2.1_city

Ex. 1 Translate the following sentences into Russian paying attention to the phrases in bold type:

1. It’s about ten minutes from the downtown.

2. I wish there was a bit more nightlife in this place. 3. We live in a fairly quiet street near the park. 4. We used to live on a very busy main road.

5. My dad’s moved to a house in the suburbs. 6. I live on the outskirts of Paris.

7. It’s a quiet residential area.

8. She lives in a nice part of town.

9. I used to live in a really run-down area.

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Ex. 2 Put the following words into appropriate columns:

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Ex. 3 Match the words (1-7) with words (a-g) and fill in the gaps in the sentences (8-14) below with

the phrases you’ve got:

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1.I wish people wouldn’t drop rubbish in the street. There are plenty of

________________ around town.

2.It’s much safer for cyclists to get about these days with ______________

everywhere.

3.They’re building a huge in the centre of town. It’s going to house around a hundred families.

4.You cannot drive up that street any more. they’ve made it into a ___________.

5.Go straight down this road and turn left at the first set of _____________.

Quiet and peaceful

Clean air

Exciting

Stressful

Lots of open space

Nothing to do in the evening

Dangerous

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Ex. 5 Listen to the audio about life in the town and countryside in the UK and write short notes on what people say in the corresponding lines of the table:

WORK

HOUSING

WAY OF LIFE

ENVIRONMENT

Ex. 9 Read the e-mail and article below and do the exercises below:

Ex. 10 Read the text, explain the meaning of phrases in bold type and find in the text English equivalents for the words and expressions below:!

Many travelers observed how different the streets in new York are. On arriving in America a European traveler may be puzzled: is this a city at all? In fact, many traditional elements making your visit to almost any city in Europe so pleasurable will not be found in the New World. Instead of comfortable sidewalk cafes where you can relax and gaze at passers-by, you will find impersonal fast-food stands and a brownish brew in plastic cups only remotely resembling coffee. Instead of cozy winding streets of old Europe you will be exposed to the noise of the highways crossing the city in all directions. American cities reject many ideas of urbanity, such as cathedrals and outdoor plazas, often lacking a defined center and “old city”. They are spread out and depend heavily on the automobile - hence the abundance of parking garages and drive-through restaurants. In a word, American cities defy the European idea of a city as a beautiful, ordered, livable place.

“Perhaps the American urban stage is best described as cinematic rather than theatrical,” - writes Witold Rybczynski in his excellent book City Life. The author explains that the cinematic analogy is apt because “there is something fleeting about the American city, as if it were a temporary venue for diversion, a place to find entertaining novelty, at least for a time, before settling down elsewhere.” In fact, American cities lack the stable foundation of European cities - the permanence of residence. The historian John Lukas writes about Americans’ restlessness, the tendency to want to move around, not only from one part of the country to another, but from one neighborhood to another, even from one house to another. This restlessness may have something to do with the vast, open continent itself. Americans are driven by “a sense of open horizons, an impatience with communal restraints, an instinct for the continuation throughout life of childish joys, a taste for violence, hard use, quick turnover, lonely fantasies, eternal change.” In a sense, in America every day is a moving day.

How did American cities get to be so different from European ones? While European cities acted as a stage for the sovereign's dreams and ambitions, American cities were developed primarily due to entrepreneurial and commercial efforts. No kings, certainly no emperors, though there have been individual dreamers, men such as William Penn, the founder of colonial Philadelphia, the most ambitious planned city of its day. But above all, the American city reflects the ideas of ordinary people.

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Ex. 11 Read the description of Cork, one of Ireland’s main cities, answer the questions below and discuss what expressions from the text can be useful when describing another city/town:

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Ex. 12 Study the list of adjectives which can describe a town / city and make up a description of

Khabarovsk using them and any other active vocabulary:

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Ex. 13 Complete each sentence with a word from the box:

Ex. 15 Complete each compound with a word from the box:

1.Our сhildrеn spеnd a lot of timе having fun at thе loсаl plaу .

2.When you rеaсh the сross__________, takе thе road to Linton.

3.Yоu havе to turn left whеn you rеaсh the nеxt round__________.

4.Wе сan’t leavе thе сar hеrе. We’ll havе to look for a сar__________.

5.Follow this foot__________ until you rеaсh thе main road.

6.Thеrе was an old woman sеlling fruit at thе road__________.

7.Paula lives on the out__________ of the town, where the countryside bеgins.

8.You сan сross thе railway linе by walking ovеr a foot__________.

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Ex. 16 Study the list of common signs and notices which can be found in English-speaking countries and choose from the most appropriate option from the box (in some cases, more than one answer may be possible):

Ex. 17 a Look at the signs that have been translated badly into English. Which words have been

“lost in translation”? What should the signs say?

1. In a Copenhagen airline ticket office: “We take your bags and send them in all directions.”

!2. Bucharest hotel lobby: “The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.”

Ex. 17 b Read the glossary carefully, listen to the recording “Lost in Translation” paying attention

to the words and phrases from the glossary:

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GLOSSARY to proof vb to check for errors. Also, “to proof-read”

a road sign n a piece of metal / wood, etc. with text / information on it that appears on the road a council n a government of a town / city

a heavy goods vehicle n a large vehicle for transporting things to go up exp if a sign “goes up”, it appears in the street

to point out phr vb to indicate slight adj little; not important

inflamed adj if a part of your body is “inflamed”, it is red and swollen due to infection

a bladder n a part of your body where urine is stored

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Ex. 17 c Listen to the recording again and say whether the following statements are true (T), false

(F) or the speaker doesn’t say anything on it (DS):

1. Welsh is spoken in 5 countries. ____

2. Everybody in Wales can speak Welsh. ____

3. Welsh pupils take national exams in Welsh. ____

4. Wales is a monolingual country of the UK. ____

5. Everybody in Wales speaks English. ____

6. The road sign in Wales in which a mistake was noticed concerned lorries and trucks. ____

7. The Swansea council missed a spelling mistake in the Welsh part of that sign. ____

8. The Welsh translator made a mistake in the translation for that sign. ____

9. The mistake in that road sign is one of the 3 mistakes in bilingual signs in Wales. ____

10. The sign in Cardiff gave pedestrians opposite pieces of advice in its English and Welsh parts. ____

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