Task 20

Read the text, learn the words in black and discuss with your partner the importance and advantages of this invention:

TEXT 1

The world of communication

TELEPHONE

It is difficult to imagine our life without telephone. It is the most convenient means of communication between people. Whenever we want to speak to somebody, we only need to lift the receiver, dial the number, and if the line is not engaged, we get through and can speak to the person we need.

We are so used to telephone that consider letters and postcards as something outdated and taking too much of our time. Telephone is particularly convenient for disabled people who are confined to their homes. For them this small device is sometimes the only way to talk to their relatives or friends or call ambulance.

You cannot do businesses either without telephone these days. Business people are often seen in the streets and in public places with mobile phones which can be carried around. These mobile phones, which are quite expensive, are a sort of status symbol for some people. They show how busy these people are or at least want to appear.

If you need to call somebody from the street, there are public pay phones at many places. There are different types of public phones. Some of them are coin-operated where you insert coins or tokens to make a call. In others, special payphone cards are used instead of coins and tokens. It is important that from street payphones you can make not only local calls but also long distant and international calls. Long distant calls are made within your country. To make one, you have to know the area code. If you don’t know it by heart, you can call the Directory Inquiries and ask for operator’s assistance. International calls are made to other countries. To make an international call you have to know country code and area code as well. These can be also obtained from the operator.

Of course, it’s easier and cheaper to call from your home phone. By the way, there are different types of phones now. There are rotary phones with a rotary disk, touch tone phones, with buttons instead of a disk, cordless phones, with no cord connecting the base and the receiver, answer phones which record incoming messages while you are out, and you can play back these messages when you are back at home.

Some people adore talking by telephone. They can talk for hours. If they call locally, it costs nothing because you only have to pay subscriber’s fee. But in some cities even local calls are metered automatically by computers. In these cities people are very thrifty about making calls, otherwise their telephone bills will be too high. Of course, there are discounts on phone calls or cheap rates for calls made, for instance, late in the day or at weekends. But in an emergency you don’t have to worry about the cost: whether it is a private or a public phone, you can call toll-free.

Exercise 1. Answer the questions:

1. What types of telephones are used widely nowadays?

2. What are usual rates for calls?

3. Why is telephone very important for disabled people?

4. Must we pay for emergent calls?

5. What type of phone is really necessary for busy people?

6. How can you make a call from the public phone?

7. What kinds of calls are usually made?

TEXT 2