Exploring English: Shakespeare @ British Council

Just finished a mooc course by British Council about Shakespeare.

It was a nice and simple course made for foreigners.

Clear pronunciation, simple phrases, slow pace — good for children and English learners.

I wish I had this course in my youth and not only for Shakespeare but mostly for those guys who tortured me by verbiage (Tolstoi, Dostoevski and so on).

In my point of view: be concise and deliver idea clearly demands more talents from writer than spend hundreds pages to describe how forest looked at that morning when hero woke up, but lumberjacks and book publishers must have another opinion.

I've found many new idioms from this course, and also I refreshed in my memory the plots of those stories.

I like the way how course authors show us stories in short animated movies.

They also encouraged me to watch a lot of movies build on these stories.

I liked some "Macbeth" adaptation, it nicely show us how universal are these plots.
It may be about medieval warrior or about modern chef on kitchen, the stories are common.

Moreover in course was a line about some cultural aspects, for instance: how people from Africa thinks about Hamlet ?



Quizzes are nicely done too:

Unintended pun about vacation

Recently I attended the group class for English learners

It was a conversational class where we had casual discussion regarding Traveling

When my turn arrived, I said that I am not a traveler at all, but in Russia we have a tradition: we try to visit sea with children each summer.

My group kept silence for awhile, and then someone asked me:
-  Sea, are you sure?

I was surprised by the question,  but answered:

- Yep, I am sure

And got a new question:

- Is it safe for children?

I answered:

- Yes, if you look after them, it is safe!

The topic was changed, but I was thinking some time about these strange questions.

After I got a message in the text chat:

- Syria?

And the riddle was solved.

In a way I pronounced "sea" close to "Syria".


A good reason to pay more attention to my pronunciation!