My close friend

  I suppose I’ve got six or seven close friends. I think that good friends always have a lot in common but I disagree with the statement that they must have similar character.

  I met my best friend thirteen years ago when I went to school. We studied in the same class, and both lived near our school. We soon found out that we had a lot in common and quickly became close friends.

  I’m mot amazed we got on so well because we have so many things in common. I think we come from the same background. We grew up in apartments in Moscow. We also share the same taste in music, books, films and other things. We have the same ideas about politics and other less important things.

  I think, that our personalities are different – he's very artistic and he is an easy going person, but I am a little bit shy. Now he plays the guitar in a music band. Several times I was at their concert and I liked their music.

Nowadays we study at different institutes so we can’t communicate face to face every day as before but we keep in touch through the Internet and texting.

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my favorite book

Today I want tell you about books, book choice and my favorite book.

I prefer books over magazines, because books are nicer to read, the storyline in books isn't short, so you can read it for a long time.

Magazines are pretty and have nice cover, I'm not interested in advertising, so I never look through them, but if I have a good book, I can read it for hours.

I don’t judge a book by its cover. Before buying a book, I always read book synopsis. I’m a great fan of fiction, so I hardly ever read biographies and autobiographies. My favorite book is “Crime and Punishment” written by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Crime and Punishment is a detective novel set in Russia in the late 19^th century. The story revolves around Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov.

The central male character is Raskolnikov – rebellious ex-student who lived in St. Petersburg. He formulated his own theory about people, and killed old lady, which was pawnbroker.

I enjoy reading Crime and Punishment. It is such an interesting novel. I think it was well written. The characters are engaging and believable, especially Rodion Raskolnikov. The storyline is brilliant. It’s wonderful.

my language experience

                         Some words about learning

  I think it's impossible to learn a language without making mistakes. It isn't very good if you make too many mistakes, people can't understand you. As to me, I can use my mistakes to improve my English to learn from them.

  The idea is: if you just sit back and are passive about what you’re trying to learn, if you don’t take risks, if you don’t try to use what you’ve learned, I think you can’t learn a language, or you only learn how to get by in basic situations. I fully agree with the statement that anytime you learn something, it’s trial and error.

 What makes a good student? In my opinion, a good student should be keen on learning and stick to it. Also, it’s a good idea to be a good time manager because if you make the most of your time, don’t kill the time, you can do more things during the day. I always do a difficult or unpleasant job straight away, because when I do that I can do a less difficult job or have a break. I don’t leave any work until the last minute. I think that I am a punctual person, because I try to do things in good time and never come on my appointments and classes late.

  I tried to keep lists of things that I needed to do in my head, but once my memory failed me, so I started to do lists of important things. When I studied at school, there were piles of paper on my desk. Now there is only a forest of stickers. I break huge tasks into smaller jobs. I start to do my task during two or three days.

  And what makes a good teacher? In my opinion, a good teacher is able to listen well to a student’s concerns, answer questions well, explain anything that the students might not understand. And of course a good teacher should love teaching.

  The best way to learn English or another foreign language is to go and live in an English speaking country ( or country the language of which  you’re learning), get lots of foreign friends. Communication in routine situations is also a good way to learn a language.   

My memories of childhood

                                 My food memories

  Both my mum and dad were great cooks when I was growing up. My dad was a better cook than my mum. In my family, we used to try new things and experiment with food. I’ve always loved trying new foods. The only thing I really disliked was porridge. I tried to avoid it. When I was a child and went to the kindergarten, all the children ate porridge but I drank cocoa with a sandwich.

  In our family, we always used to eat around a table, it’s our tradition. I think that meals were, and still are, a family event. My parents invite the friends and relatives and have a birthday party.

  My favourite food was the sort of thing that I remember having a lot when I was younger – food that my dad used to cook (meat dishes) and my mum’s apple pie. I know that in childhood I didn’t like candies, but now I like them.

  I used to eat junk food, but now I care about my health and I rarely eat fast food.  From time to time I can have a snack with a chocolate bar and feel quite good about it.