TEXTS FOR YOUR INDEPENDENT READING, TRANSLATION & ANALYSIS 3 страница

Exercise 5. Transcribe the lines below. Repeat them over and over. Produce the phrases with distinctness. Pay your special attention to the bilabial sounds & labiodentals (voiced and voiceless):

Love me tender, love me sweet,

Never let me go.

You have made y life complete

And I love you so.

Love me tender, love me true,

All my dreams fulfill,

For, my darling I love you

And I always will.

Exercise 6. Listen and decode the whole song. Sing it together with the singer.

Exercise 7. Read, translate and transcribe the proverbs below. Work for precision with a minimum of tension. After you have accurately mastered the phrases for clarity, work for speed in repetition:

Where is life there is hope.

When in Rome, do as Romans do.

Exercise 8. Imagine you and your friend are at the party. Look through the text of Exercise 10, Unit 5. Make up a dialogue; add more adjectives to describe your favourite books, use more proper names. Repeat them for clarity of articulation.

Exercise 9. You are going to buy a car. Discuss your decision with your friends. Speak on the colours and makes. Repeat your dialogue for clarity of articulation.

Exercise 10. Describe the street (the town) where you live (visited). Look through the text of the exercise 3, Unit 5.

Exercise 11.Read, translate, and transcribe the poem by C. Levin. Write down the unknown words into your dictionary. Give comparative and superlative of adjectives:

Looking Through the Transparent Blouse For the Perfectly Bosomed

A fashion of incoherence that was inherent

in the feminist fable

emboldened us as we tossed off shoes and bras

wore mini skirts up

at our ptuti and moo-moos to our toes,

donned headbands

and grew hair to our hips.

Maxi measured several inches longer

than the midi..

Midi-coats and maxi skirts and wraparound happi-jackets

along with fits-all

panty-hose liberated locked knees and need

to fold our hands,

sit, ladies, up straight.

By painting

on flowers, peace symbols and smiley faces

we could transform naked

into activist or choose to manifest

the Moroccan look

of opulence, rings on every finger and advocate

an Arabian influence

of yellow-crepe with the wearer

displaying her concept of personality quintessentially

American,

smelling of patchouli and more patchouli swaying

in smokey loops

of cannabis flouncing, while the mercantile mercenary

beauty industry

was wearing a painted thugs face slinging slogans

worn threadbare by overuse.

Unit seven

Exercise 1. Read, translate and transcribe the following poem by American poet Carol Levin from the collection “Place one foot here”. Write down all unknown words into your dictionary. Use them in sentences of your own:

Is That Why They Call Them Flower Children?

At this moment in San Francisco Ken Kesey

and the Merry Pranksters make up

Kool-Aide in a painted bus on Filmore

to experiment with the psychedelic explosion

of a new world order of love.

Comfy in Seattle Grandpa and Grandma

hug the poodle devouring his biscuit, they write,

send love missing us, and we, in the Meteora Taverna

on a narrow side street near the corner

of Apollonos and Patron lick our fingers,

slice lamb and caution the kids

there’s a charge for bread noting nothing comes cheap.

A wiry young man his dark eyes hungry

for attention bursts in like an opening scene

in a high school senior play, shouting

in broken English and rapid Greek about tanks

chewing up streets, rifles spitting

into citizens, just now, in the streets of Prague.

Stabbing air with our forks

for emphasis we mentally

figure out how many miles

the Soviet army is from the steam

kettle heat where we sit in Athens.

The children ask, in mind of a picture

they once saw, “do you think

they shoot flowers out of the guns?"

Exercise 2. Make up a list of flowers names according to the model in exercise 2, Unit 1. Read, translate and transcribe each word on the list. Repeat for clarity of articulation. Work for precision with a minimum of tension. After you have accurately mastered the phrases for clarity, work for speed in repetition: Use the terms in sentences of your own.

Exercise 3. Read the following poem by Carol Levin. Repeat the verbs over and over. Accuracy first, the speed! Make a recording of the way you sound as you begin your studies, and then make a comparison, recording every six to twelve months:

Emilie Relishes Her Tale Of the Civilized Parisians

“We don’t give a damn about the General” chanted 10,000 marching through the streets of Paris

Residents floated

white hankies

from apartment

windows laced

with fresh lemon juice

for us to clasp across

our noses

on Bastille Day--

Oh.--

That’s wrong.

