Character. Short texts (intermediate)

Прочитайте тексты на английском языке по теме «Character» (уровень intermediate). Эти тексты помогут вам вспомнить английские слова и узнать интересные факты про характеры людей, а также познакомится с понятием «национальный характер» или «национальный менталитет».

Character. Short texts (intermediate)

Содержание:

1. How the Japanese behave (intermediate)
2. People’s Characters (upper-intermediate text from the book «One-page story»)

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1. Text «How the Japanese Behave»

Japan like Great Britain is an …………….. country. That’s why the English and the Japanese have very much….………….. Of course, we can talk about some…………. features. There are different people in any nation. Among them ……………… of people are honest and… ………….., lazy and …………….., reserved and …………………..

The  …………quality of the Japanese is…………… A reserved person is one who doesn’t talk very much to ……………… and doesn’t show his..……………….. He never tells you……………….. about himself. If Japanese people are making………………. by train, they will try to find an..…………….compartment, they may travel many miles without starting….……………….

It’s ………………. to ask a Japanese about his….…………… He doesn’t like..……………….questions. The Japanese never discuss business while ..…………….

The Japanese have perhaps the..…… …..rules of social and business…………………

If American businessmen can put their feet on the desk to show their feeling of ease and importance, the Japanese would be  ..………….. Showing your feet in Japan is the height of bad  ..…………… It is a social…..………….. only exceeded by blowing your nose in public.

Japanese people never ..……..hands. They hardly ever………….. They bow when they want to show……………. An average office worker bows thirty-six times a day, a sales manager – one hundred and twenty three times and a shop assistant at the shop’s entrance – two thousand five hundred and sixty times. These are the traditions the young haven’t  ..……… yet.

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2. Text «People’s Characters» (for upper-intermediate from the book «One-page story»)

Vocabulary:

1. define — определять (характеризовать)
2. determine — определять (обуславливать)
3. subconsciousness — подсознание
4. easy-going — добродушный, с легким характером; ленивый, праздный
5. reliability — надежность;
6. virtue — добродетель, достоинство, хорошее качество
7. vivacity — живость;
8. conceal — скрывать;
9. contradict — противоречить; contradiction — противоречие;
10. impudence — наглость; insolent — наглый

All people are different, and our characters in­fluence and define our behaviour in life situations. Actually, we don’t realize why we behave in this particular way, we are not aware of the fact that our actions are determined on the level of subconsciousness. Due to it we often can’t change anything in ourselves or it can be very difficult. Of course, our character and behaviour influence our relationship with other people. That’s why we like some people and don’t care much about some others.

In fact, psychologists say that our sympathy and antipathy depend mostly on our own character. Sometimes it is difficult to explain why we don’t sympathize with a nice, easy-going and well-be­haved person and we can’t change our opinion to the better. But it turns out that our features of character don’t correspond to his or hers, and we’ll never be on friendly terms.

Reliability is perhaps one of the best features of the person’s character. It’s the greatest virtue but unfortunately you don’t often meet such peo­ple. This quality is especially important in men.

Vivacity is an important quality of human character. We usually don’t really like people why always conceal their true feelings or who are too reserved to give out their thoughts. We prefer see the reaction to the events and actions, other­wise it leads to indifference.

In fact, there are some features which arouse out contradictory feelings. First of all it’s impudence. Impudent people irritate us because they don’t think about others. But on the other hand, impudence is second happiness. Such people reach their aims more often than others because they value themselves more than other people.

Of course, greediness is one of the worst vices. Greeedy people think that they can save something. Actually, they lose friends, relatives and respect of other people.