Practicing Reading Skills

Let us practice reading skills. The text can be like that taken from the book “Boatload of idioms”

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Muddy the waters – make confusing; stir up trouble.

Mario didn’t want to muddy the waters by telling his mad wife that besides crashing the car, he also got a ticket..

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Mum’s the word – be quiet; please keep a secret.

I’ll tell you some gossip, but mum’s the word, O.K.?

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You have to read the idiom and the explanation without mistakes. If you don’t know some word, it is OK. You ask about it and get the translation.

Your task is to try to read it without stumbling and making slips. It is not that easy as it seems to be.

Besides we can also read parallel texts like a very simple one “New Deal Starts to Fail” (from VOA) or a more difficult one like “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (Edgar Allan Po)