Кудинова Практическиы курс англиыского языка для студентов международник Ч.2 2014

received from the barge before everyone has drunk themselves insensible reads admiringly: “The English ended up on Chartreuse.”

2.Use a good dictionary to translate the first three paragraphs of the text into literary Russian.

3.Find 18 personality adjectives and use them to describe one of the following nations: Spanish, Italian, Ukrainian, Chinese, Turkish.

4.Answer the questions:

1.How do the Russians see themselves?

2.Do they like to hear the things they say about themselves from other nations?

3.What is the Russians’ attitude to the Germans? The French? The Americans? The English?

Listening: Cultural Mistakes

1. Have you ever made any cultural mistakes? What were they?

2a. Listen to two people talking about mistakes they made when visiting other countries. Where were they and what mistakes did they make? Before

you listen, make sure you know the following vocabulary units.

1. to tap sb on the shoulder, to mutter, to point at sb, embarrassed, to regret doing sth, a ferry-boat; 2. social gaff, to do the orientation programme, expatriate, the hosts, to pick sb up, to feel stuffed full, a mouthful.

2b. Listen again and complete these sentences.

1.My wife __________ there by dolmus.

2.I __________ the money and___________ it to him.

3.He __________ not to get on his bus again. I ___________by dolmus...

4.I'd___________ the orientation programme because I'd been to Malaga ...

5. ... my hosts had___________ me up at nine o'clock and that I'd___________

them ...

6.They __________ lots of different dishes.

7.They nearly fell off their chairs laughing and ___________forget about eating any more food.

Speaking: Peculiarities of National Etiquette

Split into pairs and discuss what you think of the following rules of politeness. Use the active vocabulary of the unit.

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1. In Norway it's not polite to give your seat in

transport to elderly people. It’s assumed that by doing this you emphasize your physical superiority. It is also not customary to make compliments in the face, to praise (with the exception of the closest relatives) – it’s considered to be flattery and the person who is flattered too often loses his standing. At school pupils are not praised in the presence of others, marks are not announced publicly – announcing good marks means placing the children who get them above the others. When

a person comes to work after being ill, it’s not customary to ask him / her how he is. In Russia asking such questions is a manifestation of sympathy and attention. In Norway it

is indecent – such things are too personal.

2. In the USA it’s not polite to pay for women in restaurants and to do loads of other things – to open the door for a woman, to help her carry something. It’s

assumed that by doing so men stress their superiority. Besides, it’s not a good idea to make compliments about appearance – this might be regarded as sexual harassment.

3. In China it’s polite to champ when you are out on a visit, otherwise the hosts might think that the food they are treating you to is not tasty. Eating silently in China means offending the hosts and the cook. And the sauce-covered tablecloth

indicates that you’ve been eating with appetite. It is also impolite to give flowers

to the hostess. It’s considered that by doing so the guests point out that the house is so ugly that you have to bring decorations with you. The Chinese think that it

is not a good idea to give natural flowers. It’s a symbol of death – they will die soon. But artificial flowers are OK – they are eternal. In China it is a terrible thing to give something connected with the number four because it is a symbol of death. Even in buildings you will never find the fourth floor.

4.In Finland it’s not customary to make compliments in public. Compliments made in public are not considered to be real compliments.

5.In Greece it’s not a good idea to admire a picture or a vase in your hosts' home, or they will feel they have to give it to you.

6.“Thumbs up” in some countries means “I’ve cheated you”.

7.In some countries it is believed that if you wash up in somebody's home, you wash away the happiness. So if you want to help your hosts after the party you can vacuum clean, for example… But don’t even think of coming near the dishes!!!

8.In South Korea if you try to wipe tears and sniffles running down your face while eating (the food is extremely spicy) you can be considered very rude. The

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best compliment for the hostess / the cook is crying and sniffling. It is also customary to tell women that they look tired or ill. It’s a form of making compliments. A girl has to look ill and feeble to make men want to defend her.

9.It’s not customary to keep from belching in Mongolia and Buryatia. If a guest is not belching he is hungry, so he has to keep eating.

