Temat: kultura
Rafal, 19, Warsaw:
I must admit I’ve been learning English for about 10 years now and for all this time I’ve been searching for more and more efficient methods. I’ve tried a lot: private tutoring – it was quite OK, but I wanted to kill two birds with one stone and I decided to learn with my girlfriend. Of course it didn’t work out – we were laughing, telling jokes to each other, but… in our mother tongue! Moreover, my teacher wasn’t very well motivated and he left Poland after two months leaving us with accent not resembling the Received Pronunciation at all… To sum up, It took me further several years to learn English communicatively. Nowadays I find interaction the ultimate goal of learning a language and I guess it is impossible to achieve it without working in a group of people. Eventually, I regard the speaking English classes I participated in much better choice than private lessons I used to take part in and if I started to learn another foreign language I would look for something based on the direct method or the CLT approach.
Malgorzata, 18, Szczecin:
I’ve been learning English and Spanish since I was a little kid and I have tested a lot of methods: learning vocabulary and dialogues by heart until small hours, translating lyrics and cartoons, subscribing British magazines, but once I understood only a total immersion will add finesse to my English. How did I know it? Well, a little bird told me . Just kidding. My friend highly improved her pronunciation after holidays. It occurred she had an ace in a sleeve – she spilt the beans and told us about her holidays in an English – speaking family in London. I decided to go away, too. The method is called “total immersion” as living abroad you meet with a variety of context clues impossible to be provided by the teacher. For instance, I had to buy some gym rompers for my niece and I was forced to explain this word using all my vocabulary (and hands, of course!:-). I managed to do it, by the way.
Learning in Brighton was the most useful experience in my educational life, I must say! As I’ve got itchy feet next year I’m going to apply for studies in … Australia!
Adjectives (Przymiotniki)
Po angielsku przymiotniki zwykle występują przed rzeczownikami, np. useful experience. Wyjątkiem są tu czasowniki takie jak be czy seem, po których można postawić przymiotnik, np.
She seems happy. – Wydaje się szczęśliwa.
W pewnych ustalonych wyrażeniach również przymiotnik występuje po rzeczowniku, np.
two metres tall (wysoki na dwa metry), the time available, nothing new
Stopniowanie
Przymiotniki jedno- lub dwusylabowe stopniujemy regularnie, przy dodaniu końcówek, np.
cold – colder – the coldest (zimny – zimniejszy – najzimniejszy)
Przymiotniki długie, najczęściej mające więcej niż dwie sylaby, stosujemy opisowo, dodając do nich słówko more/the most (bardziej/najbardziej) lub less/the least (mniej/najmniej), np:
efficient – more efficient – the most efficient (skuteczny – bardziej skuteczny – najbardziej skuteczny)
Oto kilka najbardziej znanych wyjątków:
good – better – the best (dobry – lepszy – najlepszy)
bad – worse – the worst (zły – gorszy – najgorszy)
far – further – the furthest (daleki – dalszy – najdalszy)*
old – elder – the eldest (stary – starszy – najstarszy) **
* Można także stopniować far – farther – the farthest – ale to tyczy się tylko odległości w czasie. Jeśli mówimy o odległości w przestrzeni, trzeba wybrać stopniowanie nieregularne.
** Nieregularnie stopniuje się ten przymiotnik tylko przy porównywaniu wieku w rodzinie, np. my elder sister (moja starsza siostra).