THE INFINITIVE
Exercises 1) Translate the following words and phrases, use them in your own sentences.
Claim the right to do something, read aloud, to wrap, nude, to weep, alas, be cursed, common sense, withstand, admit, shut up, a wasteful and ridiculous excess, am supposed to see, makes her appear to be so wise.
2) Find words and phrases similar (opposite) in meaning to these phrases.
Poems
On Politics and Poetry
I claim the human right to live.
I claim the human right to love.
I claim the human right to work.
I claim the human right to eat.
(Albert E. Kahn)
Winter Pleasures
What a wealth of jolly things
Good old winter always brings!
Ice to skate on, hills to coast –
Don't know which we like the most!
Games to play and corn to pop –
Midnight seems too soon to stop!
Books to read aloud at night,
Songs to sing and plays to write!
(Nona Keen Duffy)
Paper
Paper is of two kinds, to write on, to wrap with
If you like to write, you write.
If you like to wrap, you wrap.
Some papers like writers, some like wrappers.
Are you a writer or a wrapper?
(Carl Sandburg)
A Word to Husbands
To keep your marriage brimming
With love in a loving cup,
Whenever you are wrong, admit it;
Whenever you are right, shut up.
(O. Nash)
Perfection Needs No Addition
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.
(W. Shakespeare)
The Pessimist
Nothing to do but work.
Nothing to eat but food,
Nothing to wear but clothes
To keep one from doing nude.
Nowhere to fall but off.
Nowhere to stand but on,
Nothing to comb but hair,
Nowhere to sleep but in bed.
Nothing to weep but tears,
Nothing to bury, but dead.
Nothing to sing but songs,
Ah, well, alas! Alack!
Nothing to see but sights,
Nothing to quench but thirst,
Nothing to have but what we've got,
Thus through life we are cursed.
Nothing to strike but gate,
Everything moves that goes..
Nothing at all but common sense
Can ever withstand these woes.
(B.J. King)
The Pessimist mona lisa
Behind kaleidoscopic eyes
there's no mystery there that lies.
She's the one to see it all
from her position on a wall.
We look for something in her smile,
We stand to study her awhile,
Her face of beauty that we seek.
What would she say if she could speak?
Is her beauty, oh, so rare?
Was Mona just a maiden fair?
Is she a mirror image of me?
Is that what I'm supposed to see?
Mona's portrait on the wall –
A combination of us all.
There's a touch of someone there
in the beauty of her hair.
That hint of prism in her eyes
makes her appear to be so wise.
The playful curvature of her lip
On her cheeks can dance a quip.
She's a beauty this Mona Lisa
but so is the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
What is the mystery there that lies
Behind kaleidoscopic eyes...?
(Brenda M. Weber)
Speech Exercises
1. Read the poems carefully and comment on the grammatical form.
2. Review your knowledge of the Infinitive.
3. Retell the poems briefly in your own words.
4. State the central idea of each poem.
5. Learn the poem you liked best by heart.
6. Answer the following questions:
1) What are the main human rights and duties?
2) What pleasures does winter bring to people? Do you enjoy winter? Why?
3) What jolly thing does summer bring to people? Is it your favorite season? Why
or why not?
4) What do people miss when they don't pay attention to the wonderful things
around them?
5) Do you agree with the author's opinion that our life is poor, if we have no
time to look around with interest and curiosity? Why?
6) Are you a pessimist or an optimist by nature? Prove it by examples.
7) What must all husbands do to have a successful marriage?
8) How do you understand the saying "Perfection needs no addition?" What things
need no additions?
Proverbs
1. If you want to eat the fruit, you must learn to climb the tree.
2. The last drop makes the cup run over.
3. It's never late to study,
4. It's easy to be wise after the event.
5. Talk of the devil and he's sure to appear.
6. You can take the horse to the water but you can't make it drink.
7. Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy & wise.
8. To hesitate means to lose.
9. Let sleeping dogs lie.
10. As you made your bed you must lie on it.
Exercises
1. Translate the proverbs into Russian, stating the Infinitive. Find Russian
equivalents.
