English

Short & Sweet – short stories

Do you remember the story of ‘Little red riding hood’ that you would have read when you were very young or for that matter ‘Rapunzel’? What is that which attracted you to these stories so much that you still remember them? They were stories that usually had big pictures and were short. Believe it or not, short stories have their own special place in the world of story telling.

On youtube there are many short video provided on Little red riding hood, you can watch the video online or download YouTube video to mp4 into your devices to watch it later.

Why do we read short stories? Well, for one, each one has less and less time on their hands. So I would much rather settle for being satiated in lesser time. The short stories gives us a temporary escape that we need in our busy lives. Short stories are not only a great way to get people to start reading or for people who prefer their electronic gadgets to picking up a book, but reading a short story is like having a short dip in the pool of bliss. As we get lost in the story, little do we realize how time passes by.

These stories let us observe situations more practically and subconsciously we tend to align ourselves with the character. They are usually written in simple english and reading or even listening to them enhances our ability to comprehend English that is spoken around us. Not only does it sharpen our comprehension skills, but also it becomes instrumental in improving in our passive English vocabulary as it influences our power of narration. Our interest in the story grabs our attention so tightly that we keep on storing new words and their usage in memory without even realizing it. Hence, they contribute a lot in initiating our conversing in English.

Reading stories like what I had mentioned earlier, we get acquainted with words such as hood, snips, craftily, scarcely, appeased, grey-beard, trough, nosegay and many more. Rapunzel reminds us of the enchantress, rampion, tresses, braids….etc.

Apart from that we take a notice of how different characters express their thoughts and the different dialects that they use. We also observe the use of grammatical forms and punctuation marks to have an accurate interpretation of the text.

Once we become the storyteller, we use the language skills that we have picked up unconsciously while reading. That’s how we learn.

So whether you are a student or a professional, a shopkeeper or a homemaker, you could do well to pick up some books containing short stories. Have fun reading them. Not only will you enjoy reading them but you’ll also build your language skills. With short stories, we learn while being entertained.

Abir Basak

Having spent about two decades in the corporate arena, leading teams in IT across diverse industries, I decided to embark on a journey to contribute to the society using my knowledge and experience. A departure from the usual to bring together a new meaning to my career and life as a whole. After all, you can't set sail if you're scared to lose sight of the shore. Join in at www.zigya.com

Abir Basak