GONE WITH THE WIND

(Унесённые ветром)

Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949)

(Маргарет Митчел (1900-1949))

PART ONE

(ЧАСТЬ ПЕРВАЯ)

CHAPTER I

(Глава I)

Scarlett O’Hara (Скарлетт О’Хара) was not beautiful (не была красивой; to be – быть), but men (однако мужчины; man – мужчина) seldom realized it (редко осознавали это) when caught by her charm (будучи очарованными ею: «когда были пойманы её шармом/обаянием») as the Tarleton twins were (как например близнецы Тарлетон: «как были близнецы Тарлетон»). In her face were too sharply blended (в её лице были причудливо смешаны; sharply – резко) the delicate features of her mother (деликатные черты её матери), a Coast aristocrat of French descent (местной аристократки французского происхождения; coast – берег), and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father (и грубые черты её напыщенного отца – ирландца; heavy – тяжелый; florid – красный; цветистый). But it was an arresting face (однако это было захватывающее лицо), pointed of chin (/с/ заостренным подбородком), square of jaw (/и/ пухлыми щеками; square – квадратный; площадь).

Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw.

Her eyes were pale green without a touch of hazel (её глаза были бледно-зелёные без намека на карий цвет;touch – касание), starred with bristly black lashes (в оправе выраженных темных ресниц; star – усеивать; украшать звёздами; bristly – колючий; жесткий) and slightly tilted at the ends (и /с/ немного наклонными уголками; end – конец). Above them (с верху них), her thick black brows slanted upward (ее густые черные брови поднимались вверх; slant – наклоняться), cutting a startling oblique line in her magnolia-white skin (/и/ образовывали поразительную косую линию на ее белой, как лепесток магнолии, коже; cut – резать) – that skin so prized by Southern women (той коже, которую ценят женщины с Юга; woman – женщина) and so carefully guarded with bonnets, veils and mittens against hot Georgia suns (и так бережно прикрывают дамскими шляпами, вуалями и митенками от жаркого солнца Джорджии).

Her eyes were pale green without a touch of hazel, starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted at the ends. Above them, her thick black brows slanted upward, cutting a startling oblique line in her magnolia-white skin – that skin so prized by Southern women and so carefully guarded with bonnets, veils and mittens against hot Georgia suns.

Seated with Stuart and Brent Tarleton in the cool shade of the porch of Tara (сидя с Стюартом и Брентом Тарлетон в прохладном тенечке /на/ крыльце Тары), her father’s plantation that bright April afternoon of 1861(плантации ее отца, того благоприятного апрельского вечера в 1861 /году/; bright – яркий), she made a pretty picture (она была словно из прекрасной картины: «она делала красивую картину»). Her new green flowered-muslin dress (её новое зелёное платье в цветочек, сделанное из муслина) spread its twelve yards of billowing material over her hoops (расстилало свои двенадцать ярдов воздушного материала на ее обручи; spread –распространять; billowing – тот, который вздымается) and exactly matched the flat-heeled green morocco slippers (и точно подходило к зеленым сафьяновым туфлям с плоской подошвой) her father had recently brought her from Atlanta (которые её отец недавно привез ей с Атланты).

Seated with Stuart and Brent Tarleton in the cool shade of the porch of Tara, her father’s plantation, that bright April afternoon of 1861, she made a pretty picture. Her new green flowered-muslin dress spread its twelve yards of billowing material over her hoops and exactly matched the flat-heeled green morocco slippers her father had recently brought her from Atlanta.

The dress set off to perfection the seventeen-inch waist (платье идеально прилегает к семнадцати дюймовой талии; set off – отправлять; выделять), the smallest in three counties (самой тонкой в трех графствах), and the tightly fitting basque showed breasts well matured for her sixteen years (и плотно сидящая баска выделяла бюст, /который/ отлично сформировался для шестнадцати лет; show – показывать; mature – зрелый, развитый). But for all the modesty of her spreading skirts (но несмотря на приличность ее расправленной юбки), the demureness of hair netted smoothly into a chignon (скромность ее волос, собранные гладко в пучок; net – ловить сетями; плести) and the quietness of small white hands folded in her lap (и спокойствие ее маленьких ручек, сложенных на коленях), her true self was poorly concealed (её истинная сущность была плохо скрыта).

