GOD, save ENGLISH!

Эссе Антиповой Светланы представляет собой большой акростих (стихотворение, первые буквы каждой строки которого составляют слово). А у нашей победительницы это целая фраза - «English – My Inspiration». Оригинальное оформление работы и занимательный рассказ Светланы о первой судьбоносной встрече с английским языком обеспечили ей I место. Мы надеемся, что ее роман с английским будет долгим и взаимным.

Enchanted with the enigma of unknown countries, I understood the 
necessity of speaking foreign language and practically immediately
got involved into that breathtaking activity. I was six then. Now I’m sixteen.
Luckily, I haven’t yet lost my passion for this delightful, endearing and
iincommutable system of communication. It seemed to be a very hostile,
severe, adverse world. However, it turned out to be a mysterious, exciting
honorable and worthwhile one. 
  
My first “step” towards English was a snap and sudden one. I was a child
yearning to travel. While being in Moscow I used to visit its monuments. 
  
Immortal Red Square attracted me most of all. Thousands of tourists made its
neat atmosphere unforgettable. A young foreign girl was walking near me.
suddenly she unwillingly stepped on my foot and muttered quietly:
"Pardon me!” I didn’t understand what she said. But I knew I wanted to.
Istill cherish the memory of that day – the day, which helped me to
realize what sheer bliss it is to know a foreign language. The
assumption is that it’s the best way to avoid misunderstanding, destroy
the borders between people of different nations. Moreover, English today
is a way of life. Not only cosmopolitans and sophisticated people
ought to know it. Every educated person should be able to speak this
needful language. If a man knows it, he is likely to make a success of life.

Антипова Светлана, Гимназия № 2, 11 класс

A ROMANCE under the RAIN

The heavy mists had been swirling since morning until at last the pale skies burst into tears. A rueful young man was plodding along trying to dodge the persistent rain drops. At the same time he appeared to be pondering on some thought, although every now and then the annoying rainwater defeated his attempts at concentration. Finally, he gave up and thought: “So, this is how it must be in England, always raining.”

At this very moment his eyes stopped on the sign that seemed to scintillate in the surrounding gloom. There was nothing spectacular about it, but the words “English courses” boomed like thunder putting everything in its places. I looked at the breaking clouds, while the autumn shower turned from the nuisance into a delightful light rain, and whispered gently: “ This is odd; it feels like falling in love for the very first time!”

I have never regretted that choice . Something inside me always stirred when I heard English speech. Perhaps the trick is in the pronunciation or maybe the magic that was woven by Merlin at the dawn of times still lives in everything touched by English. My romance with English has never ended sparkling like a jewel with every day that we uncover together. There are no certain things in the future, but I’m sure that there are countless surprises awaiting us along the way.

Since that day I have stopped feeling uncomfortable under the rain.

Потапов Александр, ГУ НФ ВШЭ, юрфак III к.

A Life-long Romance

“Where do I begin to tell the story of how great a love can be..?”
(from a modern song)

It happened so that music was the driving force behind my romance with English. In my early teens I took to West European disco. The catchy melodic patterns with a strong beat carried me away, but the appeal did not only come from the tune. The lyrics, too, inexplicably tugged at my heartstrings though their meaning was a mystery to me since I was doing French at school.

Once I came across an old, dog-eared English textbook for beginners with yellowish pages and unattractive illustrations. Surprisingly, that ragamuffin of a book turned into a book of magic for me. Like a novice wizard I would spend hours on end scrutinising its pages and chanting its incantations. Then I borrowed a pocket English-Russian dictionary from someone. It gave my vocabulary a great boost – so much that I was soon able to help my classmates with their English homework. What they found a drag, I did with gusto. When my form mistress got wind of our perfect symbiosis, she called me for a tête-à-tête and I confided my obsession with English to her. The long and the short of it was that, after an interview with the English teacher, I joined the English set.

Much water has flowed under the bridges since. What has become of the romance of my life? I must confess it’s over. Infatuations, you know, don’t last very long. Mine has grown into a mature, inexhaustible Love.

