Образцы устных разговорных тем для подготовки к экзамену

The English We Learn

Many people in our country study foreign languages. They do it to read and un­derstand books in the original and to be able to speak.

One of the major languages in the world is English. It is the language of pro­gressive science and technology, trade and cultural relations, commerce and business. It is also the major language of diplomacy.

Hundreds and hundreds of books, magazines and newspapers are printed in English and read all over the world. Half of the world's scientific literature is written in English. English has the largest vocabulary with approximately 500 000 words and 300 000 technical terms.

English is spoken by more than 350 million people. Geographically, it is the most widespread language on earth, second only to Chinese in the number of people who speak it.

It is the official language of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, of the United States of America, of Australia and New Zealand. English is used as one of the official languages in Canada, the Republic of South Africa and the Irish Republic. It is also spoken as a second language in many parts of India and Af­rica. The number of second-language speakers may soon exceed the number of native speakers.

Besides, millions of people study and use English as a foreign language. It is not surprising that a lot of intellectuals all over the world want to know as many foreign languages as possible.

Study of foreign languages is not only the sign of intellectual vitality. Nowa­days it becomes an absolute necessity for any good specialist who should read much of a special scientific literature in foreign languages to be well informed in his field of knowledge.

· English is one of those languages which for many seems easy in the beginning. But it is by no means an easy language to learn. Learning English is a long and slow process. There is a problem of spelling and pronunciation, of the large number of ex­ceptions to any rule, it is very idiomatic and prepositions are terrible. The tense sys­tem is also very complicated.

Basic characteristics of English are simplicity of form, flexibility and openness of vocabulary. Old English, like modern German, French, Russian and Greek, had many inflections to show singular and plural, tense, person, etc, but over the centuries words have been simplified. Verbs now have very few inflections, and adjectives do not change according to the noun.

As a result of the loss of inflections, English has become, over the past centuries, a very flexible language. Without inflections, the same word can operate as different parts of speech. Many nouns and verbs have the same form, for example, walk, look, smile.

We can talk about water to drink and to water the flowers; a paper to read and to paper a bedroom. Adjectives can be used as verbs. We warm our hands in front of a fire; if clothes are dirtied they need to be cleaned and dried.

Sometimes even prepositions can operate as verbs. A sixty-year old man is nearing retirement; we can talk about a round of golf, cards or drinks.

Openness of vocabulary involves the free admission of words from other languages and the easy creation of compounds and derivatives. Most world languages have contributed some words to English at some time, and the process is now being reversed.