Lesson 82 Reading
Read the passage to answer these questions:
1.Which foreign languages did Marx study?
2.What work did Marx do?
HOW MARX LEARNED FOREIGN LANGUAGES
Karl Marx was born in Germany, and German was his native language. When he was still a young man, he was forced to leave his homeland for political reasons. He stayed in Belgium for a few years; then he went to France. Before long he had to move on again.
In 1849,he went to England and made London the base for his revolutionary work.
Marx had learned some French and English at school.
When he got to England, he found that his English was too limited. He started working hard to improve it.
He made such rapid progress that before long he began to write articles in English for an American newspaper. In fact, his English in one of these articles was so good that Engels wrote him a letter and praised him for it. Marx wrote back to say that Engels' praise had greatly encouraged him. However he went on to explain that he was not too sure about two things the grammar and some of the idioms. These letters were written in 1853.
In the years that followed, Marx kept on studying English and using it. When he wrote one of his great words, The Civil War in France, he had mastered the language so well that he was able to write the book in English
In the 1870s,when Marx was already in his fifties, he found it important to study the situation in Russia, so he began to learn Russian. At the end of six months he had learned enough to read articles and reports in Russian. In one of his books, Marx gave some advice on how to learn a foreign language. He said when people are learning a foreign language, they should not translate everything into their own language.
If they do this, it shows they have not mastered it.
When they use the foreign language, they should try to forget all about their own.
If they cannot do this, they have not really learned the spirit of the foreign language and cannot use it freely.
Lesson 83 1.Reading
MORE INFORMATION ABOUT KARL MARX
Karl Marx was born on May 5th,1818 in Germany. He went to high school and then continued his studies at a university. He received his doctor's degree in April 1841. In 1842 Marx began writing articles for a newspaper. He wrote articles on many subjects. For example, he wrote about housing problems of the poor people and the hard life of the peasants. He started a new programme called "communism". This new kind of political idea was supported by the working people, but hated by many governments. He and his wife had to move form one country to another.
During the 1840s, Marx met Engels, another revolutionary writer, and they became close friends.
Together they wrote The Communist Manifesto.
It closed with words that quickly became famous:
"Working people of all countries, unite!"
