МИНИСТЕРСТВО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ И НАУКИ
РОССИЙСКОЙ ФЕДЕРАЦИИ
Губкинский институт (филиал)
Московского государственного открытого университета
Н.И. Гайворонская
МИНИ-СБОРНИК
РАЗГОВОРНЫХ ТЕМ
АНГЛИЙСКОГО ЯЗЫКА
для студентов технических вузов
Губкин
2005
СОДЕРЖАНИЕ
ТЕМА 1. Our Institute …………………………………. 4
ТЕМА 2. Shopping ………………………………………. 4
ТЕМА 3. At a restaurant ………………………………… 5
ТЕМА 4. Health. The doctor ..…………………………… 6
ТЕМА 5. Going through Customs .…………………….. 7
ТЕМА 6. At the hotel ……………………………………. 8
ТЕМА 7. The British Post Office ………………………... 8
ТЕМА 8. Telephone ……………………………………… 9
ТЕМА 9. Travelling around London………………….... 10
ТЕМА 10. Travelling by plane …………………………. 11
ТЕМА 11. Travelling by car …………………………… 12
ТЕМА 12. Travelling by train ………………………….. 12
ТЕМА 13. Travelling by sea ……………………………. 13
ТЕМА 1
Our Institute
I am a first year student of the Gubkin Institute. It is the branch of the Moscow State Open University. Our Institute was founded in 1934. It is one of the biggest educational institutions in our country which has both day-time and correspondence departments¹. At present the Institute has four faculties. I am a student of the economical (building, automechanical, mining) faculty.
There are many well-equipped laboratories and workshops in our Institute. Here the students make experiments and do research work. There is a good library and computer classes in the main building.
The course of studies usually lasts 5-6 years. The academic year begins on the 1-st of September and ends in June. It is divided into two terms: fall term² and spring term. During the year the students attend lectures and classes and do laboratory works. Twice a year students have vacations – two weeks in winter and two months in summer.
Specialization plays a major part in planning the curriculum. Usually specialization begins in the third year. The first and second year students study general engineering subjects such as mathematics, physics, history, mechanics, engineering, languages (Russian and foreign) and a number of others.
I like to study at our Institute and in some years I hope to graduate from the Institute and become a good specialist.
¹correspondence department – заочное отделение
²fall term – осенний семестр
ТЕМА 2
Shopping
Shopping has common elements wherever it takes place. A buyer looks for a seller who is offering something the buyer wants or needs at a price the buyer can afford to pay. Sellers often advertise their wares in newspapers, on the radio or TV. Sellers use a variety of tactics to induce buyers to purchase from them at a price which leaves some profit.
Shopping is a part of our daily life. And we have to deal with it whether we like it or not. There are people who hate going shopping. So they make a list of what they need and run through stores buying the needed things. Sometimes they even don’t care about the price. And there are people who go from store to store looking for goods of better quality and lower price. Those don’t worry about the time they spend shopping.
But there is a very good service called Postal Market. It really helps you to save your time and to get goods of high quality. You just have to look through a catalogue, choose the things you like, order them and wait a little to get them.
There are many kinds of shops in every town or city, but most of them have a food supermarket, a department store, men’s and women’s clothing stores, grocery, a bakery and butchery.
I like to do my shopping at big department stores and supermarkets. They sell various goods under one roof and this is very convenient. A department store, for example, true to its name, is composed of many departments: ready-made clothes, fabrics, shoes, sports goods, toys, china and glass, electric appliances, cosmetics, linen, curtains, cameras, records, etc. You can buy everything you like there.
There are also escalators in big stores which take customers to different floors. The things for sale are on the counters so that they can be easily seen. At the women’s clothing department you can find dresses, costumes, blouses, skirts, coats, beautiful underwear and many other things. At the men’s clothing department you can choose suits, trousers, overcoats, ties, etc. At the knitwear department one can buy sweaters, cardigans, shot-sleeved and long-sleeved pullovers, woolen jackets. At the perfumery they sell face cream and powder, lipstick, lotions and shampoos.
At a food supermarket we can also buy many different things at once: sausages, fish, sugar, macaroni, flour, cereals, and tea. At a butcher’s there is a wide choice of meat and poultry. At a bakery you buy brown and white bread, rolls and biscuits. Another shop we frequently go to is the greengrocery which is stocked with cabbage, potatoes, onions, cucumbers, carrots, beetroots, green peas and what not. Everything is sold here ready-weighed and packed. If you call round at a dairy you can buy milk, cream, cheese, butter and many other products.
