Jim's Corner
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Jazyková škola Dolphin Nemocniční 53 787 01 Šumperk e-mail: dolphin@sky.cz tel/fax: 583 214 381
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SUPERSTAR SOLIDARITY!
If, in your struggle to master the infinitesimal irregularity of the English language, you have ever despaired of understanding Real English as spoken by native speakers, then take heart! You are not alone!
No, this sympathetic soul comes in the shape of Rocky the Rhode-Island Red in a wonderful animated film, Chicken Run (Slepičí Úlet) by Nick Park. The film is a delightful parody of such Prisoner of War epics as "The Great Escape" and "The Bridge on the River Kwai" transposed to the tough world of the chicken farm. When confronted by a fast-talking Scottish chicken, Rocky the Rooster's reaction is to blink several times in total incomprehension, turn to another chicken and declare, "You know, I didn't understand a word she said!" At this point a muttered chorus of "Ty taky né?" rises from the cinema audience, and no-one feels so bad about it anymore. The film also draws heavily, in influence, on such classics of British soap opera as Coronation Street, Brookside and Eastenders, except that, in this case, the characters are so down-to-earth that they are scratching it! The Oscar-winning talents of Nick Park and Co. can also be seen on a special ELT version of their film "The Wrong Trousers" as a teaching aid for beginners or false beginners. It is available through Oxford University Press and the story tells of an inventor whose latest creation, a pair of electronic trousers, is sabotaged by a fiendish bank-robbing penguin! It sounds just as believable as Esmeralda, doesn't it? I can recommend it though, simply on the strength of the animation. |
Empathic support comes in the unlikely form of a rooster! (A cockerel to us Brits) with the voice of none other than Mel Gibson (previously seen flaunting his kilt and everything thereunder in the face of the English in the film Braveheart). No, this is not Mad Max goes to Animal Farm (not quite). Nor is it a Walt Disney remake of the exploits of that Scottish hero William Wallis.
