Это цитата сообщения Rucci Оригинальное сообщение

Хрестоматия для чтения на английском...

http://www.languages-study.com/english-reader.html

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Все части Гарри Поттера, тексты песен Битлз, статьи, учебные материалы и другая литература. Интересно.

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Это цитата сообщения Rucci Оригинальное сообщение

SMS dictionary...

http://www.smsdictionary.co.uk/index.html?p=a

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Для любителей сокращений и аббревиатур. Полный словарь sms-сообщений :)

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Это цитата сообщения amlugos Оригинальное сообщение

Поиск в лучших словарях English to English...

http://www.onelook.com

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Этот поисковик вытягивает статьи сразу из пары десятков лучших English to English словарей. Для списка синонимов перед словом ставьте двоеточие.

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Это цитата сообщения Rucci Оригинальное сообщение

Канадское радио он-лайн...

http://www.thebeat.com/player/player.cfm?AudioID=1

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Фанатею который день... :) Работает только в Internet Explorer.

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Это цитата сообщения Rucci Оригинальное сообщение

Уроки английского на сайте Русской службы Би-би-си...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/russian/learn_english#

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Учебные материалы, интерактивные проекты, истории о культуре и традициях англоязычных стран и многое многое другое! :)

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Это цитата сообщения Rucci Оригинальное сообщение

Ресурс для лингвистов и переводчиков...

http://linguists.narod.ru/downloads6.html

Это цитата сообщения Rucci Оригинальное сообщение

WOW Russia!...

http://www.wowrussia.com/

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Я даже не знаю, как описать этот сайт... :) Проще зайти и посмотреть. Равнодушными не останетесь.

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Это цитата сообщения Rucci Оригинальное сообщение

Библиотека...

http://greylib.align.ru/

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Here you can find thousands of books in different languages. Free of charge.

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Это цитата сообщения oswin-oswald Оригинальное сообщение

Sahara | Сахара

  [414x600]

Sahara

Это цитата сообщения Rucci Оригинальное сообщение

Index of English Lessons for Russian Speakers...

http://www.ispol.com/Learn-English-Fast/lessons.html

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Полезные уроки. Спасибо КаРтИнКи_59 

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Это цитата сообщения Rucci Оригинальное сообщение

Internet Sacred Text Archieve...

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/index.htm

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Legends and Sagas, a lot of sacred-texts archives. Useful. Really.

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Это цитата сообщения el_flaco Оригинальное сообщение

Words and their Stories - BLIZZARD

Winters in the northern United States are always cold and snowy. Sometimes, heavy snow is brought by violent storms with high winds and extremely low temperatures. Americans call these storms, "blizzards."
Blizzards are usually described as blinding, because no one can see through the blowing snow.
Until about 120 years ago, the word blizzard had nothing to do with snow. It had several other meanings. One was a sharp blow, like hitting a ball with a stick. Another meaning was a gun shot. A third was any sort of statement or event that was the most extreme of its kind.
An especially violent and heavy snowstorm struck the state of Iowa in 1870. The newspaper editor in one small town called the terrible storm a "blizzard" because it was the worst winter storm in a long time. This use of the word spread across the country in the next few years. Soon, any especially bad winter storm was called a blizzard.
Although no one likes a blizzard, many people love snow. It changes the appearance of everything around us. When snow is falling, the world seems somehow soft, peaceful and quiet. Snow, especially in large amounts, covers everything.
But too much snow is a real problem. Heavy, deep snow is difficult to move. Clearing snow from roads and sidewalks is hard work. Someone who is "snowed under" has a lot of snow to clear. That expression, "snowed under" also has another meaning. Anyone who has too much work to do is "snowed under." You might explain to a friend that you can not see her tonight because you are "snowed under" with work.
It also is possible to snow someone under with words. The idea is to change someone's mind, by making a great many pleasant but false statements or claims. That is a "snow job." A boy may use a "snow job," for example, to try to get a girl to go out with him. The pretty words of his snow job are like the snow flakes that cover the real world around us. However, snow jobs, unlike blizzards, are easily seen through.