The gendarme sweep

jangled down avenues

not July--- but May

and began

at the Place de la Bastille.

I was running

two women

wearing bandanas

tore by

gasping told

how students

were ripping

paving stones with

their fingers

from streets,

pushing over cars

for barricades, behind

us police

pumping

more tear gas into

the workers and bystanders

like me. Human

chains shifting rocks

hand to hand, anything

became a weapon, wood,

and iron. Some

still in pajamas

“ Emily Relishes Her Tale Of the Civilized Parisians”

their sticky blood

in the gutters

of Boulevard St Germaine,.

later called it Bloody Monday.

Emily stops her

story, moves a strand

of hair from her cheek,

praises the delicate

wings of white

hanky parachutes

on the breeze

“so we could breathe”

she says softly

almost smiling.

Exercise 4. Discuss the poem with your group mate. Remember that you are not in competition with anyone, and that you will progress at your own rate.

Exercise 5. Read and transcribe the tongue-twisters. Consult the dictionary to check the correctness. Pronounce every sound with distinctness. Write down the unknown words into your dictionary. Use them in sentences of your own:

An ugly duck was in a funny cup.

Unic New-York.

On a sunny Sunday.

Exercise 6. Listen and decode a poem by Denise Levertov from the audio collection. Transcribe and translate the text. Read it over and over. Use the unknown words in sentences of your own.

Exercise 7. Discuss the poem with your group mate. Write down your dialogue. Read it with distinctness. Work for precision with a minimum of tension. After you have accurately mastered the phrases for clarity, work for speed in repetition.

Exercise 8. Imagine you and your friend are at the exhibition of drawings. Make up a dialogue. Speak on the drawing of Althea Hucari. Repeat the following “jawbreakers” for clarity of articulation: inexplicable, unpredictable, unbelievable, antediluvian, inexpressible. Add the list.

Exercise 9. Read, translate, transcribe the following text. Repeat for clarity of articulation:

Copy-cat

Oh, I like to sleep till noontime every day.

Oh, she likes to sleep till noontime every day.

Every time I sleep till noontime, she sleeps till noontime.

Oh, she likes to do what I do every day.

Oh, I like to take a shower every day.

Oh, she likes to take a shower every day.

Every time I take a shower, she takes a shower.

Oh, she likes to do what I do every day.

Oh, I like to study English every day.

Oh, she likes to study English every day.

Every time I study English, she studies.

Oh, she likes to do what I do every day.

Exercise 10. Speak on the phrase “copy-cat”. Paraphrase or say how you understand it. Describe a person that can be called a copy-cat. Give Russian equivalents for the phrase. Use more adjectives to characterize the “copy-cat”.

Exercise 11. Read, translate and transcribe following poem by Carol Levin. Repeat the new words over and over. Accuracy first, the speed!

Souvenir Shards

Memory flutters like heatwaves above asphalt

and it’s futile to interrogate memory. I distrust

memory.

Remember

Chios ages ago? An island in Greece

wavering seven sea miles

from the grimy village of Cesme, Turkey.

I still see blue sky and sea under sun and wind

on a motor launch to the island’s white harbor

my car broadsides hanging

out across the stern. I don’t remember

how we docked or the morning ride

sixty miles over mountains to the outpost

of Emborios. Today it is a Port, there

is a little dock, still a black rock beach, footprints

of my children washed long ago away.

Must be electric light now,

there are apartments to rent. Is there nothing

left that I remember? The migrant workers

stooping in the sun to tap Mastica trees’

sap for gum? Where are Hermionie

and Yergos Polykronopolis--

their traditional hand made house, the precious

propane lamps they commanded

us to protect, then smashed against

the stairs.

I don’t deny ducking lethal threats

they threw at me echoing

off their cool walls,

“Souvenir Shards”

the sound dying away the faster

I drove in wavy light, a long way

away, by car, ferry, plane, time.

They didn’t try to follow

but they left themselves behind

in the black rock, serene sea and mountain

landscape for me to remember

and that is the tyranny of memory.

Unit eight

The Omnipresent Heat Of August

In the heart

of the Plaka in Athens

the passageway at old Pension-Cleo

is crowded. We wait

our turn to shower.