The dress set off to perfection the seventeen-inch waist, the smallest in three counties, and the tightly fitting basque showed breasts well matured for her sixteen years. But for all the modesty of her spreading skirts, the demureness of hair netted smoothly into a chignon and the quietness of small white hands folded in her lap, her true self was poorly concealed.

The green eyes in the carefully sweet face were turbulent, willful, lusty with life, (зелёные глаза её заботливого милого личика были беспокойными, своенравными, полные жизни; carefully – аккуратно; lusty – крепкий) distinctly at variance with her decorous demeanor (в явной дисгармонии с её приличным поведением; at variance – в противоречии с чем-то). Her manners had been imposed upon her by her mother’s gentle admonitions (её манеры ей навязали благородные наставления ее матери; gentle – нежный) and the sterner discipline of her mammy (и суровая дисциплина её матушки); her eyes were her own (глаза у нее были от природы: «глаза у нее были свои»).

The green eyes in the carefully sweet face were turbulent, willful, lusty with life, distinctly at variance with her decorous demeanor. Her manners had been imposed upon her by her mother’s gentle admonitions and the sterner discipline of her mammy; her eyes were her own.

On either side of her, the twins lounged easily in their chairs (по обе стороны от нее, близнецы небрежно развалились в своих креслах; easily – легко), squinting at the sunlight through tall mint-garnished glasses as they laughed and talked (искоса глядели на солнечный свет сквозь высокие, украшенные лепным орнаментом стекла, смеясь и говоря /друг с другом/), their long legs, booted to the knee and thick with saddle muscles, crossed negligently (их долгие ноги, обутые по колена и толстые с мускулами, /как у/ наездников, были небрежно скрещены).

On either side of her, the twins lounged easily in their chairs, squinting at the sunlight through tall mint-garnished glasses as they laughed and talked, their long legs, booted to the knee and thick with saddle muscles, crossed negligently.

Nineteen years old, six feet two inches tall, long of bone and hard of muscle, with sunburned faces and deep auburn hair (девятнадцатилетние, шесть футов два дюйма в высоту, высокие и мускулистые, с загорелыми лицами и темно-рыжими волосами; bone – кость; deep – глубокий), their eyes merry and arrogant, their bodies clothed in identical blue coats and mustard-colored breeches (их глаза /были/ веселыми и надменными, они были одеты в одинаковые синие куртки и горчичного цвета бриджи; body – тело), they were as much alike as two bolls of cotton (они были очень похожи /друг на друга/, как две коробочки хлопка). Outside, the late afternoon sun slanted down in the yard (снаружи, позднее вечернее солнце /уходило/ на закат во дворе), throwing into gleaming brightness the dogwood trees that were solid masses of white blossoms against the background of new green (бросая мерцающий свет на кизиловые деревья, что были /словно/ сплошная масса белых цветов на фоне молодой зелени).

Nineteen years old, six feet two inches tall, long of bone and hard of muscle, with sunburned faces and deep auburn hair, their eyes merry and arrogant, their bodies clothed in identical blue coats and mustard-colored breeches, they were as much alike as two bolls of cotton. Outside, the late afternoon sun slanted down in the yard, throwing into gleaming brightness the dogwood trees that were solid masses of white blossoms against the background of new green.

