместе с тем, заинтересован в чтении специальной литературы на английском языке в области вычислительной техники и информационных технологий. Тематические тексты, подробные тематические словари, разнообразные лексические и грамматические упражнения сгруппированы вокруг актуальных тем для повседневного и профессионального общения.
Contents
ВВЕДЕНИЕ Учебно-методическое пособие «English for Information Technology» предназначено для студентов 1-2 курсов очного отделения, обучающихся по специальностям: 050202.65 «Информатика» с дополнительной специальностью 050201.65 «Математика», 080801.65 «Прикладная информатика (в экономике)». Оно также будет интересно и полезно тем, кто только овладевает основами английского языка и, вместе с тем, заинтересован в чтении специальной литературы на английском языке в области вычислительной техники и информационных технологий. Тематические тексты, подробные тематические словари, разнообразные лексические и грамматические упражнения сгруппированы вокруг актуальных тем для повседневного и профессионального общения. В пособии представлены следующие темы: Английский язык, Соединенное Королевство Великобритании и Северной Ирландии, Соединенные Штаты Америки, Еда, Спорт, Образование, Изобретения, Компьютеры, Операционная система, Интернет, и др. Пособие предлагает живой и разнообразный текстовой материал, насыщенный необходимой лексикой и разговорными конструкциями. Многочисленные упражнения разных типов направлены на создание прочного запоминания лексики и фразеологии, развитие грамматического навыка, а также навыков чтения, перевода и устной речи. На страницах пособия широко представлены реалии современной жизни, особое внимание уделяется культурологическим особенностям стран изучаемого языка. При составлении настоящего пособия использован опыт ряда современных зарубежных и отечественных изданий. Пособие разработано на кафедре иностранных языков ГОУ ВПО Ставропольский государственный педагогический институт. Данное пособие подготовлено в соответствии с требованиями высшей школы, Государственного образовательного стандарта и учебной программой по дисциплине «Иностранный язык». UNIT 1. English Language Text 1. English Is a Crazy Language 1. Transcribe and learn the new words and word combinations: - to face – признать - lunatic – сумасшедший, ненормальный - blackberry – ежевика - ripe – спелый - eggplant – амер. баклажан - grape – виноград - grapefruit – грейпфрут - mush – пюре, кашица - pine – сосна - pineapple – ананас - hamburger – гамбургер - unreliable – непредсказуемый, ненадежный - greyhound – борзая - panda bear – панда - koala bear – коала - guinea pig – морская свинка - Guinea – Гвинея - to take smth for granted – принимать как само собой разумеющееся - nightmare – кошмар - in broad daylight – среди бела дня - daydreaming – мечты, грезы - rush hour – час «пик» - grocer – бакалейщик - hammer – молоток - booth – будка, палатка - to bite (bit, bitten) – кусать - to preach – проповедовать - to shine (shone) – сиять, сверкать - to shine (shined) – чистить, полировать - olive oil – оливковое масло - baby oil – детское масло - opposite – противоположный - hardly – едва - softy – мягко - harmless – безвредный - harmful – вредный - shameful – постыдный - shameless – бесстыдный - behavior – поведение - pricey – дорогой - priceless – бесценный - visible – видимый - invisible – невидимый - to stand meaning on its head – переворачивать значение/смысл - non-stop fight – прямой (беспосадочный) рейс - to have one’s cake and eat it too – поймать двух зайцев - Watch your head! – Осторожно: низкий проем! - doorway – дверное проём - They’re head over heels in love – Они по уши влюблены друг в друга. - to do things behind smb’s back – делать что-то тайком от кого-то, у кого-то за спиной - to run – течь (о носе) - pants – амер. брюки - to wind up – заводить (часы), «закругляться» - essay – очерк
Have you got problems with English? Does it sometimes seem too difficult or illogical? Read what American linguist Richard Lederer writes about his native language. Let face it – English is a crazy language, the most lunatic of all languages. In the crazy English language, blackboards can be green or blue, and blackberries are green and then red before they are ripe.
There is no egg in eggplant, no grape in grapefruit; neither mush no room in mushroom, neither pine nor apple in pineapple, and no ham in hamburger.