The methods of shopping may vary. It may be a self-service shop where the customer goes from counter to counter selecting and putting into a basket what he wishes to buy. Then he takes the basket to the check-out counter, where the prices of the purchases are added up.
ТЕМА 3
At a restaurant
Eating out.
The British have acquired a taste for food from many different cultures and the first question is often, what kind of food do you feel like: Indian? Chinese? Italian? Vegetarian? One reason for the popularity of these types of restaurant is that they are often much cheaper than the more traditional British ones which serve a mixture of British and French cooking.
In the larger cities you will find almost any nationality represented by way of restaurants serving specialist or “national” food. You would probably be wise, initially, to get someone to recommend a few places to suit your palate and your pocket (i.e. within your price range). People are often only too pleased to share new restaurant “finds” with friends and acquaintances.
Take-away food.
Restaurants often have a take-away service so you can buy cooked food and take it to eat elsewhere. The most common are the American “fast-food” hamburger restaurants, along with Indian, Chinese and Italian pizza take-aways. There are also increasing numbers of pizza delivery services so you don’t even have to go out to the restaurant – you just phone through your order and pay when the pizza is brought to your door. The original British take-away food is fried fish and chips and there are still hundreds of fish and chip shops nation-wide. However, although you will find many of the other fast-food outlets open on a Sunday, it is illegal to sell fish and chips on a Sunday, so your local “chippy” will most definitely be closed.
Self-service.
Another cheap way to eat out is to go to a self-service café where you can serve yourself from a counter and pay for your food before eating it. Many self-service restaurants now offer a good range of salads and hot meals but some offer mainly fried food of the sausage, egg and chip variety.
Restaurants.
Restaurants with waiter service are usually more expensive than the places mentioned but beyond that it is impossible to generalize. Most restaurants display a menu outside the premises so you can see the type of food served and the range of prices. In restaurants there may be a cover charge, so much per head, and you will be expected to pay a “service charge” or tip of at least ten per cent. Bear in mind, too, that drinks will usually cost more in restaurant than in a shop or pub, but most restaurants are licensed to serve alcohol whereas cheaper places are often not. Two things to check: usually menu prices include VAT, but make sure. Also check when the bill comes that a service charge has not already been added to it, otherwise you could end up paying it twice.
ТЕМА 4
Health. The doctor
When you are ill, you call the doctor, and he examines you and diagnoses the illness. When you have a headache, a stomach ache, a sore throat, a cold, or a pain in some part of the body, you call the doctor. He takes your temperature and your pulse. He examines your heart, your lungs, your stomach or the part, where you have a pain (the part of the body, which hurts you) and tells you what is the matter with you. He says that you have a slight temperature or the flu. He also may say that you have caught a cold, or you have a heart disease. The doctor prescribes medicine and gives you a prescription, which you take to the chemist, who makes up the medicine. The doctor order you to take the medicine twice (or tree times) a day, before (or after) meals.
If you follow the doctor’s orders, you get better; if you disobey the doctor you may get worse, and even die. You must obey the doctor, if you want to get better. If you have a temperature, you must stay in bed and take the medicine he has prescribed. If you cannot get better at home you must go to hospital.
If you need an operation (for example, if you have appendicitis), a surgeon performs the operation on you. If you are too ill to walk, you go to hospital in the ambulance. After your illness you can go to a sanatorium until you are strong again.
When you have a toothache or when your tooth hurts you, you go to the dentists. The dentist examines your teeth, asks some questions and says that your tooth has a cavity and must be put in a filling. If the tooth is too bad, the dentist extracts it.
ТЕМА 5
Going through Customs
Your first priority when you arrive in Great Britain is to pass through the passport and immigration controls so that you could receive official permission to enter Britain.
When you reach immigration control you should have all your documents ready. When these have been checked, the Immigration Officer will stamp in your passport the initial length of time you can stay in Britain. The Immigration Officer will also endorse your passport with any additional restrictions which apply to you. For example, students from outside the Commonwealth and EC may need to register with the police.
After immigration you can go to the baggage reclaim area and collect your luggage which by now will have been unloaded. Next stop is the Customs hall. You must check at the British Embassy, High Commission or Consulate before you leave home what you can and cannot bring into Britain and what you need to declare to the customs officer. In most airports and ports in Britain you will find two channels to pass through Customs, one sign is red and one is green; the green channel is only for people who are sure they have no goods to declare; it is subject to spot-checks by a customs officer. You should go through the red channel if you are carrying some items to be declared. If requested you must open, unpack and repack your own luggage.
