Četba v cizím jazyce rozhodně patří mezi efektivní způsoby, jak se v daném jazyce zdokonalit. Velmi rád podporuji své studenty v četbě cizojazyčných knih, proto v Jazykovém centru Correct provozujeme Knihovnu cizojazyčné literatury, kde nejen naši studenti (ale i široká veřejnost) naleznou jak knihy zjednodušené, tak knihy v originále. Knihovna obsahuje nejvíce knih v angličtině a němčině, méně pak ve francouzštině a italštině. V malém měřítku jsou zastoupeny i jiné jazyky.

Pro studenty cizích jazyků je vhodná především zjednodušená četba, tj. zjednodušené knihy, které obsahují škálovanou slovní zásobu a gramatické jevy. Jednotlivá knižní nakladatelství (např. Cambridge English Readers, Macmillan Graded Readers, Penguin Readers, Oxford Bookworms, Black Cat Readers a další) nabízejí širokou nabídku úrovní od začátečníků až po pokročilé. Každý stupeň obsahuje omezenou slovní zásobu (tzv. headwords) a pro danou úroveň typické gramatické jevy. Na stránce níže uvádím ukázku nejběžnějšího rozdělení úrovní zjednodušených knih angličtiny společně se vzorky textů daných jazykových úrovní. Zjednodušené knihy jsou dostupné v několika jazycích.

Jednotlivá nakladatelství mají lehce odlišné systémy úrovní, proto se vždy přesvědčte, zda-li jste sáhli po správné úrovni. Zjistíte to jednoduše pohledem na zadní stranu.

Přehled počtu slov a výpis gramatických jevů v jednotlivých úrovních pokročilosti

• Starter (ukázka viz níže)
  – vyžaduje znalost asi 250-300 slov
  – přítomný čas prostý (he lives) a průběhový (he is working), budoucnost pomocí going to, sloveso must a can

  

• Beginner (ukázka viz níže)
  – vyžaduje znalost asi 600 slov
  – minulý čas prostý (he lived) a průběhový (he was working), budoucí čas will a shall, sloveso have to, souvětí se souřadícími spojkami

• Elementary (ukázka viz níže)
  – vyžaduje znalost asi 1100 slov
  – předpřítomný čas (he has lived), předminulý čas (he had worked), trpný rod, 3. stupeň příd. jmen, některé vedlejší věty

• Pre-Intermediate (ukázka viz níže)
  – vyžaduje znalost asi 1400 slov
  – podmiňovací způsob would, should, podmínkové věty 1. typu (If I say…, I will…) a 2. typu (If I said…, I would…), could, might, vztažné věty s who, which, that

• Intermediate (ukázka viz níže)
  – vyžaduje znalost asi 1600 slov
  – předpřítomný čas průběhový (he has been living), předminulý čas průběhový (he had been working), předbudoucí čas (I will have worked), všechny druhy vedlejších vět, věty vložené

  

• Upper-Intermediate
  – vyžaduje znalost asi 2200-2500 slov
  – podmínkové věty 3. typu (If I had been there, I would not have done it)

• Advanced
  – vyžaduje znalost asi 3000-3800 slov

Starter
Then a man comes into the office. Len doesn’t know him.The man is short and dark. He’s about forty years old. He’s wearing a suit. The man is holding a gun. The gun is pointing at Len.

Beginner
At Christmas 1967, Frances left Johnnie and moved to London. She wanted to take the children with her. Johnnie wanted them to stay at Park House with him.
Diana missed her mother very much. She was only six years old when Frances left. Her sisters were at boarding school – a type of school where they lived most of the time. It was a sad and very difficult time for Diana and Charles.
After Frances left, Johnnie paid money to different women – called nannies – to look after the children at Park House. The Spencer children loved Park House. It was a large and friendly house. Diana loved animals like dogs, cats and rabbits. She enjoyed swimming, playing tennis, and going for picnics on the beach. She visited her mother in London at the weekends.

Elementary
The dogs ran out across the dark moor. Sir Hugo and his men rode after them. The dogs barked and Sir Hugo shouted. Then they heard another noise. It was louder than the noise of barking and shouting. The dogs stopped and listened. They were afraid. The men heard the noise too. It was a loud and deep howling sound – the sound of a huge dog howling at the
moon. The men stopped their horses, but Sir Hugo rode on. He wanted to catch the girl. Sir Hugo did not catch the girl. Suddenly his horse stopped and threw him to the ground. The horse ran away in terror. In the moonlight, the men saw a strange, black animal. It looked liked a dog with huge, fiery eyes. But it was as big as a horse. All the men became very frightened. The huge black dog jumped on Sir Hugo Baskerville and killed him. The other men ran away into the night and Sir Hugo was never seen again.

Pre-Intermediate
So the game of football – or soccer – now had rules. The game was beginning to look more and more like modern football, but some things were different. The goals had no crossbar and no net, just two upright posts. There were corner flags though and corner kicks and goal kicks were already part of the game. There had been referees since 1840, but the referees shouted at the players because they did not have a whistle. Referees were not given whistles until 1878. They did not have any red or yellow cards in their pocket either. These cards were not used until nearly one hundred years later. There were other differences too. The ball was made of leather and it was very heavy. All the players in the team wore shirts of the same colour, so that the spectators could recognize them. The players’ shirts had no numbers, no names and no sponsors’ logos! Their dark leather boots were heavy too. But the teams played a game that we can recognize – it was football!

Intermediate
On this February evening, three large men had been waiting for Strangways on the street near the club. As soon as Strangways came onto the empty, silent street, they started to walk towards him. The three men were all wearing dark glasses and carrying white sticks. The men were walking together in a line, one behind the other. The first man was holding a little metal cup. The second and third men were each touching the shoulder of the man in front of them. Strangways began to walk towards his car. He looked at the men and thought that they must be blind beggars. There were
some beggars in Kingston, but perhaps Strangways should have been surprised to see three blind beggars together. And he should certainly have been surprised that all three men were Afro-Chinese. This was an unusual mixture of races in Jamaica. Meeting three, blind, Afro-Chinese men begging together should have seemed very strange to Strangways. But he was thinking about his evening transmission. Strangways carelessly put a coin in the tin cup as he passed the three beggars and he walked on. So he didn’t see the men turn around and pull guns from their pockets. And he didn’t really feel the bullets which hit him a moment later. He was dead before his body hit the ground.