_ПРАВКА_лексика разг.речи_. _ПРАВКА_лексика разг. Министерство образования и науки
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TEXT 5. Read and translate the text and the dialogue. Share your experience about complaining. How the British Complain In restaurants, as elsewhere, the British may moan and grumble to each other about poor service or bad food, but they find it difficult to complain directly to the staff. Complaining would be «making a scene» or «drawing attention to oneself» in public – all forbidden by the unwritten rules. So when the waiter asks if everything is all right they smile politely and mutter: «Yes, fine, thanks». Some braver people do complain, but their complaints sound timid and apologetic. «Excuse me, I’m terribly sorry, um, but, er, this soup seems to be rather, well, not very hot – a bit cold really». «Sorry, but, um, I ordered the steak and this looks like, er, well, fish». «Sorry, but do you think we could order soon? (this after a twenty-minute wait with no sign of service) It’s just that we are in a bit of hurry, sorry». And they look at the floor as though they have done something wrong. The British also tend to apologize for making perfectly reasonable requests: «Oh, excuse me, sorry, but could we possibly have some salt?» «Sorry, but could we have the bill now, please? And even for spending money: «Sorry, could we have another bottle of this, please?» And they always apologize when they haven’t eaten much of their meal: «Sorry, it was lovely, really, I’m just not very hungry». At the restaurant Husband: This meat is as tough as old boots. How is your fish? Wife: It tastes off. And these vegetables are cold. Husband: The wine is awful – I asked for dry and they have given us sweet! Wife: And look, there’s a worm in my salad! Waiter: How is your meal? Is everything all right? Husband: Oh, yes it’s all lovely! Wife: Excellent, thank you! TEXT 6. Read and translate the text. Be ready to discuss. The British and the Food Changes Today many people want food to be quick and easy. When both parents are working, they cannot cook large meals in the evenings. Ready-made meals from supermarkets and take-away meals from fast food restaurants are very popular. If you are feeling tired or lazy, you can even phone a local restaurant. They will bring the food to your house. Eating out Twenty years ago, British people usually ate at home. They only went out for a meal at special times, like for somebody’s birthday. But today, many people eat out at least once a week. English breakfast If you go to a hotel in Britain and ask for a typical English breakfast, you’ll probably get bacon and eggs, sausage, mushrooms, baked beans, tea and toast. When porridge or fruit juice are offered as well, the meal is sometimes advertised as a “full English breakfast”. But how many people in England actually eat an English breakfast? Only one person in ten! In fact, today’s English breakfast is more likely to be nothing! One in five people say all they have for breakfast is a cup of coffee, and many children go to school without eating anything. Lunch If you go to Britain to study English and you stay with a family you will almost certainly be given a packed lunch to eat for your midday meal. Some factories and schools have canteens where you can eat but the packed lunch is the most common thing to eat. A packed lunch usually consists of some sandwiches, a packet of crisps, an apple and a can of something to drink, for example, Coca-Cola. The quality of a packed lunch can vary from terrible to very good, it all depends on who makes it. British tastes In the past, traditional steakhouses were very popular places, but now many people prefer foreign food. Every British town has Indian and Chinese restaurants, and large towns have restaurants from many other countries too. Pubs are very popular. There are over 60 000 pubs in the UK. British people drink an average of 99,4 litres of beer is drunk in pubs and clubs. Tea-drinking The British population drinks about 2 000 000 000 cups of tea a day! That is an average of nearly 1 040 cups of tea a year for each person. Tea – mostly green tea from China – came to Britain in the late 1500s, but it was only for the very rich. It became cheaper about three hundred years later in Ceylon (Sri Lanka). People from all classes started drinking it. But some people thought that too much tea was bad for your health. So they started putting milk in it, to make it healthier! Would you like a cuppa? If someone asks you if you would like a cuppa, they are asking you if you would like a cup of tea. If someone says «let me be mother» or «shall I be mother», they are offering to pour out the tea from the teapot. TEXT 7. Read and translate. Make up a short situation to illustrate any proverb. British Proverbs
Read and translate. Speak on how superstitious you are. British Superstitions
