p01-21 11/8/05 5:33 PM Page 1 MODERN ENGLISH DIGEST THE MAGAZINE HELPING STUDENTS LEARN ENGLISH MODERN ENGLISH PUBLISHING Mountain Bikes Eco-tourism The World’s Most Famous Painting Plus: Diamonds Collecting Lighthouses Old Comics Edinburgh’s Royal Mile Vol 3 / Issue 4 £4.25 Vol Zhang Ziyi p01-21 10/8/05 10:33 AM Page 2 e have packed this latest issue of Modern English Digest with a wide range of features that will make learning English interesting and fun! All the articles in this magazine are carefully written in graded English to cater W for elementary and intermediate level students of English. Macmillan Education is delighted to announce a partnership with Modern English Digest magazine. Each issue will feature an extract from our award- winning series of simplified readers. The magazine has a great mix of interesting articles that help improve vocabulary and understanding in cultural and work-specific context. 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Your guide to the graded English used in Modern English Digest Elementary E • Simple passive forms • Comparative and superlative of adjectives • Infinitives of purpose: to, in order to • Reported commands in the past • Modals – could (ability), can (permission) • Adverbs of frequency and manner • Present perfect • Constructions with it and until • -ing verb form after like, enjoy • Indefinite pronouns: everyone, everybody, etc. • be interested in • had better, would rather • used to & wanted to + verb • Phrasal verbs • Defining relative clauses • Reported speech • Modal will with future reference • say and tell • Conditional sentences (1 & 2) • Verb -ing as subject or object • Present Progressive with future reference • Conjunctions: althoughE, so, but, because Intermediate I • Modal should + Passive Perfect • Reflexive pronouns • Past Passive • Be supposed to, be likely to + verb • Modal could, may, might + Perfect Progressive • Double object verbs • Present Perfect Progressive • As if + clause • Future Perfect • Participial phrases • Should have + Past Participle • Modal will, could, should + Passive infinitive • Needn’t have + Past Participle • Phrasal verbs with give, come + in the Passive • Relative clauses, defining and non-defining • Indirect commands • Which, whose • Indirect questions with if and wh- questions • Adjective as noun • Modal could + Perfect Conditional with Past • Subordinators: wherever, whenever • Perfect (Third Conditional)I Key to glossary abb – abbreviation, adj – adjective, adv – adverb, coll – colloquial, i – idiom, n – noun, np – noun phrase, ph.v – phrasal verb, prep – preposition, pron – pronoun, q – question word, v – verb 2 p01-21 10/8/05 10:33 AM Page 3 CCONTENTSONTENTS FEATURES LIFESTYLE E 4 I 14 Gap Years I 16 Germany: The Neglected The World’s Most Holiday Destination Famous Painting – I 22 The World’s Biggest Airplane The Mona Lisa I 26 Edinburgh’s Royal Mile 7 I I 30 Lavender Eco-tourism E 36 Diamonds I 38 Uranus 10 I Mountain Bikes I 41 Lighthouses LANGUAGE 19 E E 50 Tongue Twisters Collecting Old BUSINESS Comics I 52 ACTIVITIES 32 I Zhang Ziyi I 56 Picture Frame I 58 Just for Fun 44 I I 59 Why Not Test Yourself? answers My Cousin Rachel E 60 Find a Word A short story by Daphne du Maurier, retold by I Margaret Tarner and published by 61 Know the Issue Macmillan Education Cover Photo © M Von Holden / DMI / Rex Features E Elementary I Intermediate Zhang Ziyi: Page 32 3 p01-21 10/8/05 10:33 AM Page 4 FEATURE The World’s Most Famous Painting – The Mona Lisa BY SARA HALL he painting, known to millions as the the idea of the picture that most people Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, is hold in their mind! Tprobably the most famous painting of So if the original painting fails to our time. Across the world, the Mona impress many visitors, why is the Mona Lisa enjoys celebrity status. People of all Lisa so famous? At first glance, the ages and nationalities find the Mona painting simply depicts an unremarkable Lisa’s face as recognisable and familiar fifteenth century woman in rather plain as that of a friend. At her home in the clothes painted on a wooden panel. Louvre in Paris, ninety per cent of all However, there is little doubt among visitors to the museum ignore most of art critics and historians that the the museum’s collection of art and make painting is a masterpiece. At the time of straight for the Mona Lisa. This means painting, Leonardo da Vinci’s contem- an amazing 1,500 people pass by the poraries considered the Mona Lisa’s picture each hour. pose and style to be revolutionary. And On average, visitors spend