Make up two sentences of your own on each pattern.

PROBLEMATIC ISSUES OF CHILDHOOD AND TEENAGE YEARS

SPEECH PATTERNS

Read and translate the following speech patterns:

I.​ Sometimes he was weird just because of who he was, rather than what she did.

1.​ Bryson decided to quit rather than accept the new rules.

2.​ It would be better to make a decision now, rather than leave it until later.

3.​ The dark star in Nova Muscae /`m ʌ sıi:/ 1991 is a black hole rather than a neutron star.

4.​ Rather than go straight on to university why not get some work experience first?

* Note: rather you (or him or her etc.) than me - used to convey that one would be reluctant oneself to undertake a particular task undertaken by someone else: ‘I’m picking him up after lunch.’ ‘Rather you than me. ’

II.​ He was safe enough there.

1.​ I’m serious, things are difficult enough as they are.

2.​ I was happy enough in Bordeaux, but I missed my family.

3.​ I got this phone call from a gentleman, who seemed sincere enough.

* Note: enough for sb/sth to do sth: The road is barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other.

III. The kids who had given him a hard time yesterday were probably not the sort to arrive at school first thing…

Unfortunately, that was exactly the kind of person most kids were, in his experience.

1.​ The case he is going to investigate is just the sort to draw our attention to.

2.​ Jane won’t be able to keep quiet about it – she’s not the sort.

3.​ Iain’s never even looked at another woman. He’s not the sort.

4.​ He wasn’t the kind of bloke to get into trouble.

5.​ I guess I’m not the marrying kind (=I'm not the kind of person to marry).

V. …any or all of which sent them wild with excitement.

1.​ The noise drove him wild with terror.

2.​ The row drove him wild with anger.

3.​ He was wild with rage.

VI. You could get out of the water without noticing that you were getting out.

1.​ It is now possible to age a tree without cutting it down.

2.​ She was elected party leader without serving the normal political apprenticeship.

3.​ The car has to look good, but without forgetting the safety aspect.

4.​ They tried to leave the hotel without attracting anyone’s attention.

EXERCISES

1. Paraphrase the following sentences using the Speech Patterns:

1. The question is rather difficult to answer without preliminary discussions. 2. The students would sooner miss the class than have a test in mathematics. 3. I would prefer a good book to a party with loads of people whom I scarcely know. 4. Michael chose the picture for the show on his own, he didn't ask his colleague for advice. 5. The painting lacks final strokes to look complete. 6. Helen’s date doesn't look like a man who is willing to get married. 7. The conservationists' arguments made their opponents furious and greatly irritated them/. 8. The teacher was overcome by anger when his pupils displayed their utter disrespect for him. 9. Lola’s body was like a seashell, it didn't look like something warm and human. 10. This statement was of the type that could overcome any personal prejudice. 11. He didn’t resemble a person who was keen to talk - the wild old outlaw, hiding behind the flamboyant screen of his outrageous behaviour. 12. He preferred drawing and painting things. It would spare the audience from his slangy and elliptic English. 13. It was quite obvious that more than ever now, behind all the honesty and the advice, tutor and student, a truth remained unsaid. 14. The Irish are such an expressive race, and just love chatting. 15. It is typical of private schools in Britain to offer better equipment and facilities.

2. Translate the following sentences:

1. Он вполне с заданием достаточно хорошо. 2. Я бы предпочёл поработать с авторитетными источниками, чем тратить время на просмотр сетевых ресурсов. 3. Она скорее скучала, нежели злилась. 4. Она скорее бы умерла, нежели закатила бы сцену. 5. Приключение привело его в дикий восторг. 6. Она не из тех, кто возьмётся за ум. Ей легче бросить школу, чем распрощаться со своей сомнительной компанией друзей. 7. Она и вообразить не могла, что Стив может жениться (…что он из тех, кто женится). 8. Алекс принял решение, не посоветовавшись с ней. 9. Наставник (руководитель группы) прошёл мимо своих студентов, не произнеся ни слова. 10. Лиз бесшумно закрыла дверь. 11. Верёвка слишком короткая. 12. Новость о том, что Ник был вполне здоров после такой затяжной болезни, подняла всем настроение. 13. Пролив был слишком узок для того, чтобы два теплохода могли разминуться. 14. В следующий раз я делаю доклад по психологии обучения. – Хорошо, что это должен делать не я! 15. Ее неспособность следовать простейшим инструкциям привела меня в дикую ярость.

Make up two sentences of your own on each pattern.

4. Make up situations in a dialogue form using the Speech Patterns. Situations for the dialogues:

1. You are shopping in a supermarket. Your children are getting on your nerves by dropping things from the shelves and tearing them apart. Choose the right way to soothe your offsprings and the fittest speech patterns to succeed in it.

2. You are performing a single parent and her/his children who are having a row about the children’s poor progress and misbehaviour at school. Use the speech patterns that make you sound persuasive.

3. A teacher is taking to task several bullies in her/his class who are constantly interfering with the planned continuity of the lesson. Try and use suitable speech patterns for this bitter debate.

4. You are a group monitor. Some students in your group are steadily missing classes. Your tutor asked you to find a sort of solution of the problem with your fellow students. Be convincing and tolerant with the help of the appropriate speech patterns.

TEXT

ABOUT A BOY

(an extract)

Nick Hornby

Nick Hornby (born 1957) is an English writer, essayist, screenwriter and lyricist. He is best known for his novels "Fever Pitch" (1992), "High Fidelity" (1995), "About a Boy" (1998), "How to Be Good" (2001), "Long Way Down" (2005) and "Slam" (2007). In his work he often touches upon music, sports and the aimless and obsessive personalities of his main characters.

