Клуб любителей английского языка

На этой неделе мы хотели было сделать перерыв в наших тематических занятиях. Причин этому несколько: и подготовка Леры к годовым контрольным работам в школе, и самый настоящий переводной экзамен в English School, по результатом которого учитель примет решение, переводить ли Леру в шестой класс. Все это требует много времени на подготовку.

Но совсем случайно мне попалась на глаза очень интересная книга, "Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens" - книга на русском, но в прекрасном исполнении, с иллюстрациями Артура Рэкхэма. Мы не могли упустить возможность увидеть Кенсингтонский сад глазами Джеймса Барри, поэтому всю неделю посвятили знакомству с этой удивительной книгой.

Прежде всего, мне хотелось услышать, как Лера будет читать незнакомый текст. Лера читает очень уверенно, и слушать ее - одно удовольствие. Вопрос, поняла ли она смысл текста, конечно, не возникал: ведь перед тем как читать на английском, мы несколько раз читали эту книгу на русском языке. Я попросила выделить те слова, перевод которых она не знает и в произношении которых она сомневается.

THE GRAND TOUR OF THE GARDENS

You must see for yourselves that it will be difficult to follow our adventures unless you are familiar with the Kensington Gardens, as they now became known to David. They are in London, where the King lives, and you go to them every day unless you are looking decidedly flushed, but no one has ever been in the whole of the Gardens, because it is so soon time to turn back. The reason it is soon time to turn back is that you sleep from twelve to one. If your mother was not so sure that you sleep from twelve to one, you could most likely see the whole of them.

The Gardens are bounded on one side by a never-ending line of omnibuses, over which Irene has such authority that if she holds up her finger to any one of them it stops immediately. She then crosses with you in safety to the other side. There are more gates to the Gardens than one gate, but that is the one you go in at, and before you go in you speak to the lady with the balloons, who sits just outside. This is as near to being inside as she may venture, because, if she were to let go her hold of the railings for one moment, the balloons would lift her up, and she would be flown away. She sits very squat, for the balloons are always tugging at her, and the strain has given her quite a red face. Once she was a new one, because the old one had let go, and David was very sorry for the old one, but as she did let go, he wished he had been there to see.

The Gardens are a tremendous big place, with millions and hundreds of trees, and first you come to the Figs, but you scorn to loiter there, for the Figs is the resort of superior little persons, who are forbidden to mix with the commonalty, and is so named, according to legend, because they dress in full fig. These dainty ones are themselves contemptuously called Figs by David and other heroes, and you have a key to the manners and customs of this dandiacal section of the Gardens when I tell you that cricket is called crickets here. Occasionally a rebel Fig climbs over the fence into the world, and such a one was Miss Mabel Grey, of whom I shall tell you when we come to Miss Mabel Grey's gate. She was the only really celebrated Fig.

Это всего лишь небольшой отрывок, который Лера прочитала в первый день нашей тематической недели, всю историю можно прочитать здесь.

Больше всего Лере понравилось читать надписи к иллюстрациям:

The lady with the balloons, who sits just outside.
Old Mr. Salford was a crab-apple of an old gentleman who wandered all day in the Gardens.
When he heard Peter’s voice he popped in alarm behind a tulip.

Мне было интересно наблюдать, как Лера сравнивает две книги: английскую и русскую. Лера прочитала следующий отрывок из книги (мой любимый) на английском - и я попросила рассказать мне, что она поняла:

He went in a hurry in the end, because he had dreamt that his mother was crying, and he knew what was the great thing she cried for, and that a hug from her splendid Peter would quickly make her smile. Oh! he felt sure of it, and so eager was he to be nestling in her arms that this time he flew straight to the window, which was always to be open for him.

But the window was closed, and there were iron bars on it, and peering inside he saw his mother sleeping peacefully with her arm around another little boy.

Peter called, ‘Mother! mother!’ but she heard him not; in vain he beat his little limbs against the iron bars. He had to fly back, sobbing, to the Gardens, and he never saw his dear again. What a glorious boy he had meant to be to her! Ah, Peter! we who have made the great mistake, how differently we should all act at the second chance. But Solomon was right—there is no second chance, not for most of us. When we reach the window it is Lock-out Time. The iron bars are up for life.

А после мы перечитали этот же отрывок в русской книге.

В завершении нашей недели мы посмотрели биографический фильм о Джеймсе Барри «Волшебная страна». Фильм, конечно отличается от реальности, но для Леры это не имеет значения.

Несколько дней назад Сонечка подошла ко мне со словами: "А я не знаю что такое Кенсингтонский сад." - "Что такое Кенсингтонский сад? О, это удивительное место! Оно в Лондоне, где живет Король...." И Сонечка, заинтересованная, этим необычным названием внимательно слушала волшебную историю о маленьком мальчике, который не хотел взрослеть, и поселился в Кенсингтонском саду.