1. Put one suitable word in each space.

1. My brother is two years older ……………….. me.

2. The train takes just ………………. Long as the bus.

3. I thought the second hotel we stayed in was …………….. more friendly.

4. Unfortunately we are ………………. well-off than we used to be.

5. Do you think you could make a ……………… less noise?

6. These exercises seem to be getting harder and ………………. .

7. Jean didn’t enjoy the match as much as I ……………….. .

2. Put one suitable word in each space, beginning with the letter given.

a) Is William feeling any b……………….. today?

b) Everyone ate a lot, but Chris ate the m……………….. .

c) What’s the l……………….. news about the situation in Egypt?

d) I‘d feel a lot h………………. if you let me help.

e) Graham has been sinking d…………….. into debt lately.

f) It’s 35 degrees today! It must be the h……………….. day so far this year.

g) Only $45? Is that all? Oh well, it’s b……………….. than nothing.

h) He had to wait a f……………….. two months before he got his promotion.

i) Ruth wore her b………………. dress to her sister’s wedding.

j) Harry has got over the w……………… of his cold.

RELATIVE CLAUSES

1. Underline any relative pronouns that can be left out in these sentences.

1. I think that my boss is the person who I admire most.

2. Harry, who was tired, went to bed very early.

3. We’re taking the train that leaves at 6.00.

4. Have you seen the book that I left here on the desk?

5. The film that we liked most was the French one.

6. My radio, which isn’t very old, has suddenly stopped working.

7. The clothes which you left behind are at the reception desk.

8. The couple who met me at the station took me out to dinner.

9. Last week I ran into an old friend who I hadn’t seen for ages.

10. Don’t cook the meat that I put in the freezer – it’s for the dog.

2. Underline the most suitable word in each sentence.

1. My friend Jack, that/who/whose parents live in Glasgow, invited me to spend Christmas in Scotland.

2. Here’s the computer program that/whom/ whose I told you about.

3. I don’t believe the story that/who/whom she told us.

4. Peter comes from Witney, that/who/which is near Oxford.

5. This is the gun with that/ whom/which the murder was committed.

6. Have you received the parcel whom/whose/which we sent you?

7. Is this person who/which/whose you asked me about?

8. That’s the girl that/who/whose brother sits next to me at school.

9. The meal, that/which/whose wasn’t very tasty, was quite expensive.

10. We didn’t enjoy the play that/who/whose we went to see.

3. Put a suitable relative pronoun in each space, or leave the space blank where possible.

1. My bike, ……………… I had left at the gate, had disappeared.

2. The shoes ………………. I bought were the ones ……………….. I tried on first.

3. The bag in ……………….. the robbers put the money was found later.

4. The medicine ……………….. the doctor gave me had no effect at all.

5. Peter, ……………… couldn’t see the screen, decided to change his seat.

6. I really liked that tea …………….. you made me this morning.

7. What was the name of your friend ………………. Tent we borrowed?

8. The flight ……………….. Joe was leaving on was cancelled.

4. Make one sentence from each pair of sentences. Use the word given in capitals.

1. Brenda is a friend. I went on holiday with her. (WHO)

…………………………………………………………………………………..

2. This is Mr Smith. His son Bill plays in our team. (WHOSE)

……………………………………………………………………………………….

3. Her book was published last year. It became a best seller. (WHICH)

………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

4. This is the bank. We borrow the money from it. (WHICH)

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………

5. I told you about a person. She is at the door. (WHO)

………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

6. Jack’s car had broken down. He had to take a bus. (WHOSE)

………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

READ AND DISCUSS.

Language was first written down about five and half thousand years ago, in about 3500 BC. The Sumerians, who lived in Mesopotamia, were the first people to write down their language. They used symbols called pictographs to represent everyday objects – a bit like Egyptian hieroglyphics – and the first actual alphabet was developed around 3500 years ago by the Phoenicians, who lived on the eastern coast of what is now Syria. Today there are around 65 alphabets in the world. Interestingly, the shortest of them, the one used in the Solomon Islands, has only 11 letters. And the longest is the Cambodian, it’s got 74 letters.

There are somewhere in the region of 4000 languages in the world today. We’ll never find out the exact figure. The most spoken is Mandarin Chinese. It has about a billion speakers. English is next with about half a billion speakers and Hindi, Spanish and Russian are not too far behind. These five languages account for half of all the conversations in the world!

The latest thinking is that English is the biggest language, largely due to the number of technical and scientific words it contains. There are at least a million words in English. Most native speakers only use about 10,000 words.

According to recent research, where tens of thousands of hours of conversation have been fed into computers and analyzed, the most used word in English is “the”. We think, “be” is the most used verb in English. And the most common noun is “thing”.

Modern English, which is about 500 years old, is a mixture of mainly Romance and Germanic languages. Greek and Arabic have also provided English with many words. For example, “sugar” comes from Arabic. And, surprisingly, so does “alcohol”. In fact many, many words have been” borrowed” from other languages. For instance, “coffee” comes from Turkish and “chess’, the game, is a Persian word. “Ketchup” comes from the Malay language, a traditional Malaysian sauce. “Shampoo” is actually a Hindi word, from India.

By the way, Papua New Guinea has got the most languages – over eight hundred and fifty separate languages, but India has got dozens of languages. The bank notes there have got thirteen languages written on them. They’re the main languages. Most people there speak at least two or three languages.

What’s the highest number of languages spoken by one person? There was a Frenchman who spoke 31 different languages. All of them fluently!

Discuss. What facts do you find interesting, amusing, worth to know, shocking?

Ask questions about the facts mentioned in the text.

ESPERANTO.

What would the world be like if everyone spoke the same language? Would we understand each other better and be more sympathetic to each other’s causes? I’m talking about sharing the same second language – Esperanto.

What are the facts about this artificial language? Well, it was invented in 1887 by a Polish doctor, Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof. The vocabulary comes mainly from Western European languages, and the grammar is similar to Slavic languages. It sounds like Italian.

From the learner’s point of view, it has the advantage that there are no exceptions to the rules. It is spoken all over the world by approximately eight million people, and there are many who would like Esperanto to be the official second language of the world.

Esperanto means “hopeful”, and it was Zamenhof’s hope that a common language would promote a friendship and an understanding amongst all people of the world. His inspiration is summed up by the Esperanto term ‘interna ideo” which means central idea, and it is an idea of human peace and justice.

There are many advantages of Esperanto as a world language. The advantages of the world being able to talk freely to each other about business, politics, culture, sport, hobbies are obvious. The costs of translation at any international conference are staggering.

The main advantage is that Esperanto is a neutral language. It doesn’t have the national, political, and cultural bias that all others of course have. If everybody has to learn a second language, then everybody is equal.

Esperanto is a very easy language to learn. The tense system has none of the complications of English, and the grammar is based on just sixteen rules which have no exceptions. There are only five vowel sounds. The most remarkable thing is that after a very short time learners find that they can express quite sophisticated ideas, the same sort of things that they would want to say in their own language.

Esperanto is taught in many schools in Hungary and China. It has such internal logic that it could become the international computer language, and that would really establish it.

Discuss the advantages of Esperanto as a world language.

What do you think of Zamenhof’s “interna ideo”?

Would you rather be learning Esperanto than English? Why / why not?

ENGLISH AS AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE – NO PROBLEM, OK?

The British and the Americans like to talk about the differences between British and American English. There are a few small differences in the grammar and there are a few words that are different on either side of the Atlantic, but the big difference is the accent. Some British films have subtitles in America because people can’t understand what the actors are saying, and some American TV series (The Sopranos, for example) are difficult for the British to understand.

However, if you listen to Standard English (the language that TV newsreaders use, for example) in Britain or the US, there are no problems of understanding at all. The problems are with the different kinds of American and British English. These different dialects and accents depend on people’s social class and the geographical area where they live. It is possible, for example, that a middle-class speaker from the south of England will find it difficult to understand a working class speaker from the north. In the same way, a wealthy Californian may not understand a working-class New Yorker. All of these people have accents, but the middle class accents are usually closer to Standard English.