The protagonist of the novel "About a Boy", Will Freeman, 36, being seemingly unattached and lacking ambition, lives on royalties from a popular Christmas song his father wrote and has the time to indulge his only real fashion: women. Pretending to be a single father, he finds a supply of young women at a meeting of single parents. The existence of Marcus, 12, the other main character of the novel, with his suicidal mother complicates Will's life. Both Will and Marcus have a potential to help each other. Will knows things about popular culture that can help Marcus as he tries to find his way at his new London school, what's more, he can teach Marcus to be a kid. The boy too has some advice to give: how to grow up and over come his immaturity and self-centeredness.

He got to school early, went to the form room, sat down at his desk. He was safe enough there. The kids who had given him a hard time yesterday were probably not the sort to arrive at school first thing; they'd be off somewhere smoking and taking drugs and raping people, he thought darkly. There were a couple of girls in the room, but they ignored him, unless the snort of laughter he heard while he was getting his reading book out had anything to do with him.

What was there to laugh at? Not much, really, unless you were the kind of person who was on permanent lookout for something to laugh at. Unfortunately, that was exactly the kind of person most kids were, in his experience. They patrolled up and down school corridors like sharks, except that what they were on the lookout for wasn't flesh but the wrong trousers, or the wrong haircut, or the wrong shoes, any or all of which sent them wild with excitement. As he was usually wearing the wrong shoes or the wrong trousers, and his haircut was wrong all the time, every day of the week, he didn't have to do very much to send them all demented.

Marcus knew he was weird, and he knew that part of the reason he was weird was because his mum was weird. She just didn't get this, any of it. She was always telling him that only shallow people made judgements on the basis of clothes or hair; she didn't want him to watch rubbish television, or listen to rubbish music, or play rubbish computer games (she thought they were all rubbish), which meant that if he wanted to do anything that any of the other kids spent their time doing he had to argue with her for hours. He usually lost, and she was so good at arguing that he felt good about losing. She could explain why listening to Joni Mitchell and Bob Marley (who happened to be her two favourite singers) was much better for him than listening to Snoop Doggy Dogg, and why it was more important to read books than to play on the Gameboy his dad had given him. But he couldn't pass any of this on to the kids at school. If he tried to tell Lee Hartley - the biggest and loudest and nastiest of the kids he'd met yesterday - that he didn't approve of Snoop Doggy Dogg because Snoop Doggy Dogg had a bad attitude to women, Lee Hartley would thump him, or call him something that he didn't want to be called. It wasn't so bad in Cambridge, because there were loads of kids who weren't right for school, and loads of mums who had made them that way, but in London it was different. The kids were harder and meaner and less understanding, and it seemed to him that if his mum had made him change schools just because she had found a better job, then she should at least have the decency to stop all that let's-talk-about-this stuff.

He was quite happy at home, listening to Joni Mitchell and reading books, but it didn't do him any good at school. It was funny, because most people would probably think the opposite - that reading books at home was bound to help, but it didn't: it made him different, and because he was different he felt uncomfortable, and because he felt uncomfortable he could feel himself floating away from everyone and everything, kids and teachers and lessons.

It wasn't all his mum's fault. Sometimes he was weird just because of who he was, rather than what she did. Like the singing... When was he going to learn about the singing? He always had a tune in his head, but every now and again, when he was nervous, the tune just sort of slipped out. For some reason he couldn't spot the difference between inside and outside, because there didn't seem to be a difference. It was like when you went swimming in a heated pool on a warm day, and you could get out of the water without noticing that you were getting out, because the temperatures were the same; that seemed to be what happened with the singing. Anyway, a song had slipped out yesterday during English, while the teacher was reading; if you wanted to make people laugh at you, really, really laugh, then the best way, he had discovered, better even than to have a bad haircut, was to sing out loud when everybody else in the room was quiet and bored.

This morning he was OK until the first period after break. He was quiet during registration, he avoided people in the corridors, and then it was double maths, which he enjoyed, and which he was good at, although they were doing stuff that he'd already done before. At breaktime he went to tell Mr Brooks, one of the other maths teachers, that he wanted to join his computer club. He was pleased he did that, because his instinct was to stay in the form room and read, but he toughed it out; he even had to cross the playground.

But then in English things went bad again. They were using one of those books that had a bit of everything in them; the bit they were looking at was taken from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. He knew the story, because he'd seen the film with his mum, and so he could see really clearly, so clearly that he wanted to run from the room, what was going to happen.

When it happened it was even worse than he thought it was going to be. Ms Maguire got one of the girls who she knew was a good reader to read out the passage, and then she tried to get a discussion going.

'Now, one of the things this book is about is... How do we know who's mad and who isn't? Because, you know, in a way we're all a bit mad, and if someone decides that we're a bit mad, how do we... how do we show them we're sane?'

Silence. A couple of the kids sighed and rolled their eyes at each other. One thing Marcus had noticed was that when you came into a school late you could tell straight away how well the teachers got on with a class. Ms Maguire was young and nervous and she was struggling, he reckoned. This class could go either way.

'OK, let's put it another way. How can we tell if people are mad?'

Here it comes, he thought. Here it comes. This is it.

'If they sing for no reason in class, miss.'

Laughter. But then it all got worse than he'd expected. Everyone turned round and looked at him; he looked at Ms Maguire, but she had this big forced grin on and she wouldn't catch his eye.

'OK, that's one way of telling, yes. You'd think that someone who does that would be a little potty. But leaving Marcus out of it for a moment...'

More laughter. He knew what she was doing and why, and he hated her.

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