10.In Japan and Norway it is not customary to give an odd number of flowers because it is considered that a flower that doesn’t have a pair feels lonely. Odd numbers of flowers are brought to cemeteries and funerals.

11.In India it is not customary to thank your relatives. Actually, it’s not

customary to say “thank you” at all. If you are given something, you can say

“What a beautiful thing!” or “How long I have been dreaming about it!” But if you say “thank you” it means treating your partner formally, as a stranger.

12. In Asia tea is poured into a guest’s cup gradually. If a full cup is poured you must drink it and leave. And if you pour it little by little you can have long

leisurely conversations. It is called “with respect” and “without respect”.

13.To sit cross-legged pointing at your interlocutor with your toe is a terrible offense in many countries of South-East Asia. So is patting on the head.

14.Arabs never pass the mouthpiece of the water-pipe to each other because it is considered to be constraint. They put it on the table.

15.In Japan it is impossible to leave work earlier than your boss.

16.In Russia it isn’t customary to praise children because people are afraid of the evil eye. For the same reasons it is not habitual to say you are perfect if asked how you are.

Reading: Cultural Differences

1. Do the matching task to help you understand the text.

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2. Read texts A and B. What are the main differences between the opinions of the two writers?

Cultural differences

A knowledge of differences between cultures, in an ever-shrinking globalised world, is becoming one of the essential key skills that modern 'citizens of the world' need to possess in order to work and learn effectively. At a superficial level this involves knowing about food or body taboos. For example, some cultures don't eat meat, cows can be sacred, the head must not be touched. But while it is important to know about these things, if this is where your intercultural knowledge stops, you will still end up offending people or being misunderstood.

More important than superficial behaviour is the value system of a culture. In the same way that a good doctor needs to understand underlying causes rather than just treat symptoms, the culturally aware individual needs to have not only a knowledge of publicly visible behaviours and stated beliefs, but also an awareness of the underlying value systems of cultures that shape those behaviours and stated beliefs.

Of course, these belief systems can be very different from one's own, and it is very easy to label other people's behaviours and beliefs as strange. It is more difficult to accept that one's own ways of behaving, which seem perfectly normal, can be seen as strange and even rude in another culture. But unless one tries to observe one's own culture objectively and have an understanding of why other cultures

do things differently, it is inevitable that cultural mistakes will be made.

Don't believe the people who say that we must be 'culturally aware', that we should always think about where people come from so we don't offend them. That's nonsense! You know what it does? It makes people concentrate on tiny, small things, like where you put the soles of your feet when you're sitting down - in case you give offence. Or how close you get to somebody on a bus or train - invading their physical space it's called. It's all trivial and really, unimportant. No, what everybody really needs is loads of politeness and patience'. Once you get that, you don't have to worry about other people's culture.

The other thing people say is that we reject other people because they threaten us - our culture. I think that's so true. We don't like to feel threatened -

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to worry about our kids, our jobs and so on. The important thing is that your kids can get a decent education, you can get work, and your family feel safe. If those three things are OK, cultural differences aren't really important and you don't read anything about cultural problems in the newspapers. Multiculturalism with all cultures mucking in together works fine then. But, and it's a big but, if any of these three things goes wrong or missing, you're in trouble, big trouble. That's when the little things between people of different cultures start to matter and can become big, troublesome issues.

3. Choose the most appropriate answer:

1. Text A argues for the following.

a. Doctors should treat symptoms of illness.

b. We should all understand the causes of illness. c. We should all be culturally aware.

2. Text A argues that

a. thinking about other people's behaviours and beliefs is strange.

b. it is very easy to describe what other people believe and how they behave as strange.

c. our own ways of behaving are perfectly normal. 3. Text B states that

a. small differences don't get into the newspapers.

b. it is important to know how close you should get to someone on public transport.

c. small cultural differences are unimportant. 4. Text B states that

a.multiculturalism can work in certain circumstances.

b.multicultural communities should be easy to establish.

c.your kids' education is more important than being able to find a job.