TEXT 8. Read and translate the text. Answer the questions below. Political System of Great Britain The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a constitutional monarchy. It means that the sovereign reigns but does not rule. Britain does not have a written constitution, but a set of laws. Parliament is the most important authority in Britain. Technically Parliament is made up of three parts: the Monarch, the House of Lords; and the House of Commons. In reality the House of Commons is the only one of the three which has true power. The monarch serves formally as head of state. But the monarch is expected to be politically neutral and should not make political decisions. The House of Commons consists of Members of Parliament. There are 650 of them in the House of Commons. They are elected by secret ballot. General elections are held every five years. The country is divided into 650 constituencies. All citizens, aged 18 and registered in a constituency, have the right to vote. But voting is not compulsory in Britain. Only persons convicted of corrupt and certain mentally ill patients don't take part in voting. There are few political parties in Britain thanks to the British electoral system. The main ones are: the Conservative Party, the Labour Party and the Liberal / Social Democratic Alliance. Each political party puts up one candidate for each constituency. The one who wins the most votes is elected MP for that area. The party which wins the most seats in Parliament forms the Government. Its leader becomes the Prime Minister. His first job is to choose his Cabinet. The Prime Minister usually takes policy decisions with the agreement of the Cabinet. The functions of the House of Commons are legislation and scrutiny of government activities. The House of Commons is presided over by the Speaker. The Speaker is appointed by the Government. The House of Lords comprises about 1,200 peers. It is presided by the Lord Chancellor. The House of Lords has no real power. It acts rather as an advisory council. It's in the House of Commons that new bills are introduced and debated. If the majority of the members are in favour of a bill, it goes to the House of Lords to be debated. The House of Lords has the right to reject a new bill twice. But after two rejections they are obliged to accept it. And finally a bill goes to the monarch to be signed. Only then it becomes law. Parliament is responsible for British national policy. Local governments are responsible for organizing of education, police and many others. Questions
TEXT 9. Read and translate the text. British National Customs and Traditions Every nation has its own customs and traditions. The British are very proud of their ones. Some ceremonies are rather formal such as:
Changing of the Guard takes place at Buckingham Palace at 11.30 am every day in summer and every second day for the rest of the year. Trooping the Colour is a colourful military parade that makes the official birthday of the Queen. It is also known as The Queen’s Birthday Parade and usually takes place on the 2nd or 3rd Saturday in June (though, in fact, the Queen Elizabeth II was born on the 21st of April). The weather is usually very rainy in spring, that’s why the ceremony is in summer. The parade is held in London and is broadcasted on TV so that millions of people around the globe can enjoy the event. The Mounting of the Horse Guard takes place every day at 11 am (10 am on Sundays). So, you can see cavalrymen riding on black horses through the streets of London. They wear red uniforms, shining helmets, long black boots and long white gloves. These men are Life Guards. Their special duty is to guard the King or the Queen of Great Britain and very important guests of the country. The State Opening of Parliament marks the beginning of the parliamentary session. It starts with the Monarch’s Speech. The Speech contains the government proposed policies, legislation for the coming session and a review of the last session. The Monarch’s Telegram. This custom is not very old, but it's for very old people. On his or her one hundredth birthday, a British person gets a telegram from the Monarch. The Birthday Honours List and the New Year’s Honours List. Twice a year at Buckingham Palace titles or «honours» are given, once in January and once in June. There are a lot of different honours. Here are a few: C.B.E. – Companion of the British Empire, O.B.E. – Order of the British Empire, M.B.E. – Member of the British Empire. These honours began in the nineteenth century. Then Britain had an empire. Knighthood – a knight has «Sir» before his name. A new knight kneels in front of the Monarch. The Monarch touches first his right shoulder, then his left shoulder with a sword. Then she says «Arise, Sir. . . [his first name]», and the knight stands. Peerage – a peer is a lord. Peers sit in the House of Lords. That's one part of the Houses of Parliament. The other part is the House of Commons. Peers call the House of Commons «another place». Dame/Baroness – these are two of the highest honours for a woman. TEXT 10. Learn the info. Make reports on the subject. British Holidays, Notable Dates and Festivals It may seem strange, but in Britain there are more holidays than in many other countries. Public and Bank Holidays New Year's Day 1st Jan, Good Friday, Easter Monday, May Day 1st May, Spring bank holiday 29 May, Late Summer bank holiday 28 Aug, Christmas Day 