Ana Karenina: Tips para Aprender Inglés

Ana Karenina, del autor León Tolstoi, es un clásico de la literatura rusa. Ahora, ¿Podemos aprender inglés con esta novela?... Por supuesto que sí, los capítulos que leímos provienen de la traducción rusa al inglés de Constance Garnett y aprendimos que la novela tiene un vocabulario sencillo, y a la vez rico en sinónimos, y que la historia en sí es excelente.

Entonces algunos consejos para aprender inglés con la historia de León Tolstoi:

Ampliar el vocabulario

Hacer un listado de las palabras difíciles, buscar el significado de aquello desconocido, encontrar sinónimos y palabras relacionadas. Esto nos ayudará a memorizar todos los términos nuevos.

En Ana Karenina una de las palabras que quedaron grabadas:

Chum = intimate friend

También buscamos:

Governess, carriage-jobbers, kammerjunker, fomin, beaming, deigned, shrouded, loftiest, cockade, coterie

Ana Karenina, Levin

"Where is he?"

"Maybe he’s gone into the passage, but here he comes anyway. That is he," said the doorkeeper…

Stepan Arkadyevitch was standing at the top of the stairs. His good-naturedly glowing face above the embroidered collar of his uniform glowed more than ever when he recognized the man coming up.

"Why, it’s actually you, Levin, at last!" he said with a friendly mocking smile, scanning Levin as he approached. "How is it you have thought to look me up in this den?" said Stepan Arkadyevitch, and not content with shaking hands, he kissed his friend. "Have you been here long?"

"I have just come, and very much wanted to see you," said Levin, looking shyly and at the same time angrily and uneasily around.

"Well, let’s go into my room," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, who knew his friend’s sensitive and irritable shyness, and, taking his arm, he drew him along, as though guiding him through dangers…

Ana Karenina, Morning Routine

Stepan checks his mail, the newspaper and we learn from his point of view:

When he was dressed, Stepan Arkadyevitch sprinkled some scent on himself, pulled down his shirt-cuffs, distributed into his pockets his cigarettes, pocketbook, matches, and watch with its double chain and seals, and shaking out his handkerchief, feeling himself clean, fragrant, healthy, and physically at ease, in spite of his unhappiness, he walked with a slight variation on each leg into the dining-room, where coffee was already waiting for him, and beside the coffee, letters and papers from the office.

He read the letters. One was very unpleasant, from a merchant who was buying a forest on his wife’s property. To sell this forest was absolutely essential; but at present, until he was reconciled with his wife, the subject could not be discussed. The most unpleasant thing of all was that his pecuniary interests should in this way enter into the question of his reconciliation with his wife. And the idea that he might be led on by his interests, that he might seek a reconciliation with his wife on account of the sale of the forest—that idea hurt him.

When he had finished his letters, Stepan Arkadyevitch moved the office-papers close to him, rapidly looked through two pieces of business, made a few notes with a big pencil, and pushing away the papers, turned to his coffee. As he sipped his coffee, he opened a still damp morning paper, and began reading it.

Ana Karenina, Stephan

Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky está muy preocupado. Su esposa descubrió su romance con la institutriz de sus hijos. No supo explicar la situación en su momento, y ahora debe dormir en su estudio. Todo es un caos en su casa. Anna Karenina de León Tolstoi.

Stepan Arkadyevitch was a truthful man in his relations with himself. He was incapable of deceiving himself and persuading himself that he repented of his conduct. He could not at this date repent of the fact that he, a handsome, susceptible man of thirty-four, was not in love with his wife, the mother of five living and two dead children, and only a year younger than himself. All he repented of was that he had not succeeded better in hiding it from his wife. But he felt all the difficulty of his position and was sorry for his wife, his children, and himself. Possibly he might have managed to conceal his sins better from his wife if he had anticipated that the knowledge of them would have had such an effect on her. He had never clearly thought out the subject, but he had vaguely conceived that his wife must long ago have suspected him of being unfaithful to her, and shut her eyes to the fact. He had even supposed that she, a worn-out woman no longer young or good-looking, and in no way remarkable or interesting, merely a good mother, ought from a sense of fairness to take an indulgent view. It had turned out quite the other way.