4. Which of the words below suggest a style closer to Text A and which closer to Text B? You may choose more than one word to describe each text.

textbook blog email essay formal informal chatty distant

5. Work in groups of four to have a debate on the motion Cultural differences are important. Students A and B are for the motion; Students C and D are against.

Reading and Speaking: In Search of Good Food

1. Do you know any typical meals from the following countries?

What do you think influences a country's food? What influences the food in your country?

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2. Read these quotations about English food. Do all the people have the same opinion about English food?

'It takes some skill to spoil a breakfast— even the English can't do

it!'

J K Galbraith, economist

'On the Continent people have good food; in England people have good

table manners.'

George Mikes, writer and humorist

'If the English can survive their food,

they can survive anything!'

George Bernard Shaw, writer

'Even today, well-brought up English girls are taught to boil all vegetables for at least a month and a half, just in case one of the dinner guests comes

without his teeth!'

Calvin Trillin, American writer

'English cooking? You just put things into boiling water and then take them out

again after a long while!'

An anonymous French chef

3. Read the text quickly. Match a paragraph 1-5 with a summary below.

How come it is so difficult to find English food in England? In Greece you eat Greek food, in France French food, in Italy Italian food, but in England, in any High Street in the land, it is easier to find Indian and Chinese restaurants than English ones. In London you can eat Thai, Portuguese, Turkish, Lebanese, Japanese, Russian, Polish, Swiss, Swedish, Spanish, and Italian—but where are the English restaurants?

It is not only in restaurants that foreign dishes are replacing traditional British food. In every supermarket, sales of pasta, pizza and poppadoms are booming. Why has this happened? What is wrong with the cooks of Britain that they prefer cooking pasta to potatoes? Why do the British choose to eat lasagna instead of shepherd's pie? Why do they now like cooking in wine and olive oil? But perhaps it is a good thing. After all, this is the end of the 20th century and we can get ingredients from a over the world in just a few hours. Anyway, wasn't English food always disgusting and tasteless? Wasn’t it always boiled to

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death and swimming in fat? The answer to these questions is a resounding 'No', but to understand this, we have to go back to before World War II.

The British have in fact always imported food from abroad. From the time of the Roman invasion foreign trade was a major influence on British cooking. English kitchens, like the English language, absorbed ingredients from all over the world – chickens, rabbits, apples, and tea. All of these and more were successfully incorporated into British dishes. Another important influence on

British cooking was of course the weather.

The good old British rain gives us rich soil and green grass, and means that we are able to produce some of the finest varieties of meat, fruit and vegetables, which don't need fancy sauces or complicated recipes to disguise their taste.

However, World War II changed everything. Wartime women had to forget 600 years of British cooking, learn to do without foreign imports, and ration their use of home-grown food. The Ministry of Food published cheap, boring recipes. The joke of the war was a dish called Woolton Pie (named after the Minister for Food). This consisted of a mixture of boiled vegetables covered in white sauce with mashed potato on the top. Britain never managed to recover from the wartime attitude to food. We were left with a loss of confidence in our cooking skills and after years of Ministry recipes we began to believe that British food was boring, and we searched the world for sophisticated, new dishes which gave hope of a better future. The British people became tourists at their own dining tables and in the restaurants of their land! This is a tragedy! Surely food is as much a part of our culture as our landscape, our language, and our literature. Nowadays, cooking British food is like speaking a dead language. It is almost as bizarre as having a conversation in Anglo-Saxon English!

However, there is still one small ray of hope. British pubs are often the best places to eat well and cheaply in Britain, and they also increasingly try to serve tasty British food. Can we recommend to you our two favourite places to eat in Britain? The Shepherd's Inn in Melmerby, Cumbria, and the Dolphin Inn in Kingston, Devon. Their steak and mushroom pie, Lancashire hotpot, and bread and butter pudding are three of the gastronomic wonders of the world!

4. Read the article more carefully. Choose the best answer, a, b or c.

1.The writers believe that British cooking ...

a.has always been very bad.

b.was good until World War II.

c.is good because it is so international.

2.They say that the British ...

