Maria Adolfovna Kolpakchi’s book “Friendly Encounters with the English Language” is simply unique and has no analogues. This small book, in simple Russian language, clearly and intelligibly sets out almost all the basics of the English language. Learning a language using this book becomes an easy and enjoyable experience; there is no feeling that something is incomprehensible or unclear. After I read and studied this book, I got the feeling that I know English!
Read and enjoy learning English!
I would like to bow deeply to the blessed memory of the Author of this Work!
Friendly meetings with English
PREFACE
WRITTEN WITH LOVE
Lev Uspensky Preface to the 2nd edition
Five years ago, I entitled my review of the first edition of M. A. Kolpakchi’s book “Friendly Encounters with the English Language” as follows: “An Unexpected Book.” The surprise was in the unusual structure and in the peculiar manner in which this “textbook” was written, rather reminiscent of a confidential conversation between the author and readers on topics related to language learning. All this was decidedly different from the literature of this genre that had caught my eye until then.
The second edition of "Friendly Encounters" can no longer be called "unexpected." Rather, the definition of “long-awaited” would have suited it: the success of the book was great, the reviews were excellent, the demand for it exceeded all expectations, and the circulation was not enough for even a small fraction of applicants. Judging the work of M. A. Kolpakchi, first of all, not from the position of a professional philologist, but from the point of view of a person who works a lot in the field of so-called entertaining linguistics, I believe that the best impression of it can be expressed by the words “Written with love” . I put them above this preface.
You can shrug your shoulders: every textbook should be written with love! Yes of course; but it is not always possible for the author to not only visibly express this love, but also to make it “infectious” and convey it to the reader.
Many years ago I first encountered such a visible expression of this feeling towards the subject being taught. My mathematics teacher, having drawn with chalk on the blackboard the course of the proof of one geometric theorem from A. Kiselev’s textbook, suddenly, moving away from the board, looked at the drawing with a warm, purely paternal smile. “Here... You see these little triangles... Like the wings of a bat!” he said tenderly. “It’s them that decide the matter.” No, I did not become a mathematician, but his attitude towards geometry was passed on to me. I loved solving “construction problems.” The beauty of her logic was revealed to me. And now I can prove that theorem without difficulty. This form of convincing and persuasive effective love for one’s subject is highly characteristic of the author of “Friendly Encounters.”
I admit that, flipping through the pages of this book for the first time and stumbling upon the words: “If... first there is a long description of one article, and then the second is told at just as much length, then both articles remain dead... There is no understanding of what each article wants... "(p. 16) - you may think that this is an artificial stylistic device, a not very necessary anthropomorphic metaphor. And after reading the statement: “It is absolutely necessary to become familiar with articles...”, you will probably also perceive it as a “manner of expression.”
You are mistaken: this is not a “technique” or a “manner”. This is exactly how the author feels about what he is doing and what he intends to tell you about. English grammar and the grammatical categories that make it up are perceived by him as a living world, like a stage on which tragic and comic plays are performed by peculiar characters - verbs, nouns, delightful pronouns, mysterious articles, and he wants to convey this direct feeling to you.
For example, the author talks about the “eases” (there are also “difficulties”) of the English language, and he has the right to such stylistic freedom, because the entire book is a free, lively, “heart to soul” interview about the language, and just This trusting “lightness” establishes a new type of direct and inverse connections between him and the readers - not the usual textbook type, but, say, “entertaining” or “fascinating-educational”, almost research-based:
"What a terrifying name: Future Perfect Continuous in the Past! But it’s worth consciously filling in 16 cells of the active voice several times in a row (we’re talking about a “lattice pattern.” - L.U.), and the most difficult form will begin to smile sweetly at you, you’ll see!”
Strange: you no longer feel shocked by this amazing humanization of verb tense. You felt that this was not a pretentious invention, not an author’s pose, but the real attitude of a person teaching English to its living, strange for those who do not speak it, and significant phenomena. He himself sees them this way and little by little, with his convinced love, he forces you to consider in the changes and combinations of words of unfamiliar speech that are still alien to you, something close, attractive, tempting...