2. Make up short stories or dialogues to illustrate the proverbs.
3. Choose one of the proverbs as a title for your composition.
4. Learn the proverbs by heart.
5. Paraphrase the following using the proverbs:
a) Even if a person is too old he shouldn't stop to educate himself.
b) One should work hard to achieve his goal in life.
c) If you keep regular hours it will do you a lot of good.
d) When a thing is done advice comes too late.
e) No sooner an unwelcome person's name is mentioned than he himself suddenly may appear.
f) The final culminating circumstance makes a situation unbearable.
g) You may force a man to shut his eyes, but you can't make him sleep,
h) Don't trouble trouble until trouble troubles you.
i) As a man lives, so he shall die.
6. Compose a dialogue on the proverb: If you want to eat the fruit, you must learn to climb the tree.
Songs
Listen and complete the song with missing words. Translate them into Russian.
I Just Called
(by Steve Wonder)
No New Year's day, ___________
No chocolate girls or candy hearts. ________
No birds of spring, no songs____________,
In fact, it's just another________________
No April rain, no flowers, ______
No wedding Saturday within ,________
But what is it, is something, __________
Made up of these three words that________
Refrain:
I just called to say "______
I just called to say____________
I just called to say " ______
And I mean it from the________
No summer's time,____________
No harvest moon to light one tender _________
No Autumn breeze, no___________
No even time for bird ____________
No Libra sun,_____________
No giving things towards the Christmas joy ______
But what is it,______________
To fill your heart like no three words __________
Refrain:
THE PARTICIPLE
Words, phrases, idioms:
be amused, at first glance, a tiny bud, reveal inner self, take new dimensions, a broken-winged bird, hold fast, a barren field, snatch the hat, achase the deer, follow the roe, farewell, the birthplace of valor, the country of worth, wander, rove.
(Речевые упражнения – задания для активизации причастия и герундия точно такие же, как и для инфинитива, только я привожу здесь вопросы.)
Poems
My Heart's in the Highlands.
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart isn't here.
My heart's in the Highlands, achasing the deer.
Achasing the wild deer and following the roe
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.
Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North
The birthplace of valour, the country of worth.
Wherever I wonder, wherever I rove
The hills in the highlands forever I love.
Farewell to the mountains high covered with snow,
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below
Farewell to the forests and high-hanging woods
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart isn't here.
My heart's in the Highlands, achasing the deer
Achasing the deer, and following the roe
My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.
(G. Byron)
Unfolding Bud
One is amazed
By a water-lily bud
Unfolding with each passing day.
Taking in kicker colour.
And new dimensions,
One is not amazed
At a first glance
By a poem which is as tight-closed
As a tiny bud.
Yet one is surprised
To see the poem gradually unfolding,
Revealing it's inner self,
As one reads it again
And over again.
(N. Koriyama)
Dreams
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
(L. Hughes)
Speech Exercises
Answer the following questions on the poems:
1) Do you agree that a poem is at first sight like a tiny bud? Why?
2) How are the poem and the bud alike after they unfolded?
3) Do you agree with the author's appeal to "hold fast to dreams". Give reasons.
4) Is it absolutely necessary that a man had dreams. Why or why not?
5) What lovely things are to be found in every day life? What do you value in
the world outdoors most? Why?
Proverbs
1. Barking dogs seldom bite.
2. Easily earned money is quickly spent.
3. Forbidden fruit is sweet.
4. A drowning man will catch at a straw.
5. Lost time is never found.
6. Money spent on brain is never spent in vain.
7. A penny .saved is a penny gained.
8. Easier said than done.
9. First come, first served.
10. A rotten apple injures its neighbours.
11. Accidents will happen in the best-regulated families.
12. Once bitten, twice shy.
Exercises
(Задания с 1 по 4 аналогичные как для инфинитива.)
5. Find English proverbs hinted in the following sentences:
1) What is gained without effort is quickly lost or wasted.
2) The thing that we can't have is usually the thing we want the most.
3) Ill-tempered and scolding people are not actually harmful.
4) One shouldn't waste time when he could be working.
5) A person at critical moment will use every possibility to stay alive.
6) One drop of poison infects the whole barrel of wine.
