Listen to the text and answer the questions in your workbook.0:03
Samuel Johnson was born in 1709 into the family of a bookseller.0:07
He became a student at Oxford University, but didn't take a degree because family financial crisis called him back home.0:12
When Johnson was 26, he married a woman much older than himself and remained devoted to her for years after her death.0:20
At some point, Samuel Johnson moved to London, where he began writing for some periodicals.0:28
That was also the time when he started working at his famous dictionary, a work which he finally finished in 1755.0:33
The publication of the dictionary won him a leading place among English men of letters.0:41
While working on the dictionary, he continued to write for magazines and later completed his other two great projects, edited the works by William Shakespeare, and wrote a book of literary criticism called the Lives of the English Poets.0:46
During his life, Samuel Johnson managed to do a lot for literature and journalism, but his name is still mostly associated with the dictionary.1:01
Johnson's dictionary was one of the first books of this kind in the world.1:09
His idea was to give the English language more stability.1:13
The problem was that in the middle of the 18th century, English words tended to have variance in meanings, spellings and pronunciations.1:17
This instability of the language had become a barrier of clear communication.1:25
Johnson's Dictionary helped to change the situation in the English language for the better and established some norm which people could follow.1:29
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