“Looking back at what we have learned, I would like to think that the students saw in English verbs not a bunch of useless forms, but a living multi-membered family, consisting of expressive, active, very diverse characters. The author hopes for this, and, admittedly, the reader justifies him It was this, I would say, selfless love for the English language that allowed M. A. Kolpakchi to achieve in her teaching practice those extraordinary results that I already had the pleasure of reporting in the afterword to the first edition of Friendly Meetings.
The whole point is that for this author, the countless “tenses” and “voices” of the English verb, all syntactic constructions are not dry abstractions from dry grammar courses, but, as it were, living creatures, like the gnomes and elves from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” .
Here's an example: a voluminous chapter devoted not even to full-fledged meaningful words, but to just two articles - definite and indefinite, has the title: "Brothers-articles." Yes: the author explains to us (p. 77) that by calling articles “brothers,” he only means their ability to form a whole, as it were, into one whole, complementing and replacing each other.
But, unfortunately, when I reach this point, I involuntarily begin to think that M. A. Kolpakchi, with complete conviction, feels all the words and forms of English speech as his living wards, like Francis of Assisi, who addressed in his “Fioretti” then to “brother- fire", then to "sister water". She treats them with gratitude, surprise, and with the good intention of passing on these feelings to you, her student reader.
In my lifetime I have had to re-read many pedagogical works, in particular philological ones. I’ll say it straight: with almost only biologists (and this was explained by the fact that they deal with living nature), I happened to encounter approximately the same feeling of the warm love of the authors for the studied or “objects” - animals and plants. It is pleasant to observe this in linguistics, although it is sad that it appears here less often than we would like.
“Each article in any phrase, if given the floor, could utter a whole monologue, explaining exactly why it got there, what exactly it means... and how erroneous the phrase would sound if another article were in its place.”
No wizard would undertake to “give the floor to the article,” and so M. A. Kolpakchi, having taken the trouble to speak for these “brothers,” does this with enviable resourcefulness and grace.
In the promotion of scientific knowledge, a wide range of means is permissible, including the use of visualization for the sake of conventional images, if they help the audience through concrete ideas to arrive at complex abstractions. Once upon a time, J. Clerk Maxwell did not hesitate to introduce into his deepest physical and mathematical discussions a completely fantastic image of a tiny creature. He sat him at a damper dividing a certain “volume” in two and forced him to open and close it, letting gas molecules through or blocking the path. Such a fictional little man from a fairy tale, introduced into the very core, into the holy of holies of the strictest and most accurate theories, did he hinder the development of the thoughts of the great physicist or compromise them in the eyes of his colleagues? It didn’t happen at all: in the 30s I myself heard how one of the leading Soviet physicists once recalled with pleasure and respect the “demon Clerk Maxwell” and set the resourcefulness of the great scientist as an example to his students.
It seems that it is high time for the compilers of school textbooks to begin to seriously focus not on traditions dating back to the depths of time, but on the experience of recognized scientists, masters of popularization and scientific propaganda. After all, it is not without reason that words of condemnation have been repeatedly expressed in the press, caused by the depressing scholastic tongue-tiedness of many of our textbooks - alas, even those treating issues of language and literature...
Annotation
Maria Adolfovna Kolpakchi’s book “Friendly Encounters with the English Language” is simply unique and has no analogues. This small book, in simple Russian language, clearly and intelligibly sets out almost all the basics of the English language. Learning a language using this book becomes an easy and enjoyable experience; there is no feeling that something is incomprehensible or unclear. After I read and studied this book, I got the feeling that I know English!
Read and enjoy learning English!
I would like to bow deeply to the blessed memory of the Author of this Work!