(c) Voa

Это цитата сообщения el_flaco Оригинальное сообщение

Words and their Stories - BLITZ

At the beginning of World War two, the powerful German army of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler marched with great speed and skill through western Europe. The Germans captured Poland, Belgium, France and other countries in a very short time.
Hitler described his aggressive plan with the German word "blitzkrieg." Blitzkrieg means war that is fought as quickly as lightning strikes. Military experts around the world soon began to use the word blitzkrieg to describe any fast-moving, powerful attack by strong forces.
Hitler's blitzkrieg attack on western Europe succeeded for a while. But the Nazi leader was not able to defeat Britain.
As time passed, Hitler decided to bomb London and other British cities to break the spirit of the British people, and force them to surrender. Soon, thousands of kilograms of German bombs were falling on British cities every day. The British people called the attack another blitzkrieg, or "The Blitz."
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill described one series of raids in this way: "The new bombing began with the blitz of the city of Coventry on the night of November fourteenth." Churchill wrote in his history of the war, "By the time the sun came up, nearly five-hundred German aircraft had dropped six-hundred tons of high explosives and thousands of fire bombs."
Use of the word blitz did not end when the Allied troops finally marched into Berlin in 1945 and Germany surrendered. Instead the word became even more popular. People began to use the word blitz to describe anykind of strong action, campaign or movement.
Political leaders use the word blitz. A candidate for president of the United States may plan a campaign in which he visits five different cities every day for two weeks. One day he is in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington. The next day he campaigns in more cities- Jacksonville, Orlando, New Orleans, Houston and Dallas.
Newspaper reporters who travel with candidates are likely to call this kind of campaigning a political blitz.
The expression is also used in sports. A team on the defense in American football may use a blitz, an aggressive play to stop the other team from passing the football.
A company may launch an advertising blitz to introduce a new product. This means the company will announce its new product on many radio and television stations, and in many different newspapers. Its advertising campaign will try to reach as many people as possible to make them want to buy the product.
The blitzkrieg did not win the war for Adolph Hitler. But it did win a lasting place in the English language as a useful and descriptive word.

(c) VoA

Это цитата сообщения el_flaco Оригинальное сообщение

Words and their Stories (A-Okay)

Сегодня я решил начать публикацию серии эссе, написанных для радиостанции Voice of America, посвященных истории происхождения некоторых английских идиом.

Данный выпуск посвящен выражению A-Okay.

No one really knows when many of our expressions became popular. But others can be easily dated. One such expression is A-Okay. It means the situation is fine; there is no cause for worry.
A-Okay is a space-age expression. It was used in 1961 during the flight of an American astronaut. John Powers, a spokesman for NASA, the national space agency, used "A-Okay" to tell the world that everything on the space flight was operating perfectly.
Some experts say the expression did not begin with the space age. One story is that it was first used during the early days of the telephone, to tell an operator that his message had been received. The sound of the O in Okay often was lost in the noise on the telephone line. So the sharper sounding "A" was added to the expression, making a more easily understood "A-Okay."
A-Okay is one of several expressions that may have come into the language earlier but became popular only when they were used in the space progam. These expressions quickly became part of everyday speech. This happened because most people had television, and could see and hear all the major events of a space flight. People spent hours watching special TV reports of every space flight.
They could hear the astronauts talk with NASA scientists and engineers. In the first days of space flight, the astronauts seemed to be speaking a new language. But soon, the public accepted and began to use many expressions of this space language.
One such expression is "all systems go." It means everything is ready, let us begin. NASA uses it to mean that all the systems on a spacecraft have been examined and are working correctly. All systems go means the decision has been made to continue with the launch of the spacecraft. It is also used outside the space program to tell someone that you are ready to start a job or activity.
Countdown became a popular word of the space age.
Space scientists would count down the seconds until launch. They counted backwards from 10 seconds, 9,8,7,6,5,4,3, 2, 1 and liftoff. Some language experts say the American people first heard countdowns in the late 1940's during broadcasts of atomic bomb tests in Nevada and on some islands in the Pacific. But countdown did not become a common expression until the space flights of the 1960's.
Another space expression that has become common in recent years is "burnout." It meant that a launch rocket had used all its fuel. Space ships were launched by more than one rocket. The first rocket would lift the ship high above the earth. Then it would "burn out" and a second rocket would fire to carry the vehicle into earth orbit.
Soon, people began to use burnout to describe what happens to a person who works too hard under too much stress for too long. Such a "burned out" person is like a rocket with no more fuel. He has no energy or desire to continue.

