Lección de Inglés: Nivel Intermedio

Vocabulario

Gramática: Introducción al Estilo Indirecto

El estilo indirecto, en inglés “Reported Speech”, consiste en expresar algo dicho antes por alguien, es decir, en contar lo que alguien dijo acerca de algo. El estilo indirecto en inglés es muy similar al español, por lo que no tiene gran dificultad para los españoles.En una frase en estilo indirecto podemos encontrar dos partes : Una primera parte introductoria que incluye el verbo que , en inglés se denomina reporting verbe y es el que introduce lo que se va a contar. : say, tell, mention, suggest, ask, wonder..), por ejemplo ; Peter said that...,/ Mary told me that... Una segunda parte que es lo que alguien dijo sobre algo . Por ejemplo : Peter said that he had suffered a terrible accident that morning Mary told me that she was looking for her brother all morning A continuación empezaremos con un ejemplo para facilitar la comprensión del concepto de estilo indirecto. Reflejamos aquí cómo es una idea en estilo directo (palabras literales que la persona dijo y que suelen ir entre comillas y cómo es en estilo indirecto. Estilo directo: Peter said: “I'm really tired” Estilo indirecto: Peter said that he was tired Como podemos observar, cuando empleamos el estilo directo, repetimos las mismas palabras utilizadas por el que las dijo. Por el contrario, cuando empleamos el estilo indirecto, contamos lo dicho por alguien con nuestras propias palabras.

Lectura: "Extract from a novel"

I shifted uncomfortably inside my best suit and eased a finger inside the tight white collar. It was hot in the little bus and I had taken a seat on the wrong side where the summer sun beat on the windows. It was a strange outfit for the weather, but a few miles ahead my future employer might be waiting for me and I had to make a good impression.There was a lot depending on this interview. Many friends who had qualified with me were unemployed or working in shops or as labourers in the shipyards. So many that I had almost given up hope of any future for myself as a veterinary surgeon. There were usually two or three jobs advertised in the Veterinary Record each week and an average of eighty applicants for each one. It hadn’t seemed possible when the letter came from Darrowby in Yorkshire. Mr S. Farnon would like to see me on the Friday afternoon; I was to come to tea and, if we were suited to each other, I could stay on as his assistant. Most young people emerging from the colleges after five years of hard work were faced by a world unimpressed by their enthusiasm and bursting knowledge. So I had grabbed the lifeline unbelievingly. Suddenly, I realised the bus was clattering along a narrow street which opened onto a square where we stopped. Above the window of a small grocer’s shop I read ‘Darrowby Co-operative Society’. We had arrived. I got out and stood beside my battered suitcase, looking about me. There was something unusual and I didn’t know what it was at first. Then it came to me. The other passengers had dispersed, the driver had switched off the engine and there was not a sound or a movement anywhere. The only visible sign of life was a group of old men sitting round the clock tower in the centre of the square, but they might have been carved of stone.

Darrowby didn’t get much space in the guidebooks, but where it was mentioned it was described as a grey little town on the River Arrow with a market place and little of interest except its two ancient bridges. But when you looked at it, its setting was beautiful. Everywhere from the windows of houses in Darrowby you could see the hills. There was a clearness in the air, a sense of space and airiness that made me feel I had left something behind. The pressure of the city, the noise, the smoke – already they seemed to be falling away from me. Trengate Street was a quiet road leading off the square and from there I had my first sight of Skeldale House. I knew it was the right place before I was near enough to read S. Farnon, Veterinary Surgeon on the old-fashioned brass nameplate. I knew by the ivy which grew untidily over the red brick, climbing up to the topmost windows. It was what the letter had said – the only house with ivy; and this could be where I would work for the first time as a veterinary surgeon. I rang the doorbell. The driver crashed his gears again as we went into another steep bend. We had been climbing steadily now for the last fifteen miles or so, moving closer to the distant blue of the Pennine Hills. I had never been in Yorkshire before, but the name had always raised a picture of a region as heavy and unromantic as the pudding of the same name; I was prepared for solid respectability, dullness and a total lack of charm. But as the bus made its way higher, I began to wonder. There were high grassy hills and wide valleys. In the valley bottoms, rivers twisted among the trees and solid grey stone farmhouses lay among islands of cultivated land which pushed up the wild, dark hillsides.