[originaltext]M: Mary, you are into drama, so I thought we would talk about Sha

M: Mary, you are into drama, so I thought we would talk about Shakespeare.
W: Cool!
M: First of all, who is Shakespeare?
W: Well, Shakespeare is one of the most famous pla8wrights in the world.
M: What kinds of plays did he produce?
W: Well, he produced historical plays, tragedies, comedies, poetry, sonnets…He was an extremely productive writer.
M: Wonderful. So can I say he is famous because he produced so many plays?
W: Actually, I think the reason that he’s so famous even today is because the themes he chose for most of his works were universal.
M: Universal? Do you mean they’re themes that touc6 us whether we speak English or Spanish, or Russian, whether we’re in the 21st century or in the 16th century?
W: Yeah, you are quite right.
M: How much has the English changed from the original Shakespeare to the Shakespeare we have today, I mean the English we have today?
W: Well, if Shakespeare suddenly appeared in the 21st century he would be almost illiterate because back in those days, English had a vocabulary of about 150, 000 words, whereas now the vocabulary of English is 300, 000, I think, probably more" so in a way the vocabulary he’s using is really easy.
M: But wait a minute. You’re saying that his English is easy? When I read it, it doesn’t seem easy, and it seems pretty tough!
W: Well, that’s because his English was used in a different way. Some words and grammatical structures in his works are no longer used in English now.
Questions 5 to 8 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
5. What can we learn about Shakespeare from the conversation?
6. What makes Shakespeare so famous even today according to the woman?
7. Why does the woman say the English in Shakespeare’s time is easier?
8. What makes it tough to read Shakespeare’s works?