The Indian and Two Travellers

Two men were travelling in a very wild part of America. They saw no modern houses and no traces ¹ of civilization for many days. What they saw were only a few huts² made of wood or tents where Indians lived. One day they met an old Indian who did not work but hunted animals ³ and ate them as his food. He was very clever and knew everything about the forest⁴ and the animals living in it and many other things. He could also speak English quite well.

"Can you tell us what the weather will be like during the next few days?" one of the two travellers asked him. "Oh, yes," he said. "Rain is coming, and wind. Then there will be snow for a day or two but then the sunshine will come again and the weather will be fine."

"These old Indians seem to know more about Nature than we with all our science," said the man to his friend. Then he turned to the old Indian.

"Tell me," he said, "how do you know all that?" The Indian answered: "I heard it on the radio."

1. следы 2. хижина З. охотился на животных 4. лес

1. What is this text about?

2. What did the old Indian say about the weather? How did he know all that?

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The Englishman's Garden

The English like growing flowers. It's a useful occupation because it doesn't harm anyone '. In winter the most romantic thing for some people is to pick up a seed catalogue² and look at the brightly coloured pictures of summer flowers. Even people with a tiny patch ³ of ground in towns like growing plants⁴ and people who have never se­riously tried to speak any for­eign language carefully learn the Latin names of the flowers they plant⁵, so that they can tell their friends.

If you want to please an English person, be very polite about his garden. He will probably tell you about his garden. So you listen and say: "How interest­ing! How clever of you!"

The English gardens are internationally famous. Some of them are very beautiful, especially the big ones that are open to the public.

l. не причиняет никому вреда 2. каталог семян 3. крошечный кусочек 4. выращивать растения 5. сажают 6. вежливый

1. What is this text about?

2. What does this text teach us if it really does?

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At the Pub

For company and conversation the English go to the "pub". The cafes in England sell only coffee, tea and "soft" drinks. You go to a cafe for a meal or for a quick cup of tea, but not to sit and watch the world go by. When you want to relax after a day's work, you go to the local public house.

Everybody goes there, except ' children, who are not allowed in. If you go up to the bar, you may find every kind of person: doctors, schoolmasters, workmen. They all go there, to talk and to drink their usual drink.

Nearly everyone drinks beer. Most pubs, in fact, have a piano and on Saturday night the customers may well gather round it and sing. The songs they sing are the same all over England. Songs from the 1914 war, sentimental and sad, like "If you were the only Girl in the World". They are easy to learn.

The people who want to sing ask someone to play the tunes on the old piano. -They group themselves round it and they buy drinks for the pianist. That is the custom. The one who plays has free² drinks as long as he plays.

Good humour and good temper³ give English pubs their character. If you go there regularly the landlord ⁴ will try to get to know you. He will remember what you usually drink and may well become a personal friend. The pub is the place where you meet people. You get to know other "regulars"⁵, you buy drinks in turn, which is called "to stand a round" and you talk. You talk about the weather or how the English cricket team is doing in the Test Match against Australia.

The pub is often the only place where men may meet each other after work. It is very surprising, but even in large cities each public house has its own regular custo­mers who go there every night, to drink one or two pints, slowly, and to have a game of dominoes or to play darts⁶. And although⁷ they see each other almost every night for years, the regulars who meet there will never go into each other's homes.

1. за исключением 2. бесплатный 3. хорошее настроение 4. хозяин 5. завсегдатаи 6. дартс — «дротики» (их бросают в разграфленный пробковый круг) 7. Хотя

1. What gives English pubs their character?

2. What kind of customers is called "the regulars"?

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Bernard Berg started as an English language teacher. He was always good at languages at school, so he decided to take his degree ^l in French and German first. When he finished his university studies in Oxford he began teaching in a secondary school in England. Two years later, how­ever, he met someone by chance² who offered him a job teaching English to foreign students during the long summer holidays. His students were adults ³ and he enjoyed the work greatly. He soon found he was interested in lan­guages of different countries. Since then he has special­ized in this work.

First he went to Africa for two years and then he spent a year in Spain. After that he went to Italy where he worked for three years. He hasn't been to South America yet but he plans to go there next. He has taught men and women of all ages and of all nationalities. He has also learnt to get on ⁴ with people of all walks of life ⁵. Now he is a writer but his interest in foreign languages never lessens ⁶.

1. получить степень 2. случайно 3. взрослые 4. ладить (обращаться) 5. все слои общества 6. не убывает

1. Choose a sentence from the text to give a title to the story. Account for your choice.

2. What is this text about?

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Oxford

Oxford is like London: it is international, it is very old and it has great charm. It is also a town that grew up near the river Thames.

Oxford is international because people from many parts of the world come to study at its university. They come to study at one of the twenty-seven men's colleges or at one of the five women's colleges that are the univer­sity: they join the university "family" that has more than 9,000 members.

Oxford is old and historical. It has existed since 912. The university was established in 1249. The oldest of the twenty-seven men's colleges is University College.

You can see the charm of Oxford in the green fields and parks which surround ¹ the city and you can see it in the lawns ² and gardens which surround the colleges. You can see the charm of Oxford in the river Thames and its streams which pass near the city.

Do you know that the name Oxford means the part of the river Thames where the oxen (cattle) ³ forded (crossed)?

1. окружают 2. газоны З. рогатый скот

1. Have you learnt anything new about Oxford?

2. What is it?

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