It’s heat--

the heavy kind. The kind

that expands tempers.

The kind that enervates. The weight

that is heat pressing,

extruding every drop of moisture

to trickle down a body.

Heat only cold

showers soothe.

How many in line

in our way

is all we notice. We don’t know

hippies, yippies and students

back home in civil mutiny

boil over

this 1968 August 27th,

smashed by Chicago

police batons beating

anyone, everything.

One hundred and one

on their way

to the hospital.

Democratic Convention democrats

head-to-head

over the Vietnam War.

Our silence

fills the hall.

We wilt

oblivious,

desperate to cool down.

Exercise 2. Make up a list of transport means according to the model in exercise 2, Unit 1.Read, translate and transcribe each word on the list. Repeat for clarity of articulation. Work for precision with a minimum of tension. After you have accurately mastered the phrases for clarity, work for speed in repetition. Use the terms in sentences of your own.

Exercise 3. Read the following poem by Carol Levin. Translate and transcribe it. Repeat the new words over and over. Accuracy first, the speed! Make a recording of the way you sound as you begin your studies, and then make a comparison, recording every six to twelve months:

Olive Branches, Oracles and War Against War

They chucked stones from their sandals

at the end of their trek. The cool

olive groves’ gray-green

healed their pain after dragging

themselves from a hades like heat

to the slope of Mt Parnassus

in search of Athena and Apollo’s

“earth mother” sanctuary at Delphi.

For ancients, the center of the world

where heaven and earth met,

where man was closest to the gods--

They lifted their faces to the niche

wherein Sibyl, the Oracle, inhaling vapors

dispensed advice on war and such.

Now the crevice was empty so mother

and son took turns climbing the rock

to sit cross-legged looking out

at the olives, wishing

someone there knew something, anything.

They fancied they heard the old audiences

glorifying triumphs of war. Tragedy

compounding tragedy. I take my son’s

hand, squeeze hard. Still too green

to be forced into the killing heat of today’s

Tet. offensive, Hanoi’s gamble raging

in different, steaming jungles in Vietnam.

Thorny branches and oblong

pointed leaves had been standing since

the Bronze age. Here, the Goddess

Athena made peace with Zeus by offering

these olive trees bearing fruit, a healing shade.

Exercise 4. Discuss the poem with your friend or group-mate. Remember that you are not in competition with anyone, and that you will progress at your own rate:

Exercise 5. Listen and decode a song, translate and transcribe every line. Write down the unknown words into your dictionary. Use them in sentences of your own.

Exercise 6. Discuss the decoded song with the group.

Exercise 7. Read the list of synonyms. Work for precision with a minimum of tension. After you have accurately mastered the words for clarity, work for speed in repetition. Use the words in sentences of your own:

Desire, longing, craving, yearning, appetite, lust, long for, crave, covet, want, request, ask, need, wish, aspiration, urge.

Exercise 8. Imagine you and your friend are at one of the London theatres. Speak on the play you have seen. Repeat proper names for clarity of articulation.

Exercise 9. You have found a strange object. Describe it. Express your astonishment. Mind the usage of adjectives: amazing, awesome, hilarious, funny, cute, bright, awkward, nice, tiny, fine, antediluvian, ancient, old, prehistoric, mysterious, enigmatic etc. Repeat them for clarity of articulation.

Exercise 10. Read and transcribe the idioms below. Explain how you understand them: holy cats, well met; where are you snailing; where are you snuffling, get lost; how goes the enemy; I have it on the tip on my tongue, come down; still dishing your friends; you’ve got a fat city.

Exercise 11.Read, translate, transcribe and memorize a poem or a short text in prose. Repeat for clarity of articulation.

Unit nine

A Tender Ordinary Down Home Boy Before He No’ed

Against the surge and surprised

as a spawning salmon suddenly

plunging upstream--

pushing against.

Urge forces my friend forward

fear should

be talking him back. No.

Greetings in his pocket neatly folded.

On time. Informed

by the cayenne

smack of the word on his lips--

his voice refuses

to take the oath.