The twins’ horses were hitched in the driveway, big animals, red as their masters’ hair (лошади близнецов были привязаны на дороге, большие животные, рыжие, прям как волосы хозяев; red – красный); and around the horses’ legs quarreled the pack of lean, nervous possum hounds that accompanied Stuart and Brent wherever they went (а вокруг ног лошадей переругивались свора худощавых, нервных гончих, которые сопровождали Стюарта и Брента куда бы они не шли). A little aloof, as became an aristocrat, lay a black-spotted carriage dog (немного в сторонке, как подобает аристократам, лежит пятнистый долматский дог; become – случаться), muzzle on paws, patiently waiting for the boys to go home to supper, (/опустив/ морду на лапы, терпеливо ждал когда молодые люди пойдут домой ужинать; boy – мальчик).

The twins’ horses were hitched in the driveway, big animals, red as their masters’ hair; and around the horses’ legs quarreled the pack of lean, nervous possum hounds that accompanied Stuart and Brent wherever they went. A little aloof, as became an aristocrat, lay a black-spotted carriage dog, muzzle on paws, patiently waiting for the boys to go home to supper.

Between the hounds and the horses and the twins there was a kinship deeper than that of their constant companionship (между гончими и лошадями и близнецами была более крепкая близость, чем /просто/ постоянное товарищество). They were all healthy, thoughtless young animals, sleek, graceful, high-spirited (они все были здоровые, беспечные молодые животные, ухоженные, изящные, отважные; sleek – гладкий), the boys as mettlesome as the horses they rode, mettlesome and dangerous but, withal, sweet-tempered to those who knew how to handle them (/а/ молодые люди такие же пылкие, как и лошади на которых они ездили, пылкие и опасные, но, вдобавок, с приятным характером для тех, кто знал как с ними обращаться).

Between the hounds and the horses and the twins there was a kinship deeper than that of their constant companionship. They were all healthy, thoughtless young animals, sleek, graceful, high-spirited, the boys as mettlesome as the horses they rode, mettlesome and dangerous but, withal, sweet-tempered to those who knew how to handle them.

(Or at Least Dramatically Improve Your Accent)

When I was traveling in Ukraine,  I met a man who I thought was an American when I first talked to him.

He spoke perfect English and his accent was perfect, too. He had a huge vocabulary and could understand complex, fast speech with ease. I really thought he was an American with a good university education. But he wasn’t.

He was a Ukrainian who had never traveled outside of Ukraine. So, how had he learned to speak with a perfect American accent?

He had listened to National Public Radio (NPR) and read the transcripts at the same time. When he didn’t know what something meant, he would sometimes look up a few words, but, most of the time, he would just guess. After time, his guesses got better until, eventually, he was understanding everything.

He spent an hour every day listening to NPR and reading the transcripts and, every day, his vocabulary got bigger. Note that this needs to be active listening and reading while trying to understand as much as you can. Simply having NPR on in the background can’t hurt, but it won’t help you as much.

Listening to NPR hosts will drastically help improve your American accent.

Why You Should Copy NPR’s Professional Broadcasters

The people who read and report the news at NPR were hired for those jobs because they have the nicest voices of anyone in the United States. Plus, they are smart, well-educated, and very well spoken. They are the perfect voices to copy rather than some random teacher you may have.

You should copy the voice of an NPR host who is the same sex as you are and who has roughly the same range of voice as you do. If you’re a man with a deep voice, you should listen to an NPR host with a deep, bass voice. If you are a man with a higher pitched voice, listen to one of their hosts with a tenor, higher pitched voice. If you are a woman with a lower pitched voice, listen to a woman with an alto, lower pitched voice. If you are a woman with a higher pitched voice then, yes, you should listen to a NPR female hosts with a higher, soprano voice.

Where to Find NPR Stories With Transcripts.

If you just go to the main NPR site, NPR.org, it will be very difficult to find shows with transcripts. The reason for this is that the transcripts are accurately and carefully done by hand, not automatically generated. It takes about a week for them to get them posted online.

The most popular show on NPR is a morning news show called Morning Edition. You should to go to the Morning Edition archives and pick any show from a month in the past. Then, look to the right for alternating long and short bars, which indicates it has a transcript.