P.S. The book, in the form of a friendly conversation with readers, sets out the most important sections of the structure of the English language in comparison with Russian. Previous editions (1971, 1975 and 1978) were met with great interest by a wide circle of readers and quickly sold out. The book is illustrated with drawings by the artist V. Galba. The preface was written by the writer L. Uspensky.
Despite the fact that the examples given may now cause surprise or a smile, the popularity and entertaining presentation make the book accessible to everyone who is studying or intends to study English, both at various levels of the education system (school, university, courses, clubs), and independently.
P.P.S. The book contains tables! Use the right readers.
PREFACE
WRITTEN WITH LOVE
BOOK WITH A “FULL SCHEDULE”
AT ENGLO-RUSSIAN CROSSROADS
IN A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE MAIN THINGS
HOW CAN THIS BOOK HELP?
FROM WORDS TO ACTION
GRAMMAR PARALLELS
B. WORD PLACES
SOMETHING ABOUT SYNTAX
NON-DECLINATIONAL NOUNS
THREE: TWO IN FAVOR OF PRONOUN
STRICT ORDER AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH
OFFENDER “INVERSION” AND INSANE CIRCUMSTANCES
MONTONITY IS NOT A HARM, OR IT CAN’T IMAGINE IT SIMPER
REVELATION TO THE READER FOR ATTENTION
VERB AT THE HEAD OF THE CORNER
THE IMMENSE IN THE EMBRACE OF SCHEMES
BRIEFLY ABOUT HOW THE SMALL ISLAND OF THE BRITS BECAME GREAT BRITAIN AND WHICH WINDS CAUGHT THE ANGLO-SAXON LANGUAGE TO VERY REMOTE COUNTRIES
PRONOUN IS THE MOST INTERESTING PART OF SPEECH
THE IMMODEST “I” AND THE MANY FACES OF “YOU”
PERSONALIZATION OF THE DISPERSONAL
LEARN TO CONTROL PRONOUNS
ANATOMY OF THE CONCEPT “OWN”
NOT “TOGETHER”, BUT “INstead of”
SAME IN FORM, DIFFERENT IN CONTENT
VENGUE SYNTAX
ARTICLE BROTHERS
THINGS OF GREAT IMPORTANCE
BY THE WILL OF ARTICLES
DIAGRAM ON ARTICLE SCALES
THOUGHT THROUGH THE PRISM OF THE ARTICLE
THERE ARE BAD JOKES WITH ARTICLES
EVIL MOON AND BLACK SKY
ABOUT EXCLUSIVE ADJECTIVES AND ARTICLES
A REFRIGERATOR AND KNOWLEDGE OF ARTICLES IN ADDITION
ARTICLES AND THE MOON
ARTICLES AT THE DOORS
THE INDEFINITE ARTICLE DISAPPEARS
AT THE START THE INDEFINITE ARTICLE
THE DETERMINATE ARTICLE TAKES THE BATTERON
ARTICLES IN INACTION
FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE
ARTICLES IN THE MONOLOGUE OF A PETTY CRIMINAL
TWENTY-SIX VERB FORMS AND ONE FROG
LEGS AND BACK OF THE FROG
VERB IN THE KALEIDOSCOPE OF TIME
THE “FROG” SCHEME TEACHES AND PLEASURES
VERB FAMILY IN FULL COMPOSITION
SIMPLE GRILLE
ABOUT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN ORDINARY ACTION AND AN ACTION OCCURRING AT A GIVEN MOMENT
VERB FORM - CHARNISHER
ABOUT “DURATION” AGAIN
LET'S TALK ABOUT THE FUTURE
"RUSH BOY"
PRE-PAST? WHAT IS THIS WONDERFUL?
THE FUTURE SUMMARIZED
ABOUT PAST DREAMS AND PLANS
THE LAST FLIGHT ON THE STAIRWAY OF TIME
PASSIVE VOICE HUGE PASSIVE POSSIBILITIES
THE FROG GAME CONTINUES
KEY TO THE "GRID"
NOTE INSTEAD OF CONCLUSION
QUESTION ABOUT HOW TO ASK QUESTIONS
QUESTION TO QUESTION DIFFERENCE
WHAT IS REQUIRED FROM YOU
ONE HAT FOR TWO
TRANSLATION OF EXAMPLES PLACED IN A LARGE “STEP” TABLE-DIAGRAM
METAMORPHOSIS OF THE SUBJECT
UNACCEPTABLE CONFUSION
BY WEIGHT AND BY PIECES
SETTY AND RESTLESS PREPOSITIONS
SPECIAL POWERS OF THE VERBS TO HAVE AND TO BE
ERROR-FREE DETERMINATION OF VERB FORM
ABSENCE BY EXCEPTION
WHAT IF THERE IS NO SUBJECT?
ANOTHER GOOD INVENTORY OF LANGUAGE
DELICATE TAILS
"DIAL" DIAGRAMS
HOW WE EXPRESS OUR THOUGHTS
WHAT AND HOW WE LOVE
AND STEP, AND RUNNING, AND IN THE CREW
AND HE “DOES” AND “HELPES” OTHERS (TO DO, DID, DONE)
TO “UNDERSTAND,” YOU NEED TO “SEE” AND “RECOGNIZE”
HOW TO EXPRESS YOUR DESIRE?
A SMALL WORD WITH BIG POWER - IT
BROAD PRONOUN WHAT
THE CAPABLE WORD THAT
INSANE WORD AS
ALL ABOUT EVERYTHING
BEFORE YOU “DECIDE”, YOU NEED TO THINK!
DON'T CONFUSE SHALL AND WILL
TAKE YOUR TIME TO TRANSLATE THE WORD “PLEASE” INTO ENGLISH
OUR OLD FRIEND ENGLISH HUMOR
TO A FRIEND STUDENT
PREFACE
WRITTEN WITH LOVE
Lev Uspensky Preface to the 2nd edition
Five years ago, I entitled my review of the first edition of M. A. Kolpakchi’s book “Friendly Encounters with the English Language” as follows: “An Unexpected Book.” The surprise was in the unusual structure and in the peculiar manner in which this “textbook” was written, rather reminiscent of a confidential conversation between the author and readers on topics related to language learning. All this was decidedly different from the literature of this genre that had caught my eye until then.
The second edition of Friendly Encounters can no longer be called “unexpected.” Rather, the definition of “long-awaited” would have suited it: the success of the book was great, the reviews were excellent, the demand for it exceeded all expectations, and the circulation was not enough for even a small fraction of applicants. Judging the work of M. A. Kolpakchi, first of all, not from the position of a professional philologist, but from the point of view of a person who works a lot in the field of so-called entertaining linguistics, I believe that the best impression of it can be expressed by the words “Written with love” . I put them above this preface.
You can shrug your shoulders: every textbook should be written with love! Yes of course; but it is not always possible for the author to not only visibly express this love, but also to make it “infectious” and convey it to the reader.
Many years ago I first encountered such a visible expression of this feeling towards the subject being taught. My mathematics teacher, having drawn with chalk on the blackboard the course of the proof of one geometric theorem from A. Kiselev’s textbook, suddenly, moving away from the board, looked at the drawing with a warm, purely paternal smile. “Here... You see these little triangles... Like the wings of a bat! - he said tenderly. “It’s them who decide the matter.” No, I did not become a mathematician, but his attitude towards geometry was passed on to me. I loved solving “construction problems.” The beauty of her logic was revealed to me. And now I can prove that theorem without difficulty. This form of convincing and convincing effective love for one’s subject is highly characteristic of the author of “Friendly Encounters.”
I admit that, flipping through the pages of this book for the first time and stumbling upon the words: “If... first there is a long description of one article, and then the second is told at just as much length, then both articles remain dead... There is no understanding of what each article wants... "(p. 16) - you may think that this is an artificial stylistic device, a not very necessary anthropomorphic metaphor. And after reading the statement: “It is absolutely necessary to become familiar with articles...”, you will probably perceive it also as a “manner of expression.”