ТЕМА 6
At the hotel
Hotel is a place where a traveller may find food and shelter. The ideal hotel has big rooms, with comfortable beds and good facilities, including a business centre. It should be as near to the centre of the town as possible but within easy reach of the airport. There are several types of hotels. Luxury hotel – it provides every facility a wealthy guest might need. Resort hotel – it is situated in a place where tourists like to stay, often near the sea, lake or in the mountains. Guests usually book it in advance. Commercial hotel – it is often situated in a town centre, and provides accommodation for the traveling businessmen, staying only one or two nights. Congress hotel – it provides everything necessary for large meetings and conferences, with a lecture theatre and exhibition facilities. Airport hotel – it provides accommodation for people going to or coming from other countries, usually only staying for one night. Country house hotel – it is situated in pleasant scenery, and provides comfortable but informal accommodation for people who want to relax in a quiet place. Quest house – it provides low-priced accommodation, usually on a small scale, for holiday visitors or for long-stay guests. Motel – it is built specially to provide a service to motorists. B&B – it is a small hotel, a kind of boarding-house, which provides home-like low-priced accommodation and the morning meal for visitors. The letters B&B stand for “bed and breakfast”.
The hotels may be: 5-star hotel, 4-star hotel, 3-star hotel, etc.
5-star hotel: luxury hotels offering the highest international standards.
4-star hotel: hotels offering a high standard of comfort and service with all bedrooms providing a private bathroom/shower with lavatory.
3-star hotel: hotels offering a higher standard of accommodation 20 per cent of bedrooms containing a private bathroom or shower with lavatory.
2-star hotel: hotels with more spacious accommodation, with two thirds of the bedrooms containing a private bathroom/shower with lavatory, fuller meal facilities are provided.
1-star hotel: hotels and inns generally of small scale with good facilities and furnishings, adequate bath and lavatory arrangements.
ТЕМА 7
The British Post Office
In Britain post offices are usually open from 09.00 to 17.00 Monday to Friday, 09.00 to 12.00 on Saturday. The main services they provide are as follows:
Postal service. In Britain you can buy stamps from many local and high street shops, such as grocers, stationers and newsagents, as well as your local post office. There are two postal rates for inland letters, first class, which should arrive the following day, and second class, which could take several days longer.
Letters can be posted at the post office or in the numerous red pillar boxes or letter boxes set in walls on the street, which show the collection times of the front, and sometimes have separate slots for the first class, second class and overseas mail. If you want to send valuables, money or documents through the post, use one of the special services.
Sending money. An alternative to sending actual cash is to convert it into a safer form such as postal orders and overseas money orders. You can also cash these at the postal office if you receive them from someone else. This does not apply to all countries, however, and you should check with your local post office.
ТЕМА 8
Telephone
Telephony is the transmitting of speech over a considerable distance by means of electric current, using wires. It is widely used in everyday life. By means of a telephone people can communicate with each other at a distance of thousands of kilometres.
The telephone was invented in 1876. Speech transmission in those days was limited to a distance of a few miles and the construction of the first telephone was simple. A wire with a ground provided the connection. The main parts were a transmitter and a receiver. At first there was a simple telephone circuit in which only one device served as both transmitter and receiver.
Later development of the telephone changed its construction, it became more complex. Transmitters and receivers were separated. Auxiliary elements were used in its circuit to provide for better transmission of speech. The need to connect any two of a large number of telephone sets led to the development of a switchboard in 1878. The advantage of a central switching office with a switchboard was great. In 1889 telephone sets were interconnected automatically. Further development improved the switching system and more complex telephone constructions were used
ТЕМА 9
Travelling around London
Every year more than eleven million tourists visit Britain. Most visitors come in the summer months, when they can expect good weather. In July and August the streets of London are full of the sound of French, Italian, Japanese, Arabic and German.
If you like looking at places and people, you may travel by bus. Normal London buses are red and “double-deckers”. They have a driver and a conductor. They have two platforms for passengers: an upstairs (on top) and a downstairs (inside). During the busiest times of the day a limited number of people are allowed to stand inside, but no one may stand on top. There are two sorts of bus-stops: compulsory and request. A compulsory bus-stop sign means that all the buses stop here. A request bus-stop sign means that a bus only stops here if someone wants to get off.