He looks past the impliable neck

and raised right hand

of the Induction

Sergeant, no

no conscription

no military,

no yes sirs and Yes

Sir, no servant of manipulation,

no uniform. The no

sweeps him into the surge

of lawyers and hearings

and prison ahead and he tightens

his gut, keeps from soiling

his pants as he hears his own

voice spilling. He will not

war. Not this war. Surprised at

the rush of energy that impels

him to say no

Nam---. Touched by the cold

spray of events wishing

to undo death. Fiercely longing

for mother’s goodnight

don’t-let-the-bedbugs-bite, kiss.

Exercise 2. Speak about your family. Use more adjectives to characterize your “folks”: tender, kind, polite, caressing, thoughtful, delightful, quick, bright, accurate etc. Repeat for clarity of articulation. Work for precision with a minimum of tension. After you have accurately mastered the phrases for clarity, work for speed in repetition.

Exercise 3. Repeat the following poem by Carol Levin over and over, pay your special attention to the usage of adverbs and adjectives . Mind your intonation. Be able to comment on the Intonation patterns:

Geography of Harmony

After an eyeful of ancient ruins

on an island in the Aegean, we’re

crammed tight as humanly possible. Lucky

with two seats, one each and one

child on each lap, people pushing over us.

Approximately fifty French teenage girls

share straps or seats swaying as they ride giggling

against the weary villager’s dejected faces, sweat

drenched trousers and shirts. A few at first, then all

the girls begin to sing old French folk songs. Fresh

voices soften thick air and as they sing every

weary soul hanging in to the end of the journey comes to life.

The rutty road thrashes us along mountain terrain, foreign

words spilling out open widows startling Greek shepherds

lifting their eyes at a call from heaven passing.

Catching sight of the sea the girls break into a new, pop song,

“Vee all lee-ve ina alow submarine” and an old cowboy lyric

that sounds like “you-pee yi-A” and finally, the heavy air

dissipates with Glor-ee Glor-ee hall-a-luah-yeh.

Exercise 4. Discuss the poem with your friend. Remember that you are not in competition with anyone, and that you will progress at your own rate.

Exercise 5. Decode and transcribe a song of your favourite group or performer, translate every line. Repeat the lines over and over for clarity of articulation. Write down the unknown words into your dictionary. Use them in sentences of your own.

Exercise 6. Make up a dialogue on the song you have decoded. Express your attitude. Prove your position.

Exercise 7. Read and transcribe the tong-twister. Work for precision with a minimum of tension. After you have accurately mastered the phrases for clarity, work for speed in repetition. Find similar exercises for each English sound:

Roy is a boy. Roy’s bought a toy. Roy’s got a lot of toys.

Exercise 8. Imagine you and your friend are in the Zoo. Make up a dialogue. Use more adjectives to express your attitude. Be able to explain the choice of the Intonation pattern. Consult the dictionary to find the unknown words and terms. Repeat the names of animals for clarity of articulation.

Exercise 9. You have met a person you haven’t seen for ages. Express your emotions. Be able to explain the Intonation patterns in your sentences. Repeat the most expressive adjectives for clarity of articulation.

Exercise 10. Describe the your home library. Use the proverbs below. Give their Russian equivalents:

If you run after two hares you will catch neither.

The tailor makes the man.

First come first served.

The busy have no time for tears.

Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Exercise 11.Read, translate, transcribe and memorize a poem or a short text in prose. Repeat for clarity of articulation.

Unit ten

Bullies Are Not Allowed in the Birthing Room

“speaks from a loneliness one encounters when thinking in poetic

time” reference to poet Bejan Matur, born 1968

Were you being born the very moment

we drove past women weaving shawls

and pantaloons, those women

trudging in the fields

hauling water from wells?

Still bleeding your mother

held you to her milk, whispered

rhythms of her banned

Kurdish mother tongue

while the men sat at little sidewalk cafes

sucking hookahs and drinking tea. The Turks

are always drinking tea contrary

to what I had expected. That day

everybody without exception waved.

At her heart did you feel the diction

of the dead language

coming to life in you, charged

by the myriad colors of life

in rural Turkey?

Everybody waved.

People on carts and walking on the road

and the shepherds: everybody except the guards

at armed camps at each edge

of every tiny village surrounded by

quiet hills covered with concrete pillboxes.

I feel sure that was the afternoon

the poetof whom now it’s said, ” belonging

to the past will sing dirges about a shattered

scattered tribe left to wander where in the dark

grave stones line the road”.