Alexander Maslennikov, Nizhniy Novgorod Research Institute of Radio Engineering

Looking for Mr. Right

I was 6 years old when I first became aware of His existence. Prince Charming from fairy-tales for little and naive girls. I wasn’t naive at my 6, 7, and even 8. He was handsome, polite and intelligent Prince from far-far away. But I’ve already had a boyfriend from the neighborhood – we shared one desk at school. Some time has passed and it turned out that by my 12 I was disappointed in all male creations from my school and my street. I thought I deserved the best guy ever. That was the moment when I’ve started to look for Mr. Right. By that time Prince Charming had grown up to a real gentleman. I tried to get some information about Him meeting Fairy-ladies, who could tell me anything. I was looking for Mr. Right, but all I had was Mrs. “Repeat, please” or Mrs. ”What Was Your Homework”.

I decided to go far-far away. Traveling the world I found myself in the US. And first of all I’ve met Mr. “Wasssap?”. He was handsome, but not polite. He called me “Hey, baby” and had a lot of “brothers”. The fact was he was black but not really bright. The next “Mr. Right” candidate was Mr. Spanglish. He was nice, found of cooking and wanted me to be his seven kids’ mother. Unfortunately I didn’t like red-hot chili peppers and wasn’t ready to meet all his Mexican family.

Mr. Okay was very friendly. He was smiling all the time, was passionate about hamburgers, pizza and baseball. But the little voice inside my head sad “Mr. Wrooooong!”. Really, original Prince wouldn’t say “wanna” instead of “want to” and “see ya” instead of “see you”….

I’m still looking for you, my Mr. Right - Mr. Gentle, Proper, Respectable and Genuine English. I know you are in Far-far away kingdom waiting for your Princess.

Воробьева Надежда, ННГУ им. Лобачевского, отделение Психологии, V курс

TRUE ROMANCE

You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave…
“Hotel California”, Eagles

There’s an opinion that true love comes with the speed of light. In my case it came with that of sound…

One day, I was in my early teens then, I came across a pair of old singles, while I was looking through my parents’ records collection. There was no name on their labels, just: “Vocal and instrumental band. In English language.” The next couple of hours nothing could tear me away from loudspeakers and I was playing the records again and again. Like noise of the waves and freshness of the sea wind, which a man has been keeping forever in his memory after he had seen the sea for the first time, this nearly mystic sound has entered my consciousness first, last and all the time.

It was exactly the sound, since it wasn’t only music, but even breathtaking voices pronouncing extremely exciting words. My lips moved themselves repeating: Come to-ge-ther. Right now…

I couldn’t make out the meaning of these words but I just felt their energy. And it was blowing my mind! Since that the thought: “What are they singing about?” had become my obsession and I sunk in a depth of diphthongs, articles and auxiliaries…

Much later, ridiculous characters of Jerome, witty jokes of Dickens’s Pickwick club members and dramatic “Nevermore…” of Poe’s raven have appeared in my life. But that rasping, not clear sound of old record, which had made me a captive fan of English, is still being heard in my heart calling me “on and on across the universe.”

Grinin Vladimir

My romance with English

It is an old story about an unusually close bond. I remember the first time when we met each other. I started to feel drawn; I looked forward to meeting again. After such a long years, I yearned for something new and interesting. Regular life looked so gray and ordinary. The sky seemed to be lowering. But everything changed when we luckily met anew. In the beginning it was hard; it all seemed a little confused. But, frankly speaking, it was more intolerable to not associate every day. Our meetings were like gentle touching. "Never put off 'till tomorrow what you can do today." So, I try to open many-sided beauty every day. New world abroad showed me his other side and a strengthened aspiration for a life to share. We move on still, but I love him increasingly more.

This feeling arose in childhood and I hope will be in my heart forever. Maybe it is a childish perception, or maybe it is as the fates decree, but I can't and don't want to lose touch until now. One wise man says: ”Never put off ‘till tomorrow what you can do today” and that pertains to our relation! Every day I find out something new and beautiful. And while learning increasingly more, I feel that it makes my life multifarious and better. The graphic evidence of this useful communication is that it brings new people into my life and it opens new countries and opportunities to me.
It is incredible but true:

I take you, learn you, I’m with you!
I think by you and dream on you.
I met my love just thanks to you.
You show me more than I could wish:
Give joyful time, embellish speech.
And life becomes beautiful in double measure:
English gives me this, I’m sure.

Коваль Наталия, ННГУ им. Лобачевского, факультет Вычислительной Математики и Кибернетики

Мой роман с английским

Now I feel as if I had known my precious English for all my life, and it is hard to imagine that I might never have got acquainted with him.

He always seemed to me extremely attractive, his mysteries lured me, I sought to meet him, and our first encounter did not happen to disappoint me. Being shaken by his good looks, delicacy, self-confidence, I could not help falling in love with him.