In this unreliable English tongue, greyhounds aren’t always grey, panda bears and koala bears aren’t bears, and a guinea pig is neither a pig nor from Guinea. Language is like the air we breathe – we take it for granted. But when we take the time to listen to what we say, we find that hot dogs can be cold, homework can be done at school, and nightmares can take place in broad daylight while daydreaming can take place at night, hours – especially rush hours – often last longer than sixty minutes, and most bathrooms don’t have any baths in them in fact? A dog can “go to the bathroom” under a tree. Why is it that a king rules a kingdom but a queen doesn’t rule a queendom? And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn’t the plural of booth be beeth? If you write a letter today and wrote a letter yesterday, why don’t we say that you bite your tongue today and bote it yesterday? If the teacher taught, why isn’t it also true that the preacher praught? Why is it that the sun shone yesterday while I shined my shoes? If olive oil is made from olives, what do they make baby oil from?
If hard is the opposite of soft, why is hardly not opposite of softy? If harmless actions are the opposite of harmful actions, why are shameful and shameless behaviors the same and pricey objects less expensive than priceless ones? Why is it that when the sun or the moon or the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible? English users are constantly standing meaning on its head. Let’s look at a number of familiar English words and phrases: A non-stop fight. Never get on one of these. You’ll never get down. A hot cup of coffee. Who cares if the cup is hot? Surely we mean a cup of hot coffee. I want to have my cake and eat it too. Shouldn’t it be “I want to eat my cake and have it too?” Watch your head! You can often see this sign on low doorways, but how can you follow the instructions? Trying to watch your head is like trying to bite your teeth! They’re head over heels in love. That’s nice, but all of us do almost everything head over heels. Why don’t we say, “They’re heels over head in love?” They do things behind my back. You want they should do things in front of your back? And in what other language can your nose run?
If the truth be told, all languages are a little crazy. That’s because language is created by people, not computers. That’s why six, seven, eight and nine change to sixty, seventy, eighty and ninety, but two, three, four and five do not become twoty, threety, fourty and fivety. That’s why when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it.
3. Form the antonyms using the prefixes in-, un-: reliable, visible, logical, expensive, true, ripe.
4. Translate the following sentences from the text: 1. Language is like the air we breathe - we take it for granted. 2. English users are constantly standing meaning on its head. 3. Trying to watch your head is like trying to bite your teeth! 5. Find in the text the words according to their definitions below: - a tall slender fast-moving dog of an ancient breed originally used for coursing; - the large round edible fruit, which has yellow rind and juicy slightly bitter pulp; - a flat fried cake of minced beef, often served in a bread roll;
6. Have you ever wondered how many people there are who speak English? It’s quite a number! The exact figure is impossible to tell, but it is around 400 million people. Read more information about the English language. Geographically, English is the most widespread language on Earth, and it is second only to Chinese in the number of people who speak it. It is spoken in the British Isles, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and much of Canada and South Africa. English is also a second language of another 300 million people living in more than 60 countries. If you add to this enormous number of people who learn to understand and speak English (like yourself), you will realize that English is indeed a ‘world language’. Did You Know? · About 5,000 languages and dialects are still spoken in the world today. About 845 come from India. · After English and Chinese, the next commonly spoken language is Spanish. · Sixty-five different alphabets are used in the world today. · The language with most letters is Cambodian. It has 72 letters! · The language with the most vowels is Sedang, a Vietnamese language, with 55 vowel sounds. · The language with the least vowels is Abkhazian. It has only 2 vowel sounds! · Chippewa, the North American Indian language of Minnesota, has 6,000 verb forms! · No language is known without the vowel a. How It All Began In Shakespeare’s time only a few million people spoke English. All of them lived in what is now Great Britain. Through the centuries, as a result of various historical events, English spread throughout the world. Five hundred years ago they didn’t speak English in North America: the American Indians had their own languages. So did the Eskimos in Canada, the aborigines in Australia, and the Maoris in New Zealand. The English arrived and set up their colonies… Today, English is represented in every continent and in the three main oceans – the Atlantic, the Indian and the Pacific. Insatiable Borrower English is mixing with and marrying other