You are mistaken: this is not a “technique” or a “manner”. This is exactly how the author feels about what he is doing and what he intends to tell you about. English grammar and the grammatical categories that make it up are perceived by him as a living world, like a stage on which tragic and comic plays are performed by peculiar characters - verbs, nouns, delightful pronouns, mysterious articles, and he wants to convey this direct feeling to you.
For example, the author talks about the “eases” (there are also “difficulties”) of the English language, and he has the right to such stylistic freedom, because the entire book is a free, lively, “heart to soul” interview about the language, and just This trusting “lightness” establishes a new type of direct and inverse connections between him and the readers - not the usual textbook type, but, say, “entertaining” or “fascinating-educational”, almost research-based:
“What a terrifying name: Future Perfect Continuous in the Past! But it’s worth consciously filling out 16 cells of the active voice several times in a row (we’re talking about a “lattice diagram.” - L.U.), and the most difficult form will begin to smile sweetly at you, you’ll see!”
Strange: you no longer feel shocked by this amazing humanization of verb tense. You felt that this was not a pretentious invention, not an author’s pose, but the real attitude of a person teaching English to its living, strange for those who do not speak it, and significant phenomena. He himself sees them this way and little by little, with his convinced love, he forces you to consider the changes and combinations...
Quick navigation back: Ctrl+←, forward Ctrl+→Book author:
24 Pages
6-7 Hours to read
84 thousand Total words
Book language:
City: Leningrad
The year of publishing:
Size: 3 MB
Report a violation
Description of the book
Maria Adolfovna Kolpakchi’s book “Friendly Encounters with the English Language” is simply unique and has no analogues. This small book, in simple Russian language, clearly and intelligibly sets out almost all the basics of the English language. Learning a language using this book becomes an easy and enjoyable experience; there is no feeling that something is incomprehensible or unclear. After I read and studied this book, I got the feeling that I know English!
Read and enjoy learning English!
I would like to bow deeply to the blessed memory of the Author of this Work!
P.S. The book, in the form of a friendly conversation with readers, sets out the most important sections of the structure of the English language in comparison with Russian. Previous editions (1971, 1975 and 1978) were met with great interest by a wide circle of readers and quickly sold out. The book is illustrated with drawings by the artist V. Galba. The preface was written by the writer L. Uspensky.
Despite the fact that the examples given may now cause surprise or a smile, the popularity and entertaining presentation make the book accessible to everyone who is studying or intends to study English, both at various levels of the education system (school, university, courses, clubs), and independently.
P.P.S. The book contains tables! Use the right readers.
Here you can download the book for free: Kolpakchi M. A. “Friendly meetings with the English language.”
Description: The text that attracts is the one that is close to the student’s political creed, close to his literary taste, appeals to his imagination, or evokes a sense of humor in him. The author of this book tried to encourage readers to return to the text, remember their favorite aphorisms or proverbs, and then reread some pages as if they were already familiar and pleasant. Mastering a language involves the ability to read not just words, but entire lines, phrases, and paragraphs. While a person reads, stopping before every word, even understanding the meaning of what he read, he is still far from knowing the language. But when the eyes run along the lines, sometimes bypassing an unfamiliar word, then everything is in order! What you have in your hands is not an ordinary manual in the full sense of the word. As a rule, textbooks provide comprehensive coverage of all grammatical phenomena of the language being studied, illustrated with examples from fiction or colloquial use. Meanwhile, the very title of this book suggests that, contrary to the traditional systematization of the material, it examines only the issues that cause the greatest difficulties. Experience has shown that for adult students, sections of English grammar relating to nouns, adjectives, numerals, conjunctions and adverbs do not present much difficulty. The chapters included here (with diagrams for them) - about pronouns, articles, the formation of tense forms of a verb, about the construction of interrogative sentences - I hope will help students overcome the barrier of shyness, which is necessary in order to speak a foreign language. You will find here a variety of literary material - short excerpts from the works of authors you know and love, whom you have read and continue to read. Meet the refined aphorisms of the world's masters of words, alternating with folk proverbs and sayings.