But English must have failed to be moved by my feelings: he could be exacting and uncompromising, and sometimes his behaviour made me decide to have nothing more to do with him. He was jealous of Japanese and Italian, wishing I were interested only in him.

Sometimes our relationship resembled making a sandcastle. I was trying hard to penetrate into the inner world of my beloved English, to make the dry sand hold together, and when English opened his secrets I felt enormously happy. But when he behaved as if he were a stranger, and became incomprehensible, I was at a loss, the sand just running away between my fingers.

Even now, after many years of being together, English is still unbeknown and the sandcastle is fragile. When I think I am close to him English always has something new and surprising for me. I seem to know him, and still I can not define what he is. He is unpredictable and mysterious. Trusty and capricious. Affectionate and cold. For me – he is the best friend in all times.

Осокина Татьяна, НГЛУ им. Н.А. Добролюбова, III курс ФАЯ

My love story with English

It is an unusual love story. It was not “love at first sight”. Moreover, I was not that age to have a real love. I met “her” (her name sounded strangely: Miss English), when I was only five years old. I met her in the kindergarten. She was not very young, and seemed to be not so pretty for me. There is a proverb: “Love cannot be forced”. This proverb is completely suitable for my early relations with Miss English. I didn’t like her very much. She seemed to me extremely boring. I was too young…

The time was going by, I gradually became wiser. But I did not notice that Miss English grew older. Only her manners gave a little step forward. She became more modern. At once, I understood that I actually like some features of her character. She started to interest me in her culture and lifestyle. As the years passed by, my sympathy increased.

She made my life full of ideas, feelings and impressions. Every date with her is an expectation of miracle. Every day, every hour I meet something connected with her, even listening to the music, browsing in the Internet or watching TV programmes. We are unified whole now. It’s hard to suppose, how our relations will develop, but what I surely know is that Miss English changed me, made me better. She has made my life complete, and now I realize, that I have fallen in love with her. I hope, we’ll never be apart.

Cмирнов Семен, 10 класс МОУ СОШ № 16, г. Саров Нижегородской обл.

Mysterious English

What makes us love? My opinion is that there surely must be a mystery in the love affairs.
Well, English is full of mysteries, and they make me adore this crazy language.
If olive oil is made from olives, what do they make baby oil from?
Why do ‘a slim chance’ and ‘a fat chance’ mean the same?
People, not computers, create English.
That’s why greyhounds aren’t always grey, a guinea pig is neither a pig nor from Guinea.
That’s why the time of a day with the slowest traffic is called ‘the rush hour’.
I think that the object of our love must possess some crazy niceties.
English users are constantly turning the meaning on its head.
If you are ordered to ‘watch your head!’ you can’t follow the instructions. Trying to watch your head is like trying to bite your teeth.
If harmless actions are the opposite of harmful actions, why is shameful and shameless behaviour the same and pricey objects are less expensive than priceless ones?
It makes my love affection stronger to realize that English is sometimes weird, odd or illogical. It offers me unpredictable tasks to solve, continuous hardships to overcome…
A language is like the air we breathe – we take it for granted. So is my love – granted and natural. I admire all its peculiarities, collect and study them. (Secretly – I do it).
And probably one day I will understand, why when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it.

Мироненко Наталья, 10 класс, Гимназия № 2, г. Саров Нижегородской обл.

NONSENSE

I’ve been learning English since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Nevertheless it has never been an academic process of tutoring over me but rather the great hobby. This seems to be an infatuation. I’m just frantic with watching films and cartoons in English, listening songs and broadcastings, enjoying English puns and communicating with the native speakers. It’s nothing like learning language being inside its atmosphere!

Surely the limericks below may perfectly express my love feelings to English and some funny facts of my life connected with it.

There was a young girl looking so small
They supposed her to play with a doll.
But she said “Holy Ghost!
English is what I admire most
Because it makes me feel ten feet tall!”

There was an exciting experience
And her first international appearance
In the camp of “Lazurny” that hold
Many children from all over the world
And gave them the great language experience!

There was a fact she perceived very nice
That she hob-nobed with the foreign guys.
People said “O, my God!
She behaves very odd!”
But she kept on chatting English with the guys.

There are more limericks that I can tell.
These are after Lear’s lyrics as well.
But I really did
Use my English indeed.
And I am sure it does ring the bell!

Murygina Lyubov’, a student of the State University Higher School of Economics

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