Это цитата сообщения el_flaco Оригинальное сообщение

Words and their Stories - BESIDE ONESELF

Many expressions may be used to describe someone who is excited.
One such expression is to be "beside yourself." You can be beside yourself with anger or beside yourself with happiness, although usually not both at the same time. If you are beside yourself, you are in an extremely emotional condition. You are filled with excitement.
The dictionary tells us that "beside" means next to, or at the side of. So the expression "beside oneself" describes something that really is not possible. You cannot be next to yourself. Some language experts, however, think the expression probably comes from an old belief that through magic, you could indeed be next to yourself. Spirits were believed to have the magic power to do anything. So it was possible to have two of the same person appear, especially if that person was excited.
Today, you might hear a husband say, "When my wife told me we were going to have a baby, I was beside myself with joy." Or someone might tell you he was beside himself with anger because he had just lost his job.
When you are full of joy or are extremely excited about something you may do something else that is strange. You may "flip your lid." A lid is the cover that prevents something from escaping from a container. A lid on a cooking pot, for example, keeps the heat from escaping. To flip something is to turn it over. So, when you "flip your lid," you become so excited that your self-control escapes.
You can "flip your lid" over something you like very much. A young man, for example, might flip his lid over a pretty, young woman. Or you can "flip your lid" if something makes you very angry. If someone hit your new car, it might make you flip your lid.
In recent years, the word "flip" itself has come to mean the same thing as flip your lid. It is common to hear a girl say she "flipped" over a new boyfriend.
An expression that means something quite similar is to "lose your head." The head is believed to be connected to reason and careful thought. Thus to "lose one's head" is to act without thinking, to be out of control.

(c) VoA

Это цитата сообщения el_flaco Оригинальное сообщение

Words and their Stories - BEHIND THE EIGHT-BALL

When someone is "behind the eight-ball" he is in a difficult, if not impossible situation.
The expression comes from the game of Kelly pool. Pool or pocket billiards, is a table game played with fifteen numbered balls and a cue ball. Players strike the cue ball with the end of a cue, or stick, sending it into one or more of the numbered balls. The idea is knock each of the numbered balls into one of the six pockets around the edge of the pool table.
In one kind of pool game called eight-ball, players try to put the numbered balls into the pockets, with the eight-ball the last to go in. A player loses if he sinks the eight-ball before all the other balls are in the pockets. A player can put his opponent in poor position by leaving the cue ball behind the eight ball. The eight ball blocks his opponent from a shot at any of the other balls.
So, if you are behind the eight-ball, your position is bad. There is almost no way out of the situation. You are in trouble.
A New York newspaper, in a report on a new book, used the expression this way: "An attempt to describe what makes the drawings funny lands you behind the eight-ball." In other words, trying to describe why the drawings are funny may be impossible and you may seem foolish to try.
Someone who is "behind the eight-ball" is usually "in a pickle," or "a pretty pickle." "In a pickle" is another expression that means you are in a difficult or unpleasant situation.
Some experts say this expression comes from an old Dutch saying, "sitting in pickle juice." Sitting in pickle juice indeed would be unpleasant. Pickling was a very common way to keep food from spoiling before days of ice boxes or electric refrigerators. When food is pickled, it is kept in a pickle juice made of salt, vinegar and spices.
There is still another expression in English that means you are in trouble. You are in a "fine kettle of fish." This expression was first used 200 years ago by British writers. One story says that it comes from an early British custom of cooking fish in huge pots or kettles. The cooked fish were served at parties along the river. As the story goes, a cook did something wrong, producing a kettle of fish that no one could eat. That cook was surely in trouble for his "fine kettle of fish."
We still use all these expressions today. In fact, I will be in a "fine kettle of fish," or "in a pretty pickle," and probably "behind the eight-ball" if I don't end this story now.