Year of issue: 1978
1975
Article brothers
Not ballast, but a signal
By the will of the articles
Thought through the prism of the article
Articles are no joke
Ominous moon and black sky
On mutually exclusive adjectives and articles
Refrigerator and knowledge of articles to boot
Articles and the moon
Articles at the door
The indefinite article disappears
At the start the indefinite article
The definite article takes over the baton
Articles in inaction
From theory to practice
Exit from the monologue of a petty swindler
The question of how to ask questions
Question to question - discord
What is required of you
One hat for two
Examples
Metamorphosis of the subject
Unacceptable confusion
By weight and by piece
Sedentary and restless prepositions
Verbs with privilege
Lost authority
Special powers
Times that don't change morals
Absence by exception
Rule without exceptions
Another successful invention of the language
Delicate tails
1978
At Anglo-Russian crossroads
The pronoun is the most interesting part of speech
Article brothers.
Twenty-six verb forms and one frog
The question of how to ask questions
"Dial" schemes
Some of the author's notebooks
Book size: 340Kb
<<<Скачать>>>
Commercial use of the book is prohibited! The book is taken from open sources on the Internet and is provided for informational purposes only. If you are the author of this book and do not want to see it on our website, write to us and we will immediately remove it from the site.
Friendly meetings with English
PREFACE
WRITTEN WITH LOVE
Lev Uspensky Preface to the 2nd edition
Five years ago, I entitled my review of the first edition of M. A. Kolpakchi’s book “Friendly Encounters with the English Language” as follows: “An Unexpected Book.” The surprise was in the unusual structure and in the peculiar manner in which this “textbook” was written, rather reminiscent of a confidential conversation between the author and readers on topics related to language learning. All this was decidedly different from the literature of this genre that had caught my eye until then.
The second edition of Friendly Encounters can no longer be called “unexpected.” Rather, the definition of “long-awaited” would have suited it: the success of the book was great, the reviews were excellent, the demand for it exceeded all expectations, and the circulation was not enough for even a small fraction of applicants. Judging the work of M. A. Kolpakchi, first of all, not from the position of a professional philologist, but from the point of view of a person who works a lot in the field of so-called entertaining linguistics, I believe that the best impression of it can be expressed by the words “Written with love” . I put them above this preface.
You can shrug your shoulders: every textbook should be written with love! Yes of course; but it is not always possible for the author to not only visibly express this love, but also to make it “infectious” and convey it to the reader.
Many years ago I first encountered such a visible expression of this feeling towards the subject being taught. My mathematics teacher, having drawn with chalk on the blackboard the course of the proof of one geometric theorem from A. Kiselev’s textbook, suddenly, moving away from the board, looked at the drawing with a warm, purely paternal smile. “Here... You see these little triangles... Like the wings of a bat! - he said tenderly. “It’s them who decide the matter.” No, I did not become a mathematician, but his attitude towards geometry was passed on to me. I loved solving “construction problems.” The beauty of her logic was revealed to me. And now I can prove that theorem without difficulty. This form of convincing and convincing effective love for one’s subject is highly characteristic of the author of “Friendly Encounters.”
I admit that, flipping through the pages of this book for the first time and stumbling upon the words: “If... first there is a long description of one article, and then the second is told at just as much length, then both articles remain dead... There is no understanding of what each article wants... "(p. 16) - you may think that this is an artificial stylistic device, a not very necessary anthropomorphic metaphor. And after reading the statement: “It is absolutely necessary to become familiar with articles...”, you will probably perceive it also as a “manner of expression.”
You are mistaken: this is not a “technique” or a “manner”. This is exactly how the author feels about what he is doing and what he intends to tell you about. English grammar and the grammatical categories that make it up are perceived by him as a living world, like a stage on which tragic and comic plays are performed by peculiar characters - verbs, nouns, delightful pronouns, mysterious articles, and he wants to convey this direct feeling to you.