Bejan Matur you were born already a poet that day, I feel sure.

Exercise 2. Speak about your favourite University subjects. Write down the most important thoughts. Repeat them for clarity of articulation. Work for precision with a minimum of tension. After you have accurately mastered the phrases for clarity, work for speed in repetition.

Exercise 3. Read the following poem by Carol Levin. Repeat the unknown

words and “jawbreakers” over and over. Comment on the poem. Accuracy first, the speed! Make a recording of the way you sound as you begin your studies, and then make a comparison, re cording every six to twelve months:

The Turks Have A Print For Each Foot

Convince my small girl to place one foot

here and

one foot there

then pants down bend

knees, hunch

over an air seat.

Breezily I say oh sure as if I’d done this dozens

of times. I myself would have loved my own mother

to be holding my blue sweater in one hand and

kleenex in the other with a can do the dodo attitude.

Exercise 4. Discuss the poem with your friend. Quote the text. Speak with distinctness. Remember that you are not in competition with anyone, and that you will progress at your own rate.

Exercise 5. Decode and transcribe a song. Write down the unknown words into your dictionary. Use them in sentences of your own.

Exercise 6. Discuss the decoded song with your friend. Repeat the lines over and over for clarity of articulation.

Exercise 7. Write down your dialogue. Transcribe and read it. Work for precision with a minimum of tension. After you have accurately mastered the phrases for clarity, work for speed in repetition.

Exercise 8. Imagine you and your friend have just visited the movie-theatre. Make up a dialogue on a film you have seen. Use more adjectives and adverbs to convey your emotions. Be aware of the Intonation pattern you choose. Repeat proper names for clarity of articulation.

Exercise 9. You have received an unusual telephone call. Mind the verbs and participles to express you emotions. Speak with distinctness. Comment on the usage of the Intonation patterns.

Exercise 10. Describe your yard. Tell about the friends of your childhood (boyhood).Transcribe the tongue-twisters below. Use them in your story. Choose the Intonation patterns in accordance with the emotions you covey.

I need not your needles, they are needless to me. The soldier’s shoulder surely hurts. Vanity of vanities all is vanity. Fred fed Ted bred and Ted fed Fred bred.

Exercise 11.Read, translate, transcribe and memorize a poem. Repeat for clarity of articulation. Speak about your house, describe the threshold of it. Use as many terms as possible. Pay your special attention to the details. Ask your group mates to express their attitude towards your story.

Threshold Documentary

Outside,

the door doesn’t give

itself away

while the inside

is flamboyant.

Wide,

frame-and-panel, hand rubbed

aged cherry wood

inlaid

with holly stringing.

It glows.

The color reminds one

of the autumn taste of nuts.

The bell packed

from Thailand

sings

above the frame,

its delicate

tongue swings

exits and entrances.

On either side of the door,

bevels

within small pane windows

arch and reflect

colors turned upside

down.

On the porch

people arrive and smile they say

this is a Wizard of Oz window.

Without exception everyone

suspends

the moment of departure

savoring their finger’s embrace

round the jumbo

cherry and ebony

inlaid doorknob. Handcrafted

for hands to hold

before they cross

like sand

slips through the time glass.
Unit eleven

Philosophical Slapstick Comedy

Greek character is kind of cloddish, kind of left over

Turkey. Opposite

from the Italians or Yugoslavs we met dislocating

the air with their elbows & opinions.

Yesterday on the top deck of the boat back from Aguara

the atmosphere was peacock blue,

the sea, very serene, all very Greek. On one side of the deck

a shy man played

full blast a radio, playing a kind of flute music

almost oriental, on the other side

of the deck an English boy & a Greek boy played two

guitars singing Bob Dylan

at the top of their lungs in perfect English. A mess

of noise that didn’t

really blend at all. That’s Athens. Where I counted on

meeting great thinkers. Pericles, Socrates, Plato & Aristotle. Always

in Athens the Greek music

comes into my window from the street, like it is now, drowning

any inclination to hear my self think.

Exercise 2. Speak about great thinkers of Greece and Rome. Repeat their names for clarity of articulation. Consult the dictionary. Work for precision with a minimum of tension. After you have accurately mastered the phrases for clarity, work for speed in repetition.