A clever mathematician's mind starts to trick him — but his real story has an amazing true prize at the end.
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These are the new words. Match each word (1–8) to its meaning (A–H). Say your answers out loud — "I think 1 is D" — then check.
1 = D (a genius) · 2 = H (a university) · 3 = F (an illness) · 4 = B (a doctor)
5 = A (imaginary) · 6 = C (a prize) · 7 = E (proud) · 8 = G (to recover)
Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind (2001). Read each part. Then try the questions from memory, and talk about the last one. (There are spoilers — that is fine, we want to talk about it. This story is about a serious illness, so we talk about it carefully and with respect.)
John is a very clever young man. He studies mathematics at a top university. He is strange with people, but brilliant with numbers. He wants to find one big, new idea. One evening, he watches his friends in a bar, and he has an idea about how people compete. Later, this idea will make him famous.
Years later, John is a teacher. He is married to Alicia, a clever student. A mysterious man called Parcher asks John to do secret work for the government: to find hidden messages inside newspapers. John tells no one, not even Alicia. He feels important and useful.
1. What big idea does John have, watching his friends in the bar?
2. What secret job does Parcher give him?
1. He realises that if people think about what others will do, and do not all compete for the same thing, everyone can do better. This becomes a famous idea in mathematics.
2. Parcher asks him to find secret enemy messages hidden inside ordinary newspapers and magazines.
John becomes more and more afraid. He is sure that dangerous men are chasing him. His strange behaviour frightens Alicia and puts their baby son in danger. Then comes a terrible shock: Charles, his good friend, and Parcher, the secret agent, are not real people. They exist only in John's mind.
Doctors say John has a serious mental illness called schizophrenia. He goes to hospital for treatment. Later, medicine helps stop the illness, but it also makes his mind slow and unclear. John and Alicia decide to stop the medicine — and the illness comes back, very badly.
1. What shocking truth do John and Alicia learn about Charles and Parcher?
2. What problem does John's medicine cause?
1. They are not real people — John's mind has imagined them for years.
2. The medicine stops the illness, but it also makes John's mind slow, so he cannot think clearly or work.
Instead of going back to hospital, John decides — with Alicia's help — to fight the illness with his own mind, not only with medicine. Slowly, he learns to recognise Charles and Parcher when they appear, and he simply chooses to ignore them, even though they still feel real to him.
Years pass. The university lets him sit quietly in the library. Slowly, people trust him again, and he begins to teach once more. Many years after his first big idea, a group of professors tell him quietly that he has won the Nobel Prize. In his speech, he thanks his wife, Alicia, more than anyone — he says love is the answer that matters most.
1. How does John learn to manage his illness?
2. Who does John thank most in his speech?
1. He learns to recognise the people his mind imagines, and he chooses not to listen to them or believe them.
2. He thanks his wife Alicia, saying she is the real reason for everything good in his life.
This story is full of people and things we need to describe exactly. English uses three small words for this job.
Complete each sentence with the correct word.
1. Alicia is the woman never stopped believing in John.
2. The Nash equilibrium is the idea made him famous.
3. Princeton is the university helped John after his illness.
1. who (a person)
2. which / that (a thing)
3. that / which (a thing)
Complete each sentence with who or which.
1. Charles is the friend was not real.
2. Schizophrenia is the illness John had for many years.
3. The Nobel Prize is the prize John won in 1994.
1. who (a person)
2. which (a thing)
3. which (a thing)
Fill each gap with who, which or that. Read it aloud when you finish.
John is the man had a famous idea about competition. Alicia is the woman stayed with him. The illness he had was very serious, but the prize he won later was very special.
who (a person) · who (a person) · that/which (a thing) · that/which (a thing)
Use who for people, which for things, and that for either.
Here is the surprising part: the mathematician in this film was a real person, and his real story is even more interesting than the film shows.
The real John Nash (1928–2015) was a real mathematician. His idea about competition, called the Nash equilibrium, is used by economists all over the world today. In 1994, he won the Nobel Prize for this idea — one of the biggest prizes in the world.
John really did have a serious mental illness, called schizophrenia. But in real life, he mostly heard voices — he did not see people like Charles and Parcher, the way the film shows. The film made his illness visual, so that we, the audience, could understand it more easily.
Also in real life, John and Alicia divorced in 1963, when his illness was very hard for the family. But Alicia never stopped caring about him, and they married again in 2001. Sadly, in 2015, John and Alicia died together in a car accident, on their way home from receiving another important prize in Norway.
Do all three tasks out loud. Use the timer to keep talking.
Tell the story of A Beautiful Mind in your own words. Use these steps to help you: a clever, strange student → a big idea in a bar → secret work for the government → the frightening truth about Charles and Parcher → hospital and medicine → learning to live with the illness → the Nobel Prize.
Try to use some key words (genius, university, illness, doctor, imaginary, prize, proud, recover) and who / which / that.
John must choose: medicine that stops the illness but makes thinking difficult, or no medicine, which is dangerous. What would you choose? Why?
Talk about being clever, and about illness. Use who, which and that.
Not sure what to say? Choose one: