Supplementary reading

19. People in Great Britain live in different kinds of houses. Read the following texts and say where Englishmen usually live in.

Text 1.

About 80 per cent of British people live in the houses. Detached houses are usually in expensive suburbs, quite far from the town centre, near the countryside. Semi-detached houses are often in suburbs which are nearer the town centre. Terraced houses and blocks of flats are mostly found in town centres. They can either be very small two-storey houses with one or two bedrooms or large houses with three to five floors and four or five bedrooms.

About 67 per cent of the people in Britain own their houses or flats. Most of the rest live in rented accommodation. People in Britain bye houses or flats because there is not enough rented accommodation and there is can be expensive.

Text 2.

Council flats and houses are built and owned by the local council. After the Second World War, a lot of high-rise council flats, known as tower blocks, were constructed. Some were as high as 20 storeys and so badly built that they had to be pulled down only thirty years later.

Modern council housing estates are built differently now. There might be a mixture of two-storey terraced houses, together with a four-storey block of flats. There are play areas for children and there is often a community centre where people who live on the estate can meet.

Since 1980s, council tenants have been able buy there own homes very cheaply if they have lived in them for over two years. By 1993, 1.5 million council houses had been sold, but only 5000 council houses or flats were built to replace them. This means that it is now very difficult to find cheap housing for rent – a real problem for the poor and unemployed.

“In Britain”

Make a list of the differences in housing types between Russia and Britain.

20. Translate the sentences from Russian into English:

1. Я согласен с утверждением «Мой дом – моя крепость». 2. Говорят, вы переехали. У вас уютная квартира? – Да, очень. 3. Сколько комнат в вашей новой квартире? – Три: гостиная, кабинет и спальня. 4. В гостиной есть мебель? – Около стены находится диван и два кресла. В углу стоит телевизор. 5. Квартира темная. В ней мало окон. 6. В холодильнике есть что-нибудь? – Ничего нет. 7. В комнате никого нет, но кто-то есть на кухне. 8. В нашей квартире есть все современные удобства. В центре кухни находится стол. 9. Мой брат любит строить воздушные замки. 10. Их новая квартира хорошо обставлена. 11. Большая часть города – современные здания. 12. Немногие англичане имеют отдельные дома в пригороде. 13. У них нет много денег, но есть много друзей.

Unit 2

§1. My Working Day

1. Do students in general have an interesting or boring life? Can you prove your point of view? Look at the phrases. Which of them describe things that students would enjoy?

• Pass exams

• Have a nice walk in the park

• Write a research work

• Attend lectures and seminars

• Meet a beautiful girl (young man)

• Go travelling

2. Study the Vocabulary, get ready to read and translate the text “My Working Day”