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a.eat only traditional British food in their homes,

b.don't like cooking with foreign ingredients,

c.buy lots of foreign ingredients.

3They say that the British weather ...

a.enables the British to produce good quality food,

b.often ruins fruit and vegetables,

c.is not such an important influence on British food as foreign trade.

4.They say that World War II had a great influence on British cooking because...

a.traditional British cooking was rediscovered and some good cheap recipes were produced.

b.people had limitless supplies of home-grown food.

c.people started to believe that British food was boring, so after the war they wanted to cook more interesting and international dishes.

5.They say that...

a.British tourists try lots of new dishes when they are abroad.

b.nowadays it is very unusual for British people to cook British food.

c.literature and language are more culturally important than food.

6.The writers' final conclusion about British cooking is that ...

a.there is no hope.

b.you will only be able to get British food in expensive restaurants.

c.you will be able to get more good traditional British dishes, especially in pubs.

5.Do you agree that food is as much a part of a country's culture as its landscape, language, and literature?

6.There are several national British dishes mentioned in the text: shepherd’s pie, Lancashire hotpot, pudding. What ingredients do these dishes consist of? Give a recipe of one of them (don’t forget to mention ingredients and the way the dish is cooked). Do you know any other traditional British dishes?

7.Find in the text the equivalents to the following words and expressions:

тонкая хрустящая индийская лепёшка, римское завоевание, поглощать ингредиенты, стать составной частью британских блюд, богатая почва, (кулинарный) рецепт, нормировать, картошка пюре, эксцентричный, луч надежды, рагу (тушёное мясо с овощами).

8.Translate into literary Russian:

1. Wasn’t English food always disgusting and tasteless? Wasn’t it always boiled to death and swimming in fat? The answer to these questions is a resounding

‘No’.

2. We were left with a loss of confidence in our cooking skills and after years of Ministry recipes we began to believe that British food was boring, and we searched the world for sophisticated, new dishes which gave hope of a better future.

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Speaking: Smart Home to help the Elderly

In Pairs: Study the picture carefully and discuss what help a Smart Home can render if an elderly member of the family lives alone and far from his/her relatives. What do you think about this usage of the Smart Home Technology?

Reading and Speaking: National Traits

1.In small groups, discuss the questions below.

1.What do you think defines people from your country?

2.What is important to them? What do they value?

3.How do you think people from other countries see you?

2.Read the statements below about

British people. Which do you think are true and which are false?

The British are ...

1)serious

2)reluctant to express their feelings

3)extravagant shoppers

4)calm, patient drivers

5)home lovers

6)open and direct communicators

7)interested in social status

8)excessively polite

3.Compare your ideas with a partner

and then read the article on the next page and check.

To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy.

Will Durant (1885-1981) US writer

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4.Which character traits of the British surprised you most? Why?

5.Which of the character traits listed are the same for your culture / nationality?

6.Scan the article and add the correct dependent preposition.

7. Make sentences about your own culture using the phrases above.

Our top national characteristic is talking about the weather, just ahead of a passion for queuing, but other qualities in the top ten are not so endearing; sarcasm, a love of television soaps and curtain twitching were all identified as central to the British identity.

Obsession with class was also high on the list, along with more modern ills such as road rage.

Working long hours, fascination with property prices and the love of bargains also made it into the top 50.

But it was not all bad news. Stiff upper lip came out high in the poll, with respondents also choosing a reluctance to complain, a good sense of humour and the ability to laugh at ourselves.

The results were based on a study of 5,000 adults who were asked to pick out the things - good and bad - they believe makes us unique as a nation.

A spokesman for global research company OnePoll.com, which conducted the survey, said that despite some of the negative traits identified, Britons were still extremely proud of their country.

This is a brilliant list of characteristics and some of the observations are absolutely spot on,' he said.

'You can't go anywhere or do anything in Britain without someone talking about the weather, and we're almost proud of the fact that we get more rain than anywhere else. What this poll demonstrates really well is how proud we are to be British - more than two-thirds of respondents said they felt honoured to be a

10.Inability to complain

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