7) Money that has been kept can be equivalent to that amount earned,
8) To realize some plan is much more difficult than to speak about it.
9) Some unfortunate events must be accepted as inevitable.
10) A burnt child dreads the fire.
Songs
Complete the songs with missing words. Translate them into Russian.
Wind of Change
(by "The Scorpions")
I follow the Moskva, _____________
Listening to the wind of change
An August summer night, soldiers _______
Listening to the wind of changeThe world is closing in, did you___________
That we could be so close, ___________
The future's in the air, I can feel it ____________
Blowing with the wind of change
Refrain:
Take me to the magic of the moment_______
Where the children of tomorrow________
With the wind of changeWalking down the street______
Are buried in the past _________
I follow the Moskva__________
Listening to the wind of changeTake me to the magic of the moment _______
Where the children of tomorrow share ______
With you and meThe wind of change blows straight into the face of time
Like the storm wind that will ring the freedom bell
For peace of my, let your balalaika sing
What my guitar wants to say
Happy New Year (by "ABBA")
No more champagne,
And the fireworks _____
Here we are,______
Feeling lost and ______
It's the end of _______
And the morning seems_______
So,unlike _________
Now is the time for us ________________
Refrain:
Happy New Year.
Happy New Year.
May we all have a vision________
Of a world where every neighbour________
Happy New Year.
Happy New Year.
May we all have our hopes, ________
If we don't we might as well lay _______
You and I.Sometimes I see
How the brave new world______
And I see how it______
In the ashes of _______
Oh yes, man is ______
And he thinks he’ll _______
Dragging on ________
Never knowing ________
Keeps on going ________
Refrain:
Seems to me now
That the dreams we ______
Are all dead,______
Than confetti______
It’s the end_______
In another ten _______
Who can say what_____
What lies waiting ______
In the end of______
THE GERUND
Words, phrases, idioms:
ears for hearing, eyes for seeing, have a rest, stay at home, be alone, enjoy doing smth, what's the use of worrying, leave me alone, have plenty of time, live in vain, ease the aching, cool the pain, make a boast of smth, by ignoring, by denying.
Poems
Spades for digging, pens for writing,
Ears for hearing, teeth for biting.
Eyes for seeing, legs for walking
Tongues for tasting and for talking. (Old rhyme)
Like Having a Walk.
On Sunday afternoons in the middle of July
I like having a rest just looking at the sky.
I like listening to the birds singing in the trees
– In July,..
I like having a walk when the sun shines.
And walking in the rain.
I love thinking of you and all things you do
– On Sunday afternoons.
On rainy April Sundays I like staying at home
I like reading a book or simply being alone
I like watching a film or listening to some music
-In April...
(Song)
November
Oh, we make a boast of storing,
Of saving and of keeping,
But only by ignoring-
The waste of moments sleeping
The waste of pleasure weeping
By denying and ignoring
The waste of Nations warring.
(R. Frost)
Mrs. Vanderbilt
You never think of worrying
What's the use of worrying
When your bus has left the stop
You'd better drop your hurrying
What's the use of hurrying.
Leave me alone, Mrs. Vanderbilt
I've got plenty of time of my own
Just what's the use of worrying
What's the use of hurrying
What's the use of anything?
(Paul McCartney)
If I Can Stop
If I can stop one heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain.
If I can ease one life the aching
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Onto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
(Emily Dickinson)
Speech Exercises
Answer the following questions:
1) What are eyes, ears, noses, tongues, tails, etc. for?
2) What are spades, needles, irons, scissors, pans for?
3) What are the five things you like doing (dislike doing)?
4) What do you (people) enjoy doing in winter (summer)?
5) What do you ignore (boast of) doing?
6) What must you give up doing?
7) What things can't you help worrying about?
8) What's the use of arguing? Can arguments help to find the truth?
9) When can a person say that he hasn't lived in vain?
Proverbs
- You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs.
- What is worth doing is worth doing well.
- Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.
- There's no use of crying over the spilt milk.
- The proof of the pudding is in eating.
- Seeing is believing.
- Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.
- Appetite comes with eating.
- Don't swap the horses when crossing a stream.