With so many different Englishes, it is difficult for learners of the language. What sort of English should they learn? Is American English better than British English, or the other way round? The answer depends on their reasons for learning English. If they are learning English for their work, the choice will probably be easy. But for many students, it doesn ‘t matter. What matters is that they understand and are understood.

The world is changing and English is no longer the property of the British, Americans or Australians. Most English that you hear and see around the world is spoken or written by non-native speakers – between, for example, a Greek and a German, or between a Russian and an Italian. English is the main language of business, academic conferences and tourism, of popular music, home computers and video games. English has become the Latin of the modern world.

Because of this, the question of American or British English is becoming less and less important. More and more people now talk about English as an International language – a language that is not American or British. It has hundreds of different accents, but if people can understand what you are saying, no problem. OK?

ANSWER:

Does the writer think that it is better to learn American or British English?

Which accents in your language do you find difficult to understand?

What do other people think of your accent?

What is the best accent in your language for a student to learn?

CREATIVE WRITING

a. Write about a well-known personality.

b. Describe your personality.

Translate the sentences using the active vocabulary:

1. Мне часто приходится иметь дело с клиентами, которые не говорят по-русски, поэтому мне приходится говорить на иностранных языках.

2. Клэр работает в инвестиционном банке, который находится в Лондоне. Раньше она работала в парижском отделении банка.

3. Многие ученые предсказывают, что большинство мировых языков исчезнет в ближайшие сто лет.

4. Изучение иностранного языка может оказаться гораздо труднее чем вы думаете.

5. Изучение испанского языка – это самое интересное и полезное из всего, чем я когда-либо занималась.

6. Японский язык гораздо труднее испанского.

7. Китай производит электротовары, текстиль и одежду, которые продаются во всем мире.

8. Для американских студентов самим легким языком для изучения является испанский, а китайский - самым сложным.

9. Американцам легче учить европейские языки чем азиатские.

10. Во время переговоров важно помнить о языке тела, то есть жестах, позах, выражении лица, зрительном контакте и т.д.

11. Камень Розетта может быть использован как словарь для проверки значения слов древних языков.

12. Знание иностранного языка дает больше возможностей при трудоустройстве.

Принимая участие в совещании, дискуссии

1. Цель нашего совещания сегодня – это …..

2. Мария, вы хотите начать?

3. Минуту, Мария, можно мне кое-что спросить?

4. Извините, я не совсем вас понимаю. Объясните, что вы имеете в виду под …

5. Все согласны?

6. ОК. Давайте перейдем к следующей теме.

7. Думаю, это все. Вы хотите обсудить что-то еще?

8. Суммируя все выше сказанное…

9. Хорошо. Закончим на сегодня.

UNIT 4

CONSUMER TRENDS

Word list:

1. spending habits/power, consumer spending

2. to save money

3. a retail outlet

4. household expenditure

5. single-person household, single women

6. birth rate, divorce rate, rate of growth

7. life expectancy

8. dependent child

9. disposable income

10. elderly people

11. round the clock

12. to boom

13. to increase sales by …%

14. on the way home

15. to expand opening hours

16. consumption of foods

17. increase in, growth, rise

18. to move into an apartment

19. to wave at smb.

20. to fall, a dramatic fall, decline

21. to grow dramatically

22. to be left behind

23. to enter workforce

24. to earn money

25. housing costs

26. domestic / overseas travel

27. car ownership

28. cinema attendance

29. newspaper circulation

30. current trends

31. shellfish

32. seasonal promotions

33. a variety of beers

34. a selection of snacks

35. live news broadcasts

36. poached salmon

37. grilled sirloin steak

38. to cater for all tastes

39. dairy products

40. criteria (ethical criteria)

41. code of conduct

42. energy-efficient appliances

43. growth markets

44. market share

45. organic food

46. a sweatshop

47. ethical consumers/ awareness / issues

48. green household products

49. environmentally-friendly cleaning products

50. responsible tourism

51. with regard to

52. labour conditions, child labour

53. turnover

54. per annum

55. to do market research

56. to design a programme

57. to list in a brochure