(c) VoA

Это цитата сообщения el_flaco Оригинальное сообщение

Words and their Stories - BIGWIG

Some expressions describe people who are important, or at least who think they are.
One such expression is bigwig. In the 17th century, important men in Europe began to wear hair pieces, called wigs. As years passed, wigs began to get bigger. The size of a man's wig depended on how important he was. The more important he was, or thought he was, the bigger the wig he wore. Some wigs were so large that they covered a man's shoulders or back.
Today the expression "bigwig" is used to make fun of a person who feels important. People never tell someone he is a bigwig. The only use the expression behind his back.
"Big wheel" is another way to describe an important person. A big wheel may be head of a company, a political leader, a famous doctor. They are big wheels because they are powerful. What they do affects many persons. Big wheels give the orders. Other people obey them. As in many machines, a big wheel makes the little wheels turn.
"Big wheel" became a popular expression after World War Two. It probably comes from an expression used for many years by people who fix the mechanical parts of cars and trucks. They said a person "rolled a big wheel" if he was important and had influence.
The top of something is the highest part. So it is not surprising that top is part of another expression that describes an important person.
The expression is "top banana." A "top banana" is the leading person in a comedy show. The best comedian is called the top banana, the next is second banana and so on down. Why a banana? A comedy act in earlier days often included a part where one of the comedians would hit the others over the head with a soft object shaped liked a banana fruit.
"Top banana" still is used mainly in show business. But the expression also can be used to describe the top person in any field.
A "kingpin" is another word for an important person. The expression comes from the game of bowling. The kingpin is the number one pin. If hit correctly with the bowling ball, the kingpin will make all the other nine pins fall. And that is the object of the game.
So, the most important person in a project or business is the "kingpin." If the kingpin is removed, the business or project will likely fail.
Kingpin is often used to describe an important criminal, or the leader of a criminal gang. A newspaper may report, for example, that police have arrested the suspected kingpin of a car-stealing operation.

(c) VoA

Это цитата сообщения Rucci Оригинальное сообщение

Количество языков в мире может сократиться почти наполовину через 100 лет...

http://www.langinfo.ru/index.php?sect_id=2798

Это цитата сообщения FCE Оригинальное сообщение

Be descriptive Adj., Adv (1)

Aim: to develop the skill of using descriptive vocabulary

B It was a 1)NICE evening, and after a 2) NICE sunset the stars were a million 3) SMALL points of light in the sky. "A 4) NICE end to a 5)VERY 6)NICE day," John thought to himself; and after the 7)BAD week which had just passed he was 8)VERY pleased to breath a 9)BIG sigh of relief and put the 10)BAD memories behind him.

NB!...Avoid using simplistic adjectives or adverbs (e.g. good, bad, nice, well, etc.) as these will make your composition sound uninteresting. Try to use more sophisticated adjectives or adverbs ( e.g. luxurious, extravagant, threatening(ly), etc.)Choosing interesting vocabulary helps to make your writing more descriptive.

(!?-1) ...For each word below, think of as many synonyms or near synonyms (other words that mean almost the same but that are more descriptive)as you can, and write them on the lines provided:

• good/nice
• bad
• big
• clever
• happy
• beautiful
• very
• small/little

Keys==>

A. The 1)BIG old castle stood at the top of a (2) BIG mountain in the middle of a 3)BIG forest. I was 4)VERY terrified as I approached and jumped with fright when I heard a 5)BAD scream from the direction of the castle. My heart was in my mouth as I knocked on the 6) BIG front door, and the sound of 7) SMALL scurrying feet behind the door made me imagine 8)BIG, 9)BAD rats running away to hide. I wanted to run away, too, but I was 10)VERY exhausted, and had to find somewhere to sleep for the night.

Это цитата сообщения Mait Оригинальное сообщение

Советские красавицы.

Это, чтоб порадовать кой-кого.)

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