I don’t know if the transcripts will display on phones or not. I wasn’t able to find the transcripts on my phone so, if you are looking at Morning Edition shows that are over 10 days old on your phone and you can’t find the transcripts, switch to a laptop.

Once you have found shows that have transcripts (not all NPR shows have transcripts), you can listen and read along at the same time. Your accent will get slightly better every day.

Download the NPR News App

Listen to these professional voices as much as you can. While, in my experience, listening without reading is much less effective than listening while reading, it still is worth just listening if you are paying attention.

Listen to these perfect voices as much as you can.

Install a Plugin for One Click Translation

If you don’t already have one you like installed, install a plugin like Transover for Chrome that lets you instantly translate any word from English into your native language.

Fast Vocabulary Growth

This is also a surprisingly fast way to learn new words. I find that when I am studying Spanish, my comprehension goes way up when I both listen and read at the same time.

 Check Your Vocabulary Size Before You Start Studying This Way

Most people have no idea how many words they know in English (or any other language for that matter). Until recently, there has been no easy way to know or even estimate how many words you know.

Fortunately, some smart people figured out how to make a three minute test that will tell you how many words you know in English. It’s based on a word frequency list.

You simply mark all the words you know on two short pages, press the button and get an instant, reasonably accurate estimate of how many words you know.

After you have clicked or tapped on all the words you know, you can either answer some research questions to help the people out who made the site, or skip them for a faster answer.

The site is called Testyourvocab.com. I recommend testing your vocabulary size now and then again after you have been studying with this method for a month.

Use this Old KGB Spy Trick to Reduce Your Accent

Lots of listening to perfect accents is definitely necessary if you want to have a perfect accent. For some people, simply listening to a lot of perfect speech and trying to copy it will be enough to perfectly correct their accents.

Other people will have to work harder at correcting their accents.

The big problem with reducing any foreign, regional, or ethnic accent is that you don’t really sound the way you think you sound. It’s also very common to be unable to hear and perceive the difference between what you are actually saying and what you should be saying.

I met a Russian man who told me that the KGB used to train spies to have perfect American accents by using multi track audio recordings.

What is Multi Track Audio Recording?

If you aren’t familiar with multi track audio recording, you should know that this is how all professional music recordings are made. If you are making a song that has a singer, drums, and an electric guitar, you will put the singer, drums, and electric guitar all on separate tracks.

This lets the person who is producing the song adjust the volume of each instrument separately to get the perfect overall sound that he is trying to get.

There are lots of good multi track audio recording programs, but the one that I like and use is called Audacity – and it’s free. So to reduce your accent even further, install Audacity.

Using Multi Track Audio Recording to Reduce Your Accent

Recording yourself over a recording of an NPR host allows you to listen and compare your accent.

Now that you have Audacity installed, go back to NPR and find either the perfect man’s voice or the perfect woman’s voice that matches the natural pitch of your voice as closely as possible.

We have posted four perfect samples of different range voices below for you to listen and download.

You can also download a clip from NPR (they make this easy) and then import it into Audacity as your first track. Use the editing features of audacity to trim off and throw away everything but about 15 seconds of the perfect voice.

Now, play this 15 second clip over and over again, trying to say exactly what the NPR host says in exactly the same way. Try to copy everything about the voice that you can.

After you have done this several times, put on your headphones and listen to the NPR host say this phrase, while you record yourself saying the same phrase.

Then, go back and turn off the NPR host and listen to how you said the phrase. Once you’ve done all this, delete the first recording you made, go back through the steps, and try to get it better.

Samples of Perfect Voices from NPR

Here are some short samples that you can use from NPR with the perfect voices:

Alica Chang (Alto voice) Download

Here’s the transcription for the audio clip below:

In 1993, journalist Alex Wagner, then a teenager, saw something familiar on the cover of Time magazine – a computer generated picture of a multiethnic woman who kind of looked like her. Wagner’s father was white. He was from the Midwest. Her mother is from Burma. And after reading that Time magazine story on the new face of America, Wagner decided to embrace her identity as a so-called futureface.