just three the craftsmanship of the painting is minutes gazing at the masterpiece beyond compare. Leonardo’s brush before moving on to other parts of the strokes are so fine that they cannot be museum. A surprisingly large number of individually identified – even under a people say they are just a little bit microscope. The style and execution disappointed when they see the famous alone say that this painting is the painting for real. The Mona Lisa’s creation of a great artist. But this does image is reproduced so often that not explain why the Mona Lisa has people have high expectations about come to be the most famous of what they are going to see. So the fairly Leonardo’s works – and the most small, dark sombre painting that they famous painting in the world. find in the Louvre comes as something One leading art historian, Donald of a shock. The reality of the picture Sassoon, suggests that the Mona Lisa is seems so much smaller and duller than in fact famous by virtue of a series of 4 p01-21 10/8/05 10:33 AM Page 5 apartments during the Napoleonic era. However, after the fall of Naopleon, the Mona Lisa returned to the Louvre and fell into obscurity. It was in fact British tourists who started to put the Mona Lisa back on Europe’s cultural map. British aristocrats, artists and poets began to visit France, Italy, Switzerland and Greece on what was called the Grand Tour – an extended visit of as many of the famous places of Europe as a person could afford. The first stop along the way was Paris, the so-called city of light. And in Paris the visiting English poets and artists found in the Mona Lisa an ideal of womanhood historical and geographical accidents. that was as unknowable and For him, the painting has enjoyed a mysterious as it was beautiful. As one remarkable series of fortunate events British art critic wrote, “She is older that has helped create a widely shared than the rocks among which she sits; public response to the painting that in like the vampire she has been dead fact has nothing to do with the way the many times, and learnt the secrets of the painting actually looks. According to grave.” this theory, the story of the painting’s Not surprisingly, the nineteenth history is the real key to the Mona century critics became obsessed with the Lisa’s worldwide fame today. Mona Lisa’s smile. Was she looking Leonardo completed the painting in serene because she was pregnant, they 1506. Ten years later he took the Mona speculated? Or did she keep her mouth Lisa with him when he visited the court shut because her teeth were black? of the French King, Francois 1, in 1516. Although the Mona Lisa is commonly The King subsequently purchased the believed to be Lisa Gheradini, wife of a painting. The Mona Lisa then remained Florentine silk merchant, speculation in the Royal collection up to and after about her identity increased her the French Revolution in 1789. popularity. Some people even wondered Napoleon’s wife, the Empress Josephine, if Leonardo da Vinci actually painted the briefly displayed the Mona Lisa in her features of his own face into the portrait. 5 p01-21 10/8/05 10:34 AM Page 6 All this speculation and mystery made picture caused an outcry and ensured the Mona Lisa the first must-see stop for Duchamp’s fame for ever! Later, the anyone on the Grand Tour. avant garde artist, Andy Warhol, Despite the growing interest among produced passport strips of hundreds of the English in the painting, the Mona Mona Lisas. By being reproduced so Lisa was only catapulted to national many times and in so many guises, the fame in France when the painting Mona Lisa’s face reached out across the disappeared from the Louvre in 1911. world to reach new audiences every An employee, believing that the Mona generation or so. And so, the Mona Lisa Lisa rightly belonged to Italy, walked has become globally famous as one of out of the museum with the small the most instantly recognizable faces in painting hidden under his smock. The the history of the world. theft provoked a huge outcry throughout A minority of art critics believe that France. Pictures of the painting appeared the exploitation of the Mona Lisa in in all the newspapers and magazines of this way has degraded her value as an the time. As a result, the public’s art object. However, most art critics awareness of the Mona Lisa increased disagree with this point of view. They considerably. The Mona Lisa finally re- suggest that knowing about the Mona appeared in 1913. Her return to the Lisa helps encourage people to enjoy Louvre caused an outbreak of public joy art works of all kinds.