For example, the author talks about the “eases” (there are also “difficulties”) of the English language, and he has the right to such stylistic freedom, because the entire book is a free, lively, “heart to soul” interview about the language, and just This trusting “lightness” establishes a new type of direct and inverse connections between him and the readers - not the usual textbook type, but, say, “entertaining” or “fascinating-educational”, almost research-based:
“What a terrifying name: Future Perfect Continuous in the Past! But it’s worth consciously filling out 16 cells of the active voice several times in a row (we’re talking about a “lattice diagram.” - L.U.), and the most difficult form will begin to smile sweetly at you, you’ll see!”
Strange: you no longer feel shocked by this amazing humanization of verb tense. You felt that this was not a pretentious invention, not an author’s pose, but the real attitude of a person teaching English to its living, strange for those who do not speak it, and significant phenomena. He himself sees them this way and little by little, with his convinced love, he forces you to consider in the changes and combinations of words of unfamiliar speech that are still alien to you, something close, attractive, tempting...
“Looking back at what we have learned, I would like to think that the students saw in English verbs not a bunch of useless forms, but a living multi-membered family, consisting of expressive, active, very diverse characters. The author hopes so, and, admittedly, the reader justifies his hopes. It was this, I would say, selfless love for the English language that allowed M. A. Kolpakchi to achieve in her teaching practice those extraordinary results that I already had the pleasure of reporting in the afterword to the first edition of Friendly Encounters.
The whole point is that for this author, the countless “tenses” and “voices” of the English verb, all syntactic constructions are not dry abstractions from dry grammar courses, but, as it were, living creatures, like the gnomes and elves from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” .
Here is an example: a voluminous chapter, dedicated not even to full-fledged meaningful words, but to just two articles - definite and indefinite, has the title: “Brothers-articles”. Yes: the author explains to us (p. 77) that by calling articles “brothers”, he only means their ability to form together, as it were, one whole, complementing and replacing each other.
But, unfortunately, when I reach this point, I involuntarily begin to think that M. A. Kolpakchi, with complete conviction, feels all the words and forms of English speech as his living wards, like Francis of Assisi, who addressed in his “Fioretti” then to “brother- fire”, then to “sister water”. She treats them with gratitude, surprise, and with the good intention of passing on these feelings to you, her student reader.
In my lifetime I have had to re-read many pedagogical works, in particular philological ones. I’ll say it straight: with almost only biologists (and this was explained by the fact that they deal with living nature), I happened to encounter approximately the same feeling of the warm love of the authors for the studied or “objects” - animals and plants. It is pleasant to observe this in linguistics, although it is sad that it appears here less often than we would like.
“Each article in any phrase, if given the floor, could utter a whole monologue, explaining exactly why it got there, what exactly it means... and how erroneous the phrase would sound if another article were in its place.”
No wizard would undertake to “give the floor to the article,” and so M. A. Kolpakchi, having taken the trouble to speak for these “brothers,” does this with enviable resourcefulness and grace.
In the promotion of scientific knowledge, a wide range of means is permissible, including the use of visualization for the sake of conventional images, if they help the audience through concrete ideas to arrive at complex abstractions. Once upon a time, J. Clerk Maxwell did not hesitate to introduce into his deepest physical and mathematical discussions a completely fantastic image of a tiny creature. He sat him at a damper dividing a certain “volume” in two and forced him to open and close it, letting gas molecules through or blocking the path. Such a fictional little man from a fairy tale, introduced into the very core, into the holy of holies of the strictest and most accurate theories, did he hinder the development of the thoughts of the great physicist or compromise them in the eyes of his colleagues? It didn’t happen at all: in the 30s I myself heard how one of the leading Soviet physicists once recalled with pleasure and respect the “demon Clerk Maxwell” and set the resourcefulness of the great scientist as an example to his students.