languages around the world. It is probably the most insatiable borrower. Words newly coined or in vogue in one language are very often added to English as well. There are words from 120 languages in its vocabulary, including Arabic, French, German, Greek, Italian, Russian, and Spanish. Russian Words in English Balalaika, bistro, bliny, cosmonaut, dacha, intelligentsia, steppe, taiga, perestroika, tsar, tundra, pogrom, rouble, samovar, sputnik, duma, troika, vodka. Some Facts about English · There were only 30,000 words in Old English. Modern English has the largest vocabulary in the world – more than 600,000 words. · There are about 60,000 words in common use. · About 450-500 words are added to the English vocabulary every year. · 70 per cent of the English vocabulary are loan words and only 30 per cent of the words are native. · The most frequently used words in written English are: the, of, and, to, a, in, that, is, I, it, for and as. · The most frequently used word in conversation is I. · The longest word in the English language is pneumonoultamicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (a lung disease), with 44 letters. · The longest words in common use are disproportionableness and incomprehensibilities (21 letters). · The commonest letter is “e”. More words begin with the letter‘s’ than any other. · The most overworked word in English is the word set. It has 126 verbal uses and 58 noun uses. · The newest letters added to the English alphabet are “j” and ‘v’, which are of post-Shakespearean use. · The largest English-language dictionary is the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary, with 21,728 pages. · The commonest English name is Smith. There are about 800,000 people called Smith in England and Wales, and about 1,700,000 in the USA. French Influence Have you ever wondered why the English language has different words for animals and meats? When William the Conqueror invaded England in 1066, French became the official language of the court. The English would look after the animals and cook the meat, still calling the animals pig, sheep and cow. The Normans, when they saw the cooked meat arrive at their table, would use French words – pork, mutton and beef. An amazing 10,000 loan words entered English during this period, including such words as table, chair, carpet, country, state, nation, law, army, battle, peace, design, beauty, romance – and, of course, many words for food. How Many Is Enough? Scientists say that the average vocabulary of a native speaker is 5,000 words. William Shakespeare, however, used 30,000 words! Different Languages? A century ago, some linguists predicted that one day England, America, Australia and Canada would be speaking different languages. Noah Webster, for example, said that American English would be ‘as different from the future language of England, as Dutch and Swedish are from German or from one another’. But with the advent of records, cinema, radio, and television, the two brands of English have begun to draw back together again. Britons and Americans probably speak more alike today than they did 50 or 60 years ago (In the 1930s and 1940s, for example, American films were dubbed in England. It’s no longer the practice today). Canadian English, Australian English, South African English, and many other ‘Englishes’ scattered around the world are coming increasingly to resemble one another. A Global Language People have long been interested in having one language that could be spoken throughout the world. Such a language would help to increase cultural and economic ties and simplify communication between people. Through the years, at least 600 universal languages have been proposed, including Esperanto. About 10 million people have learned Esperanto since its creation in 1887, but English, according to specialists, has better chances to become a global language. So why not to learn it? Do You Speak Cockney? It’s strange that the differences in Britain itself are greater than those between Britain and other English-speaking countries. For a Londoner, it’s easier to understand an American than a Cockney. Cockney has a pronunciation, accent and vocabulary unlike any other dialect. Cockneys pronounce ‘wait’, ‘late’, ‘tray’, etc., like ‘white’, ‘light’, ‘try’, etc. “Wait for me, Dave!” becomes ‘Wite for me, Dive!’, and they drop their aitches: ‘have’ becomes ‘ave’, etc. Cockney speech is famous for its rhyming slang. A word is replaced by a phrase or a person’s name which rhymes with it. For example, instead of saying ‘I don’t believe it’ a Cockney person might say ‘I don’t Adam and Eve it’. Here are some more examples of rhyming slang: Wife – trouble and strife Stairs – apples and pears Head – loaf of bread House – Mickey Mouse Mum – finger and thumb Bread – Uncle Ned Wine – rise and shine Water – fisherman’s daughter Did You Know? · 80% of all information in the world’s computers is in English · 75% of the world’s letters and faxes are in English · 60% of all international telephone calls are made in English · More than 60% of all scientific journals are written in English. Amazing Fact According to a recent survey, 90% of British teens aren’t going to learn any foreign language. They don’t have to, do they?
