The story about society is such different acquaintances. What are the benefits of short stories?

There is a lot in our literature beautiful works. And each of them is beautiful in its own way. But my favorite is Pushkin’s work “Eugene Onegin”. main character this novel by Tatyana Larina is my favorite literary hero. Tatyana attracts me with such qualities as:

• Modesty.
• Silence.
• Decency.
• Devotion.

What fascinates Tatyana Larina

Tatyana does not have any bright appearance, unlike her sister Olga, but she is beautiful inner world. She loves nature and solitude, reads romance novels. She feels like a stranger in her own family. Tatyana does not like crowded company, she is naive and pure, thoughtful, modest. Tatyana truly believes in prophetic dreams and fortune telling for 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 experiences a wonderful feeling unknown to her before. Having met Onegin, Larina immediately understands “it’s him.” Feelings overwhelm Tatiana and she decides to desperate step, is the first to admit her feelings. Every line of her letter is fascinating, there is so much love, tenderness and sincerity. But Evgeny does not reciprocate. Soon Onegin leaves, and Tatiana is being prepared for the brides' ball. There they easily find a worthy match for her, and she humbly accepts her fate and gets married.

The author prepared another meeting for his heroes, 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 towards him. Having met the new Tatyana, Onegin’s feelings flare up, which he confesses, but is refused. Tatyana admires me with her decency and honesty. Reading Onegin’s confession, she cried bitterly, because she still loved him with all her heart, but could not reciprocate his feelings, because she was engaged to someone else.

Fiction helps a lot to develop language skills, and when we readstories in English, then we effectively raise 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 and assimilate constructions. Of course, no one has 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 don’t have time to work through the vocabulary, but when reading, we have the opportunity to turn to the dictionary, figure it out and, if necessary, re-read what we don’t understand.

Literature develops good taste and gives us an idea of correct language. In addition, through books in English you immerse yourself in a foreign language culture and begin to better understand native speakers.

On initial stage, When lexicon very small, special ones help a lot to understand vocabulary. They are also called adapted. In such books, information is divided into specific topics, and dictionaries of words used in the text are attached. Adapted texts are simplified in vocabulary and sentence construction; they can be read by those who have recently started learning. But they lose what unadapted literature provides - the language of native speakers, which does not adapt to the level of proficiency of foreigners.

What are the benefits of short stories?

Of course, reading literature is important for everyone who learns a language. But which one? You shouldn’t take on huge novels right away: this path won’t be effective, and it may discourage you from reading English literature in the original - not everyone can achieve such ambitious goals.

Language in small texts more concise, since you need to fit all the events into a small volume of the work. Details play a big role in stories; they allow you to succinctly describe the situation. For language learners, such bright, plot-significant strokes are much easier to remember, which means it’s easier to learn the words corresponding to them.

When analyzing stories, it is convenient to memorize grammar and words. You always have the opportunity to re-read the text again after you have sorted out 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 remembered much better.

Reading interesting stories in English, we immediately see our progress. After all, each text here is a complete work that serves as a step 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

1. Read the text without translation. There is no need to immediately translate every word using the dictionary. At first, we simply 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.
2. Now you can translate unfamiliar words. When you understand the essence of the story, then you already have some guesses - this way the new vocabulary will be remembered much better. In addition, it will be easier for you to navigate the necessary meanings of polysemantic words.
3. Pay attention to the construction of sentences and the choice of grammatical tenses. Reading unadapted texts is a good test of your understanding of why certain grammatical forms. Look also at stylistic features, note in what situations expressions from the story may be appropriate.
4. As you read the story, reflect on what you read. Think about why the characters act this way and why the author structured the plot this way.Interesting stories on English language will give a good impetus to formulating your opinion on certain topics, which is extremely important for language practice.
5. Retell the story. Try to use the words and structures you learned from the text to help you apply what you've learned. Short stories very convenient for retelling: you can quickly read the work and immediately get a complete story.

Which text to choose

We have already talked about the effectiveness of reading stories. But in this genre there are works that are very different in complexity, and you need to choose a text in accordance with your level of knowledge of the language.

Assess your strengths. Choose a text that contains a moderate number of new words. If you have been studying a language for a long time, theneasy stories in English for beginnerswill turn out to be simply useless for you: you will not learn anything new. If the entire text consists of unfamiliar words for you, it means you overestimated your capabilities. In this case, it is better to choose a simpler material.

When the text is not filled with 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 constantly looking at 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, but 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 the 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 give as an example the story-parable by Mark Twain “The Five Boons Of Life”. The story is short, consisting of five short passages. The first fragment 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: Fame, Love, Wealth, Pleasure, Death.

The young man answered with passion: “There’s nothing to think about” - and chose Pleasure.