There are other types of buses in London, too. The red single-decker buses are called Red Arrows. They have a driver but no conductor. You pay the same price for a short journey as for a long one. The green buses are called the Green Line. These buses cross London, but they do not stop very often. They are mainly for people who live a little way out of London and who travel in and out.
You can go to most places in London very quickly if you take the Underground, or “Tube”, as it is called. But the Underground doesn’t work between 7.30 and 9.30 in the morning, or 4.30 and 6.30 in the evening. These are the “rush hours”. The London Underground has nine lines. You buy a ticket from the ticket office or from an automatic machine. You must keep your ticket till the end of your journey; that’s when the ticket-collector (or machine) takes it from you. Tube trains run every few minutes and every station has map to help you plan your route.
One of the London’s famous sights is the black taxi. London taxis drive round the centre of the city looking for customers. Taxis are often called cabs, from the French word “cabriolet”, which is a nineteenth-century word for a coach drawn by horse. Although a journey of two miles costs around £5, taxis are fast and comfortable. Traditional taxi-drivers, or cabbies, are proud of their knowledge of London. They have to know every street in the 113 square miles of central London and spend up to four years learning the best routes. To get their licence, they have to pass a series of tests, known as The Knowledge, until they are absolutely accurate in their answers.
In Britain the traffic keeps to the left and not to the right as in other countries. That is why when English people want to cross the street, they must look first to the right and then to the left. The traffic lights are also different there. The red light means “Stop”, the green means “Wait”, and only when you see the yellow light, which means “Cross”, you may cross the street.
Тема 10
Travelling by plane
Travel is extremely important nowadays. Two hundred years ago most people never traveled further than a few kilometres. Whenever they walked or went by carriage or on horseback. But in the last quarter of the twentieth century people have traveled a lot. Many people travel 50 or 100 kilometres daily by public transport or private car. Millions of people travel long distances abroad on business trips or for holidays every year. Even a housewife who is going shopping may travel twenty kilometres.
Millions of people all over the world spend their holidays travelling. They travel to see other countries and continents, modern cities and the ruins of ancient towns, they travel to enjoy picturesque places, or just for a change of scene. It is always interesting to discover new things, different ways of life, to meet different people, to try different food, to listen to different musical rhythms. People travel by train, by plane, by boat and by car. All means of travel have their advantages and disadvantages. And people choose one according to their plans and destinations.
Of course, traveling by air is the fastest and the most convenient way, but it is the most expensive too. If you have traveled by plane, you will probably agree that travelling by plane is a very exciting experience. An airport is so different from a railway station or a bus stop, the people you meet and the things you see are very interesting and new. What is more, a big airport is like a town – with its own shops, banks and police.
For most people speed is a very important factor when they are travelling. They want to reach their destination as quickly as possible. There are now planes that can cross the Atlantic in just over three hours. Other people prefer comfort to speed. They like to relax during the journey and enjoy themselves as much as possible.
For almost everyone safety is the most important factor. For example, many people never fly because they believe it is dangerous. In fact, it is probably much more dangerous to travel by car or to walk across the street.
Тема 11
Travelling by car
As for me there is nothing better than to travel by car – a good, fast car I mean. When you are in an aeroplane, you have to be driven by someone else; travel by car is a more personal experience, for there you can drive yourself. You just sit down at the wheel; switch on the motor, step on the pedal with your foot and off the car goes. You can go as slowly or as fast as you wish, stop when and where you choose; you park the car on the side of the road (street), get out and go where you like.
It is quite true that driving a car has some disadvantages. In town it is rather a nuisance with all these traffic “jams” or “hold-ups”, roundabouts, detours and so on. It is not altogether pleasant when you ride on a bumpy road or get a flat tyre, or still worse, when you get stuck in the mud.
But what can be better than a spin in a car on a week-end with your friends? As soon as you get out of the crowded town and see the long wide road opening up before you, what a thrill it is to feel the car rush forward at a touch of your foot, to feel the wind in your face, to see houses, trees and people flash past, to feel the real joy of speed.
Then, of course, you see much more of the country than you do in a plane. Suppose you are on vacation and have decided to take a 700-800 mile trip down South in a car. What magnificent views you behold on your way – the cheerful fields, the road winding its way up the mountain with steep, grey cliffs on one side and a deep precipice on the other, the shining expanse of the sea wrapped in a blue noonday haze, the woods, the rows of acacia that stretch along the streets of the towns that you pass through.
Indeed your impressions are unforgettable.