Selena Simmons-Duffin (Soprano voice) Download

Here’s the transcription for the audio clip below:

Tricia Morrow is a global safety engineer at General Motors. She says their first approach was to use sensors that could detect a child or pet left in the back seat, but they just didn’t work very well. So they went back to basics.

David Greene (Bass voice) Download

Here’s the transcription for the audio clip below:

Let’s learn about the guy who was on the other end of that phone call, the call where President Trump asked for a favor, a favor from the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. If there were ever a person stuck in a place he never wanted to be, it’s him.

Greg Myre (Tenor voice) Download

Here’s the transcription for the audio clip below:

Well, he’s being described as someone who provided a wealth of inside information to the CIA for many years. And this includes details on how President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. Now, CNN reported this story first. The New York Times has followed with some additional details. A key one – it says the CIA initially wanted to pull the spy out in late 2016, but the spy refused – wanted to stay in Russia at that point. Then the CIA pressed him again in 2017, and he agreed to leave with his family.

Want to Learn a Perfect British Accent?

If you want a perfect British accent, you need to do the same basic thing, but instead of listening to NPR you want to listen to BBC programs with transcripts. It’s important to note that you should listen to BBC news and educational programs where the hosts of the show will be using perfect educated accents.

The BBC carries a lot of shows where the actors are using strong regional accents. These are always considered low class and while you need to learn to understand the, you shouldn’t copy them.

So here’s a link to the list of BBC shows that have transcripts. They don’t really make this easy to find, but if you look around, you can figure out how to both listen to a show you like and read the accurate transcript at the same time.

The BBC has a lot of materials that they publish that are specifically for the purpose of learning English. I’m not a big fan of their programs, but I do think there is a lot of value in listening and reading at the same time.

What Russians Should Do to Improve Their Accents

Languages vary a lot in terms of how much you open your mouth to speak them well. In Spanish, you have your mouth wide open, in English you have your mouth about half open, and in Russian you have your mouth mostly closed.

Russian speakers can often make a big improvement in their accents by simply opening their mouth more. You can do this in seconds and the result is often a big improvement.

What Spanish Speakers Should Do to Improve Their Accents

Spanish speakers need to close their mouth about half way to significantly improve their accent in English. They should also relax their mouth more on words that end in either “O” or “A” and not pronounce these vowels so clearly.

Close Videos of Faces Speaking English Can Help

When you learn to do with your lips, mouth, and tongue what native speakers of English are doing with their lips, mouth, and tongue, you will sound like a native speaker. Unfortunately, NPR does not publish close up videos of their broadcasters speaking English, but there are some videos that may help you a lot.

If you are trying to learn a British English accent, then obviously you will use samples from the BBC instead of NPR.

A Live Coach Can Help a Lot

If you are listening to NPR every day and recording your voice while trying to match the professional voice, you will make progress with your accent and with your overall proficiency with English.

But, like learning to play a new sport, having a coach can really help. If you can work with someone either in person or with a good video connection, the advice they give you can dramatically (and sometimes very quickly) improve your accent.

Your Mouth Should Get Sore

As you learn to speak English with a perfect American accent, you will be using some muscles that you haven’t used since you were a baby. This will make them sore. This is normal and a very good thing. If your mouth doesn’t get sore the first few times you try this, then you may not be doing it right.

This Works for Regional and Ethnic Accents, Too

These techniques will also help people who are trying to get rid of a strong regional or ethnic accent. If you have a very strong, southern accent and you don’t want to talk that way any more, this will work. If you have a strong, black accent and you want to sound more like a professional, educated broadcaster, you can use these techniques to learn the accent that you want to learn.

Here’s a Video from an Accent Reduction Coach

The key points below begin at 3:45