Прочитай текст и выполни задания 12–18. В каждом задании запиши в поле ответа цифру 1, 2, 3 или 4, соответствующую выбранному варианту ответа.

What doing journalism in a foreign language taught me about human nature

I have been in a committed relationship with the English language for almost 20 years. It all began in primary school, with clips of Muzzy (the animated character created by the BBC in 1986 to teach children English as a second language), and the Winnie the Witch books.

Two decades later, English is the tool with which I earn my keep as a journalist. It's the language I speak when I go home to my partner. It's the pillar of so many aspects of my life, from the most fundamental to the most trivial. I read in English. I write in English. I argue in English. I dream in English. I discipline my dog in English. All this to say: the English language is the most useful gift I have ever been given, and I can barely believe there was a time when I didn't speak a word of it. It has also taught me a valuable lesson about perfectionism.

I'm French, by the way. It's hard to remember what English sounded like when I was a French kid, though I do remember making up my own words whenever I tried to string together a sentence in English and found myself lacking some vocabulary. Little by little, the made-up words got phased out and I am now a French person who writes day in, day out for a British online newspaper.

Doing journalism in English rather than French has obvious advantages: more than 275 million people around the world speak French according to most estimates, versus 1.5 billion people who speak English. It's also a wonderful exercise in creativity. Writing in a foreign language is what I imagine it would be like to be a baker and wake up one day to find that the flour you've used your entire life is no longer available. So you start using a different kind of flour, and you're still making bread but suddenly the dough binds in a different way and the baking times are all off. And the baker-in-chief wants the loaves to be done quickly.

All this was intensified by the fact that I got my start on a breaking news desk, meaning the words had to come fast, and they had to be the right ones. My first months of working at an English-language publication felt like a miracle. I waited to be told that it had all been a mistake, that I wasn't good enough or fast enough, that some things simply cannot be taught. But I kept going, one word after the other, and I got better. My stories got longer and more complex. I started having a bit of fun, and then a lot of fun. But it wasn't always a comfortable process.

The thing is, I'm a perfectionist and I don't like making mistakes, and I really don't like making them in front of everybody else. But guess what? When you live your life in a foreign language, you absolutely will make mistakes, and you absolutely will make them in front of an audience. You will use the word "appendix" instead of "appendage" in a story (because the French word for both of these is "appendice"), and confuse the hell out of your readers and editors in the process. You will stop in the middle of a sentence, because what's the word again for when you get off a plane and then have to get on another plane? (Ah, yes, "connection".) You will work at a local newspaper in Oxford and do your best imitation of an English accent on the phone, because you will have noticed that people are more responsive if you sound like them. You will call a coworker "reactive" when you mean they're "responsive". You will interview people — politicians, celebrities, artists — and they will use words you don't know. You will either get it from context, or you will nod and Google approximate spellings of the mystery word once you're back at the office. Most days, you will have to get creative on the spot, and sometimes it will work, and sometimes it won't. And you will learn to go along with whatever happens.

I used to be so embarrassed by those little mishaps. But I have learned to laugh at myself. It happened bit by bit. I let mistakes happen and the world didn't end. I still check the dictionary as often as I need — and I think that's far from a bad thing. To a degree, I still feel like I got away with something, but look: the language police has yet to come and get me.

12. What does the English language have to do with the author's life?

1)   She is part English.

2)   She uses English in all aspects of her life.

3)   As a journalist, she writes books in English.

4)   She lives in England with her partner who is also English.

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13. The author made up new English words in her childhood because she...

1)   couldn't express her thoughts fully.

2)   was extremely creative.

3)   couldn't remember how some English words were spelled.

4)   didn't know any English at all.

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14. What do we know about the author from the 4th paragraph?

1)   She likes baking.

2)   She doesn't have the right writing skills.

3)   She thinks it's better to write in English than in French.

4)   Her editor-in-chief is highly demanding.

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15. How did the author feel when she just started working on a breaking news desk?

1)   She was eager to get to do things.

2)   She was anxious about making silly mistakes in her writing.

3)   She was afraid of being around new people.

4)   She felt like a fish out of water.

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16. According to the 6th paragraph, which of the following sentences is NOT true?

1)   The author mixed up a couple of words.

2)   The author can forget English words.

3)   The author couldn't copy a British accent.

4)   The author spoke with famous people.

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17. The word "mishaps" ("...by those little mishaps") in the last paragraph is synonymous to…

1)   Problems.

2)   Difficulties.

3)   Accidents.

4)   Failures.

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18. What is the main idea of the last paragraph?

1)   Mistakes make you learn something new.

2)   The world can't stop.

3)   The language police exist.

4)   It is perfectly normal not to know something.

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