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MULTIMEDIA-ENGLISH |
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| ACTIVITY SHEET (created by the user: speakupkg) |
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MULTIMEDIA-ENGLISH |
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| ACTIVITY SHEET (created by the user: speakupkg) |
Before doing this activity you may need to read the text you will find at the end
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| George Mikes: |
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A- had learnt English for seven years before he came to England B- understood people pretty well C- learnt a lot there D- never really learnt English |
| He said that: |
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A- Five hundred words is quite enough for you to communicate B- You must learn fifty thousand word to communicate C- There will always be words you don't know D- An ordinary Englisman knows all the words in he English language |
| The word NICE: |
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A- Is the most useful adjective in the beginning B- Is the only adjective in English C- Is not an English word D- Is the word nobody uses |
| In his opinion, foreigners: |
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A- should keep their accent B- should mix it with another accents C- should decide about their accent D- shouldn't have an accent at all |
| If you hold a pipe or a cigar in your mouth and speak through your teeth,it will: |
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A- help English people understand you B- help you hide your accent C- make English people laugh D- make English people think you speak good English even if they don't understand you anything |
| What do you think George Mikes wants to tell us in this story: |
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A- English is a weird language B- It's easy to learn English when you are in England C- English people are very weird D- English people are very polite |
Chapter 8 The Language
When I arrived in England I thought that I knew English. After I'd been here an hour I realized I did not understand one word.
In my first week I learned a little of the language, but after seven years I knew that I could never use it really well. This is sad, but nobody speaks English perfectly.
Remember that those five hundred words the ordinary Englishman uses most are not all the words in the language. You can learn another five hundred and another five thousand and another fifty thousand words after that and you will still find another fifty thousand you have never heard of. Nobody has heard of them.
If you live in England for a long time you will be very surprised to find that the word nice is not the only adjective in the English language. For the first three years you do not need to learn or use any other adjectives. You can say that the weather is nice, a restaurant is nice, Mr So-and-so is nice, Mrs So-and-so's clothes are nice, you had a nice time and all this will be very nice.
You must decide about your accent. You will have your foreign accent all right but many people like to mix it with another accent. I knew a Polish Jew who had a strong Yiddish-Irish accent. People thought he was very interesting.
The easiest way to show that you have a good accent (or no foreign accent) is to hold a pipe or cigar in your mouth, to speak through your teeth and finish all your sentences with the question: 'isn't it ?'People will not understand you, but they will think that you probably speak very good English.
