Section III

Vocabulary and Pre-Reading Work

Ex.1. Read and translate the words.

Nouns: clay house, step, skyscraper, landing, sand, stone house, stairs, verandah, cement, brick house, staircase, iron, tile, concrete house, railing, metal, slate, lime, mansion, cabin, igloo, wigwam, palace, hostel, block of flats, castle, caravan.

Verbs and phrases: to design, to install, to purchase, to whitewash, to paint, to lay the foundations, to level the site, to put in doors and windows, to put on the roof, to drive/to hammer nails

Adjectives: up-to-date / modern, old-fashioned / out-of-date

Ex.2. Match the words with their definitions:

1) step	a) type of earth that is soft when it is wet and hard when it is dry
2) concrete	b) a hard, solid substance found in the ground and often used for building
3) stairs	c) blocks of baked clay that are used for building walls
4) stone	d) a substance used for building and made from cement, sand, small stones and water
5) clay	e) a raised flat surface on which one puts one’s feet in order to walk up or down to a different level
6) brick	f) a set of steps inside a building
7) iron	g) a set of stairs inside a building
8) railing	h) an area at the top of a staircase, with rooms leading off it
9) staircase	i) a fence made of metal bars
10) slate	j) a hard dark metal used to make steel and also to make objects such as gates and fences
11) whitewash	k) flat, square, thin objects that are used to cover floors, walls or roofs
12) landing	l) a dark grey rock easily split onto thin layers and used for covering roofs
13)to purchase	m) substance which is used in cement and in whitewash
14) paint	n) a mixture of chalk and water used for painting walls white
15) tile	o) coloured liquid that one puts on a wall or other surface with a brush
16) lime	p) to buy

Ex.3. Translate the sentences below

1. Verandahs make the country houses more beautiful and more attractive.

2. Metal is a hard substance such as iron, steel, copper, etc.

3. The house was designed by a famous architect.

4. The electricity, gas and water systems are installed when a house is built.

5. The foundations of a house are usually laid of hard stone or concrete.

6. Before building a house, we level the site first.

7. After they had built the walls, the roof was put on and windows and doors were put in.

8. My three-year-old brother tried to drive/hammer a nail into the kitchen door.

9. A clay house is considered to be old-fashioned in comparison with up-to-date brick houses.

Ex.4. Read, translate and learn the words for different tools and say which of the tools carpenter, a metal worker and a builder would need and for what.

Plane, screwdriver, axe, pliers, trowel, hammer

Ex.5. Read the following paragraphs and entitle them.

The house in the countryside represents the basic property of a family. At the beginning of 20 century and even later villagers used to build their houses out of clay, the main building material of the time. The house usually had a tinda (entrance) and two rooms – a living-room that served both as a bedroom and a kitchen, and a Casa Mare (guest room). The specific architectural elements of an old house were the porch pillars decorated with carved ornaments and wood decoration of the roof. Nowadays no clay houses are built in the country any more. Recently other kinds of houses have appeared – among them two-storeyed cottages with many more rooms. A modern house is made of stone and brick in a traditional decorative Moldovan style. It preserves the elements of an old house, but with considerable architectural improvements. A terrace, verandah, balcony and attic make it very beautiful and attractive.

A lot of families in Great Britain and the US live in flats, but still a great number of people live in detached houses. They are usually built out of brick and slate. As a matter of fact, British houses are not large, but comfortable. Americans like to live in large houses. Most British as well as American houses are two-storeyed. The houses are well-planned and cosy. As a rule, downstairs there is a sitting-room, a dining room, a kitchen and a hall. The bedrooms, the children’s rooms and a bathroom are upstairs. English houses often have two doors: a front door for guests and a back door. Traditionally the British have a fireplace, a symbol of warmth in the house where they like to sit by the fire in winter evenings. In American houses there is a laundry-room next to the kitchen – a place in the house where they wash and dry clothes. In addition to all these rooms they usually have a recreation room and a work-out room in the basement. One cannot imagine a house in Britain and America without grass lawns at the back and a flowerbed in the front.

Ex.6. Choose and group the words from the text that refer to the following:

1) building material; 2) types of houses; 3) parts of the house; 4) decorations; 5) rooms.

Ex.7. Find the words in the text that correspond to the definitions below:

1. a place that is away from towns and cities;

2. a building in which people live;

3. to make something look more attractive;

4. up-to-date;

5. a platform with a roof along the outside wall of the house;

6. a room at the top of the house below the roof;

7. comfortable and warm;

8. the room where people do their physical exercises;

9. a piece of land where one grows plants.

Ex.8. What can you omit in the text without changing the general idea?

Ex.9. Select the information about:

1. old houses in Moldova;

2. modern buildings in Moldova;

3. British housing;

4. American accommodations.

Ex.10. Determine the topic sentence in each paragraph of the text.

Ex.11. Ask questions to the text.

Ex.12. Answer the questions:

1. What did a house in the country-side look like at the beginning of the 20 century in Moldova?

2. What kinds of houses have appeared recently?

3. Where can British/American people live?

4. What rooms are there in a house in Britain and US?

5. What is the symbol of warmth in a house? Is it convenient to have it? Why/why not?

6. What is there in an American house unlike a British one? What is common for them?

Ex.12. Prepare the retelling of the text.

Ex.13. Explain the proverbs:

1. House goes mad when mother is out.

2. Every bird likes its own nest.