25th Dec, Boxing Day 26 Dec. Religious festivals Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter Day, Ascension Day, Whit Sunday, Trinity Sunday, Advent Sunday, Christmas Day. Notable Dates and festivals St. Andrew's Day (Scotland), St. David's Day (Wales), St. George's Day (England), St Patrick's Day (Ireland), St. Valentine’s Day, Halloween, Bonfire Night, All fools’ Day, Pancake Day, Mother’s Day, Father's Day, Remembrance Day, Red Nose Day, Up-Helly-Aa , Merry England and London May Queen Festival , Burns Night, Notting Hill Carnival, Harvest festival. Here is info about some of them: Christmas Day, December 25th, is probably the most exciting day of the year for most English children. They know that they will get presents, just as they do on their birthdays. Traditionally, English children hang a stocking at the end of the bed on Christmas Eve. In the morning they check whether the stocking has been filled with toys, fruit and sweets. Larger toys will be nearby. The morning will be spent playing with new toys, then comes lunch, often with the turkey or goose as the main dish. Afterwards there is Christmas pudding to be eaten. Usually a coin or two will have been hidden inside it, and part of the fun is to see who finds it. No doubt English hospitals receive urgent telephone calls every year from parents whose children noticed the coins only as they were swallowing them. On December 26, the Boxing Day, traditionally people give each other Christmas presents, which used to come in boxes. It is a very pleasant custom indeed. New Year's Day is a bank holiday though many Britons do not celebrate on New Year's Eve. In Scotland New Year's Eve is called Hogmanay and is an occasion for joyous celebrations. In London Scottish people gather on steps of St. Paul's Cathedral and sing «Auld Lang Syne» at midnight. February 14th is the day on which young lovers in England send each other anonymous Valentines – bright, lacy, colourful cards, with loving emblems and amorous doggerel. The shops are full of these cards. Pancake day is the popular name for the Shrove Tuesday, the day before the first day of Lent. In the middle ages people on that day made merry and ate pancakes. The ingredients of pancakes are all forbidden by Church during Lent, that is why they have to be used the day before. The most common form of celebrating this day in the old times was the all town ball game or tug-of-war, in which everyone was tearing here and there, trying to get the ball or rope into their part of the city. Today the only custom, that is observed throughout Britain, is pancake eating. Everyone knows that pancakes are delicious to eat, but do you know that in England, on Shrove Tuesday, people race with them, fight for them? At Westminster School, in London, the boys have pancakes for dinner on Shrove Tuesday. But before dinner there is the pancake fight. The school cook tosses a pancake high into the air. The boys (one from each class) fight for the pancake. The winner of the fight is the boy who gets the biggest piece of pancake. He wins a guinea (£1.05). And the boys who don't win? Well, at least they get a pancake for dinner! Easter is one of the most important holidays in Christianity. In England it's a time for giving and receiving presents, mostly Easter eggs. We can say that the egg is the most popular emblem of Easter, but spring-time flowers are also used to stress the nature's awakening. Nowadays there are a lot of chocolate Easter eggs, having some small gifts inside. But a real hard-boiled egg, decorated and painted in bright colours , still appears on breakfast tables on Ester Day, or it's hidden in the house or garden for children to finny. In egg that is boiled really hard will last for years. Egg-rolling is a traditional Easter pastime. You roll the eggs down a clope until they are cracked and broken, after they are eaten up. October 31st is Halloween, and you can expect to meet witches and ghosts that night. Halloween is an old word for «Hallows Evening», the night before «All Hallows» or «All Saints' Day». On one night of the year, ghosts and witches are free. Well, that's the traditional story. A long time ago people were afraid and stayed at home on Halloween. But now in Britain its a time for fun. There are always a lot of parties on October 31st. At these parties people wear masks and they dress as ghosts, witches or monsters and make special Halloween lamps from pumpkins. November 5th is Guy Fawkes’ Day in Britain. All over the country people build wood fires or «bonfires», in their gardens. On top of each bonfire is a guy. That's a figure of Guy Fawkes. People make guys with straw, old clothes and newspapers. But before November 5th, children use their guys to make money. They stand in the street and shout «Penny for the guy». Then they spend the money on fireworks. But how did this tradition start? On November 5th 1605, Guy Fawkes tried to kill King James I. He and a group of friends put a bomb under the Houses of Parliament in London. But the King's men found the bomb and they found Guy Fawkes, too. They took him to the Tower of London and there the King's men cut off his head. |