3. Decide whether the sentences are true or false according to the text.

T F

1. Australia is the most droughty continent on the earth □ □

2. There are still many uninhabited areas in Australia □ □

3. Captain James Cook said that Australia belonged to Britain □ □

4. Tasmania is independent of Australia □ □

5. The six Australian states joined together to make one country □ □

6. The first British convicts landed in Australia in 1788. □ □

7. The deposits of gold were found then, and it led the country

to the rapid economic development □ □

8. Australia is a constitutional monarchy, with the Queen

of Great Britain at its head □ □

9. The aborigines spread throughout Australia and remained isola­-

ted from outside influences until the arrival of the Europeans □ □

4. Match the following Australian idioms with their explanations. Check the key after doing the task.

1) liquid cops; 2) Buckley’ chance; 3) canary / Cockatoo bird; 4) bush Baptist; 5) to be bushed; 6) to drink with the flies; 7) to blow one's bags; 8) on the sheep's back; 9) to drop one’s bundle; 10) to blow one’s boiler; 11) the Never-Never country.

a) a person of doubtful religious persuasion; b) to boast; c) thanks to sheep breeding / wool trading; d) to drink alone; e) convict; f) to give in / to resign oneself to fate; g) water police; h) to lose one's way; i) one chance in a million; j) sparsely-populated inner part of Australia; k) to lose one's temper.

Keys:1 g; 2 i; 3 e; 4 a; 5 h; 6 d; 7 b; 8 c; 9 f; 10 k; 11 j.

5. Compare unique cultural Australian words with American English equivalents.

Australian English American English

biscuit cookie

cue line

tucker food

car park parking lot

damper bread

paddock pasture

no worries you are welcome

mate buddy, pal

bewdy good one

bangers sausages

bloke fellow, man

chin wag chat

lipper smoker

dunny toilet

g’day hello

mob group

s heila female

How many Australian words have you memorized?

6. Read and translate the funny Australian stories into Ukrainian. An American Goes To Oz

Randy, a Texan farmer goes to Australia for a vacation. There he meets an Glen, an Aussie farmer and gets talking. The Aussie shows off his big wheat field and the Texan says, “Oh yeah. We have wheat fields that are at least twice as large”.

Then they walk around the ranch a little, and the Glen shows off his herd of cattle. Then Randy immediately says, “We have longhorns that are at least twice as large as your cows”.

The conversation has, meanwhile, almost died when the Texan sees a herd of kangaroos hopping through the field and so he asks, “And what are those, Glen?” the Aussie replies with an incredulous look, “Don't you have any grasshoppers in Texas?”.

aussie (Oz) [´ɒzɪ] – австралієць

ranch [rɑ:ntʃ] – ранчо

cattle [´kætl] – велика рогата худоба

longhorn [´lɒŋhͻ:n] – лонхорн (англійська порода великої рогатої худоби)

grasshopper [´ɡrɑ:sˏhɒpǝ] – цвіркун

True Australian Story

Back in 1948 General Motors introduced an Australian built car, the Holden. With minor changes they kept building the same model until 1956. There were supposed to be only about two dozen different keys for the model so if you had a few different keys the cars were very easy to steal.

A pal of my father's, Kevin Sutherland bought one in the mid 1950s and it was stolen a few months later. The village had only about 1100 people so police didn’t have much to search and didn’t find it. Some weeks later Mr. Sutherland went to the Queensland capital, Brisbane. That was about 750 miles away by road. While walking down the main street of the city he saw his car parked almost in front of his hotel. He rushed to his room, took his house key ring which still had the car keys on it, and drove the car to the nearest police station to report he had recovered it. The newspaper he had bought the day it was stolen was still on the back seat.

pal [pæl] приятель