Commonly confused words

VOCABULARY

STARTING UP

Ex. 1. Look at these sayings. What do they mean? Which of the ideas do you agree with?

• The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of the past centuries.

René Descartes (1596 – 1650), French philosopher and mathematician

• Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few are to be chewed and digested.

Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626), English philosopher

• Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body

Richard Steele (1672 – 1729), British Dramatist

• Not all readers are leaders but all leaders are readers

Harry S. Truman (1884 – 1972), American President

Ex. 2. Which of the adjectives and expressions below would you use to describe an ideal scientific writing? Give reasons for your choice. What adjectives would you add?

stimulating highly readable widely applicable well structured

provocative succinct controversial argumentative

insightful challenging sophisticated competent

intended for a wide audience written in an accessible manner explaining cutting-edge developments provides much supporting material

Ex. 1. What do we actually mean when we say in Russian «актуальное исследование» or «актуальные задачи»? Look at the entry from Большой толковый словарь русского языка [1].

актуальный —ая, ое; лен, льна, льно. [лат. actualis]. Важный, существенный для настоящего момента; злободневный, насущный; современный. Актуальный вопрос. Актуальная задача, тема. Исследование, актуальное для экологии. Шекспировские пьесы актуальны и сегодня.

Can you translate the examples from the entry?

Ex. 2. Read and translate the sentences. Think about the ways of translating Russian «актуальный» into English.

1. This program was initiated to support high quality, independent and timely research on gender issues.

2. Our faculty members are involved in innovative, timely research projects that change the life of our society.

3. Improving Russian students’ knowledge base of environmental issues is as relevant as ever.

4. The book highlights challenging research issues in modern Russian history.

5. The most recent survey published by the US government has described youth drug abuse as an acute social problem.

6. Our Committee latest initiative is dedicated to urgent global environmental issues such as appropriate use of the Earth's natural resources and global warming.

7. District libraries regularly discard the books that lost their topicality.

Ex. 3. Study the definitions from Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English [2]. Complete the chart below with the best possible interpretations from the box. Each English word can match several Russian interpretations.

своевременный незамедлительный важный злободневный как таковой

острый, насущный (о проблеме) относящийся к делу/ к сегодняшнему дню трудный, но увлекательный фактически существующий, наличный актуальный для своего времени

срочный уместный подлинный серьезный сам

relevant	directly relating to the subject or problem being discussed or considered	уместный, относящийся к делу/ к сегодняшнему дню
acute	serious; quick to notice and understand things
timely	done or happening at exactly the right time
urgent	very important and needing to be dealt with immediately	важный, …
topical	being of interest at the present time or at a certain period of time	злободневный, ….
challenging	difficult in an interesting or enjoyable way
actual (only before noun)	used to emphasize that something is real or exact	подлинный, ….
the actual something	used to introduce the most important part of an event or activity.	как таковой, сам

Ex. 4. Use the definitions from ex. 3 to complete the sentences. Translate them into Russian. DON’T CONFUSE RUSSIAN актуальный WITH ENGLISH actual!

1. The fight ended only with the e.g. timely (своевременный) arrival of the police.
2. The …………………. (относящийся к делу) documents were presented in court.
3. We received all the ………………… (важный) information.
4. I am not joking. Those were his ……………… (подлинный) words.
5. Youth unemployment is one of the most ………. (острый) problems in the UN countries.
6. The report called for …………… (незамедлительный) action to reduce air pollution.
7. The threat posed by climate change is a global problem. It is a ……… (злободневный) issue which generates heated debates among governments and environmentalists.
8. Praised by Lenin as "a very ……… (своевременный) book", Gorkiy’s novel Mother described the beginning of the revolutionary movement in Russia.
9. New Literary Observer publishes ……….. (злободневный) issues from the many international and interdisciplinary projects which are undertaken in literary criticism and cultural studies.
10. There is currently no issue in Russia that is more ………. (насущный), and of greater importance, than that of climate change.
11. Shakespeare’s language was entirely appropriate and …………. (актуальный, соответствующий своему времени) to the day, however, today it is hard to be understood.
12. Why is an average student still studying Shakespeare today? Because his plays written four centuries ago are still ……………….. (актуальный, имеющий отношение к сегодняшнему дню)!
13. The show starts at 19 p.m. but the …………….. (сам) performance of our band doesn’t start until 20.30.
14. The origin of species remains one of the most …………………. (интересный, но трудноразрешимый) problems in biology.

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