8. Home idioms & proverbs

 VOCABULARY PRACTICE

Task 1. Idiomatic expressions.

1. What do the following expressions mean? When would you use them?

• Home, sweet home.

• An Englishman's home is his castle.

• Make yourself at home.

• It's home from home.

How would you express the same ideas in your own language?

2. Complete the following sentences with a suitable idiomatic expression.

1. Come in and have a seat. I want you to feel you can behave as if you were in your house. So _____ while I make a cup of tea.

2. They made me feel very welcome. It was like being in my own house. It was _____.

3. He had enjoyed travelling round the world and seeing different places, but at last he had returned. He walked towards his house and thought ‘_____’.

4. I can do what I want in my own house. You know what they say. _____.

Task 2. Match the idioms in the left column with their Russian equivalents in the right column. Think of the situations where you can use these idioms.

to build one's castle upon the sand to build castles in the air room at the top to do something under the table to be in the chair to take the floor a window on the world to camp on somebody's doorstep to shut the door in somebody's face to show somebody the door to force an open door to call somebody on the carpet a magic carpet walls have ears/good walls make good neighbours to drive somebody to the wall

выступать (перед аудиторией) указать кому-либо на дверь припереть кого-либо к стенке создавать что-либо непрочное ковёр-самолёт захлопнуть дверь перед носом председательствовать верхняя ступенька социальной лестницы ломиться в открытую дверь строить воздушные замки окно в мир у стен есть уши дать кому-либо нагоняй делать что-либо секретно обивать пороги

Task 3*. Highlight the meanings of the proverbs, making up short situations. Tell them in class.

1. People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

2. Do not burn your house to get rid of the mice.

3. As you make your bed, so you must lie on it.

4. A rolling stone gathers no moss.

5. Charity begins at home.

6. Home is where the heart is.

7. East or West – home is best.

Task 4*. Translate the following quotations and comment upon them.

'A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.' George Moore

'A house is not a home.' Polly Adler

'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.'

John Howard Payne