British National Corpus

Follow the link below to have a look at the British National Corpus, which gives you access to an enormous body of information about the usage of English words and their combinations

http://sara.natcorp.ox.ac.uk

Once there, click on the following link at the bottom of the page

http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/tools/

and then choose the menu option Home, which will take you to the site's Home page, which contains a search box you can enter a word or expression in to receive a list of examples of this word or expression in context. Each entry is preceded by a code which indicates the original source in which the given phrase or sentence was used.

It'd be great if you had a look at it and left your comments about it in this thread.

How Does American Culture Have Influence on Me?

Nowadays The United States of America plays a great role on the world arena, it has influence on not only political, economical, but and cultural live of other countries. The USA is the biggest producer of different media and entertainment sources such as music, movies, TV-programs, books, etc.
There are a large number of different American comedies (such as ‘American Pie’) and boosters on European cinemas, but most of them are very stupid and do not bring any useful information, or one can watch on the screen only cruelty and violence, which damage human’s nervous system and bring harmful effect on children’s acculturation. There is no doubt, that some films are really good (‘Pretty Woman’, ‘Pearl Harbor’), but their number is very small.
Let’s come back several centuries ago, and we see that the United States has very young historic and cultural heritage. Especially, American culture was based on cultural features of other countries- conquerors, some features penetrated through the American culture from English, French, Spanish ones. Some customs and cultural streams were borrowed and became the origin of the particular in the American life. Especially, one can say that the musical stream Jazz is such peculiarity. To my mind the Jazz is one of the greatest musical art form in the world, which originated in the beginning of the 20th century in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions. It was absolute new music form of art. There were a large number of key figures in developing the "big" jazz band included bandleaders and arrangers Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Benny Goodman, Fletcher Henderson, and others. The period from 1920 to 1933 was famous as "Jazz Age" in America. Certainly, it brought new stream of music, songs, but ‘Jazz Age’ also was famous for alcoholic drinks, iniquity and immoral behavior of people.
It is very difficult to give valid mark to any culture, but sometimes I think people can’t find the right features of American one, because the last one does not have a great base which has formed during the long centuries.

How does Europea culture influence on me?

It's true to say that nowadays Europen culture has a great influence on young generation, because European pop-music, films, cartoons and computer games are wide spread in our country. Different people have different attitude to it. Some people think that it has only negative features and vice-versa.
I don't think that it brings only bad thinks. I'm fond of European films and I like European pop-music. One of my favourite European pop-singer is Madonna. I think that she is a good example of the person who can be named as a self-made person. Also Madonna is a very hardworking and purposeful. In my oppinion it's not bad to have such real-world example!
Moreover, there are a lot of good historical films, which was produced in Europe. One of them is "Brave heart". I like to watch it and it helps me to relax. A lso it's very interesting to watch European films in English. It's useful for my level of English.
But at the same time some European films and games are rathe violent. And children may start to think that such behaviour is normal. But the same we can say about Russian films and games.
I think that the main problem is that today we prefer west culture and we forget about our own/

How does west culture influence us?

In my opinion western culture and especially America's influence us very much. It is difficult to say exactly if influence good or bad. In Russia many people consider that the West brings more bad things than good and that because there are a lot of foreign films, songs, singers and actors, Russians, especially youth, prefer these goods and forget about same things created in our country. Yes, Hollywood's films are very popular now all around the world, they interesting that's why people watch them. I like some of them as well. And of course I should mention food. Fast food is famous nowadays and it is delicious but not healthy. People in most cases think firstly about taste not about profit. I think that west culture renders good influence because it makes variety to Russian's life.

How does American culture influence on me?

The most obvious point of influence for me expresses in watching Hollywood films. I fond of watching all kinds of films and that’s why I’ve watched a great number of them. In my opinion, characteristic features of American movies are: fascinating plot, participation of many celebrities, closeness to human values and therefore understanding them by people of almost all ages. Watching movies helps me to relax, have fun and simply spend time pleasantly. The second thing is American modern music. I love to listen to many singers and bands because I find them original and talented. Moreover while I listen to songs I try to translate and understand their meaning that improve my English. And the third point is American food- so called fast food. Many people consider it like junk food but it really helps me in situations when I don’t have enough time to cook thereby eating such kind of food saves my time. But in spite of definite harm I find it delicious.

Lyrics

ПАРОДИЯ НА ПЛОХОЙ ДЕТЕКТИВ

Опасаясь контрразведки, избегая жизни светской,
Под английским псевдонимом "мистер Джон Ланкастер Пек",
Вечно в кожаных перчатках - чтоб не делать отпечатков,-
Жил в гостинице "Советской" несоветский человек.

Джон Ланкастер в одиночку, преимущественно ночью,
Чем-то щелкал, в чем был спрятан инфракрасный объектив, -
А потом в нормальном свете представало в черном цвете
То, что ценим мы и любим, чем гордится коллектив.

Клуб на улице Нагорной стал общественной уборной,
Наш родной Центральный рынок стал похож на грязный склад.
Искаженный микропленкой, ГУМ стал маленькой избенкой,
И уж вспомнить неприлично, чем предстал театр МХАТ.

Но работать без подручных - может, грустно, может - скучно.
Враг подумал, враг был дока, - написал фиктивный чек.
И где-то в дебрях ресторана гражданина Епифана
Сбил с пути и с панталыку несоветский человек.

Епифан казался жадным, хитрым, умным, плотоядным,
Меры в женщинах и в пиве он не знал и не хотел.
В общем, так: подручный Джона был находкой для шпиона.
Так случиться может с каждым, если пьян и мягкотел.

- Вот и первое заданье: в три пятнадцать, возле бани,
Может, раньше, может, позже - остановится такси.
Надо сесть, связать шофера, разыграть простого вора,
А потом про этот случай раструбят по Би-Би-Си.

И еще. Оденьтесь свеже, и на выставке в Манеже
К вам приблизится мужчина с чемоданом. Скажет он:
-Не хотите ли черешни?- Вы ответите: - Конечно. -
Он вам даст батон с взрывчаткой - принесете мне батон.

А за это, друг мой пьяный,- говорил он Епифану,-
Будут деньги, дом в Чикаго, много женщин и машин...-
Враг не ведал, дурачина, - тот, кому все поручил он,
Был чекист, майор разведки и прекрасный семьянин.

Да, до этих штучек мастер этот самый Джон Ланкастер.
Но жестоко просчитался пресловутый мистер Пек.
Обезврежен он, и даже он пострижен и посажен.
А в гостинице "Советской" поселился мирный грек.a



(Владимир Высоцкий)


These lirics were used by AL during our Saturday's classes. I was impressed,
so I decided to find the lyrics on the Internet. I hope, you also will enjoy!