He went out into the world and sought those pleasures that youth admires. But each one turned out to be short-lived and brought disappointment, vanity and emptiness, each one left him with ridicule.

Finally the man said, “I have wasted these years. If I could choose again, I would be wiser."

We won’t give the wholeEnglish story, but let’s look at its ending: the young man tried all the gifts except death, and every time he was disappointed. Then he again faced 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 wanted insult of Old Age.”

The fairy came and brought again four gifts, but Death was not among them.

She said: “I gave it to the baby. He knew nothing and trusted me, asked me to choose for him. You didn’t ask me to choose.”

“Oh, I’m miserable! 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 during the reading process. There are also no complex constructions or ambiguous sentences here. The story serves a shining example what type of text 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 choose exactly English works: You can read the stories 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 master 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 students

Do not assume that all stories are easy to read: a small length does not necessarily mean simplicity. Short texts can be written using complex grammatical structures.

Here's 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 into, so that I would not be left in the street in my deplorable state at night, was one example of the mixture of gloom and grandeur that still frowns among the Apennines no less than in the imagination of Madame Radcliffe. From the looks of it, it seemed that the castle had been abandoned temporarily and only recently. We settled into one of the smallest and least luxuriously furnished 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 variety of war trophies, together with an unusually large number of very inspired paintings of our day in gold frames with arabesques.

Another example thatstories in Englishoften not easy to understand - O. Henry's story “The Dream”. The piece begins 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 illuminating; 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.

Psychologists and scientists alike are at a loss to explain the strange adventures of our immaterial self as we wander in the realm of the “twin of death” - the realm of sleep. This story is not meant to be explanatory, it is merely a description of Murray's dream. One of the most confusing aspects of these strange dreams is that in our dreams, months or even years seem to pass, but in reality only a couple of seconds or minutes.

In the article, we analyzed short 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 of various writers through their stories: in the variety of works, everyone will find something they like.

Neonatella

Lunch time. I walk past a Thai shop - 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 things are 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 away.
And so, I’m walking, walking, and suddenly, among the Thai visitors to a street cafe, I see a woman of European appearance. I bet it's Russian. Seeing me, she smiles welcomingly and waves at me. I make my way between the tables and approach her. On her plate is a fatty fish, or rather what’s left of it.
“Have a seat,” she begins the conversation, while she savorily sucks the fish bones of a young catfish, which just yesterday evening was splashing around alive and unharmed. “I remember,” she begins the conversation, “You work in a spa.”
I take a closer look at the lady and also recognize her as our recent visitor. I take out my kebabs and fruits from a small bag and also start lunch.
My interlocutor begins to slowly talk about herself.
She is from Krasnoyarsk. He is wintering here in Pattaya for the fourth time. Together with her is a thirty-year-old son, who divorced his wife several years ago and is currently single. The son is a computer scientist, he has distant work, he is not tied to a workplace, and she is a pensioner. They rent a condo for 4,700 baht per month, and rent out their apartment in Krasnoyarsk. The owner of three huge hotels, which are located a five-minute walk from her house, allows everyone who lives nearby to use the swimming pools. For free.
Does she like it here? Oh yeah! She's just happy to get away from each year Russian frosts, insane prices and never-ending Russian problems.
“We have our own party here,” my interlocutor reports, not without pride, “we meet, communicate, share news. We recently went to Cambodia. We went to renew our visas and stayed for a month. What an ocean it is! And what space! I'm delighted with South-East Asia!!! Yes, I forgot to introduce myself: my name is Neonatella.
I decided that I had misheard and asked again:
-What is your name?
“Neonatella,” the lady repeated in a singsong voice.
“It’s amazing, what a name!” I can’t hide my surprise, “I’ve never heard anything like it!”
“Yes, it’s a rare name,” the lady agrees, “but I like people’s reaction to it.” Is it possible to forget a woman with that name?
“Of course not,” I agree.
Here my interlocutor becomes gloomy and touches the scab on her slightly swollen lip.
- This is 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 treating it, continued to put an arrow on my eye. And this despite the fact that I saw the needle fall! And here is the result: they got an infection, but it came out on the lips. Now I'm taking antibiotics. So what to do?
But after five seconds, Neonatella forgets about her unsuccessfully scored arrows and smiles.
-What are you doing 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. I decided to rest. I'll soon have enough work at home in the country. We are leaving at the end of April and will be back here again in November. I can no longer live without Thailand. 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 are already doing this! Everything will be fine for you, don’t even doubt it! Take my phone and call if necessary. 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 rise from the table. I finished my kebabs and fruit, and she is still leisurely picking up the remains of fish from the plate.
Goodbye, Neonatella, I'll definitely call you.