7. Transcribe, pronounce and learn the following words and names: Chinese – китайский язык Cambodian – камбоджийский язык Sedang – седанг Vietnamese – вьетнамский язык Abkhazian – абхазский язык Chippewa – чипевьян Eskimo – эскимос Maori – маори Arabic – арабский язык William the Conqueror – Вильгельм Завоеватель Noah Webster – Ной Вебстер (1758-1843), известный американский лексикограф Dutch – голландский язык Swedish – шведский язык Esperanto – эсперанто Cockney – кокни (лондонское просторечие).
8. Find in the text above the English equivalents to the following Russian words and word combinations: · по всему миру; · быть в моде; · заболевание легких; · несоразмерность; · непонятности, непостижимости; · носитель языка; · сближаться; · становятся все более и более похожими друг на друга; · они не произносят звук [h].
9. Match the words and phrases in column A with those in column B:
10. Transcribe the next words, read them and find their Russian equivalents: dialect, aborigine, to dub, rhyming.
11. Can you prove that ‘nice’ is not the only adjective the English language possesses? Try to use more exact words or expressions for each ‘nice’. “It’s niceto be home,” sighed Gloria. “But I did have such a nice time at Anna’s. Friday was niceand warm. I wore my niceblue suit and that nicewhite blouse I got for my birthday. I had a niceseat in the train, and the conductor was very niceabout warning me before we came to West Lake. Ann and her mother met me in their nicenew BMW.” “Wasn’t that niceof them?” “What comes next is even nicer.We drove to their place, a nice brick house, and had the nicestsupper. After supper Joe and Tommy, two niceboys, took us to see a very nicemovie, and after that we all had nicebig sundaes at the Sugar Bowl. “On Saturday we had a nicegame of tennis on those nicenew high school courts, and Saturday night we went to a nicebarn dance. Ann looked very nicein her nicelight-blue print dress. On Sunday she and her mother drove me to the train, and I thanked them for the nicestweekend I’ve ever had”. These words might help you: attractive, pleasant, exciting, sunny, fashionable, comfortable, kind, terrific, considerate, delicious, interesting, modern, fine, lovely, grand, great, pretty, splendid, wonderful.
12. Find the Russian equivalents to the following English words in the English-Russian Dictionary, transcribe them, pronounce and put them in the empty places in the text below according to their meanings: concerning, articles, queer, striking, hyperbole, waistcoat, ballet dancers, understatement, settlers, to develop, to scrape, extremely. English in America For 150 years America was a British colony. At that time British and American English were almost exactly the same. When America won the War of Independence in 1776, it became a free country. In 1782, its citizens were proudly christened ‘Americans”, and in 1802, US leaders began to talk about ‘the American language’. The USA was quickly growing richer and more powerful. Millions of Europeans came to America to start a new life there. There were ______________ from Italy, Germany, Spain, Ireland, France and other countries and all of them brought new words and expressions to the language. The USA became a ‘melting pot’ of cultures. As a result, English in America began _____________ a character of its own and today, there are certain differences in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and spelling between American and British English. Different Sounds First of all, British and American English sound differently. Often, Americans don’t say each word separately. They say several words together. Americans may say ’I dunno’ instead of’ ‘I don’t know’. Or they may say ‘Whaddya say?’ instead of ‘What did you say?’ The British are more careful in their speech. How to Speak New Yorkese In New York City, many people have a way of speaking English that is called New Yorkese. Speakers of New Yorkese often speak very fast. Unlike other Americans, they tend not to pronounce the ‘r’ in words that end in ‘er’. But they do pronounce the ‘r’ in the wrong words. They add the letter at the end of words such as ‘idear’ (idea) and ‘sofer’ (sofa). If you are a movie fanatic, you may have heard New Yorkese from Robert De Niro or Woody Allen. |
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