Gareth King - Colloquial English - A Complete English Language Course

2

Would you like to see a film in town?

_____________________________ ?

3

Would you like to fly to the South of France for the weekend?

_________________________________________________ ?

4

Would you like to invite some friends round?

___________________________________ ?

5

Would you like to run in the London Marathon this year?

___________________________________________ ?

6

Would you like to lend me ten pounds?

_______________________________ ?

7

Would you like to order us a pizza?

____________________________ ?

8

Would you like to hire a rowing boat for the afternoon?

___________________________________________ ?

Exercise 9

Follow the instructions on the audio to do this exercise.

172

Dialogue 6

Justine arrives late at Helen’s house.

HELEN:

You look cold!

JUSTINE:

I’m freezing!

HELEN:

Haven’t you got a coat?

JUSTINE:

No, I didn’t plan on needing one. I came in the car, but it broke down halfway here. And it’s colder than I expected.

HELEN:

[ hands Justine a jumper ] Here – put this jumper on.

And you’d better sit down in front of the fire and warm up.

JUSTINE:

Thanks, Helen.

HELEN:

Can I get you anything else?

JUSTINE:

I could do with a hot drink.

HELEN:

Coming right up!

Idioms

•

I could do withmeans ‘I need’

•

Coming right up!means ‘I’ll bring it straight away’

Phrasal verbs

break down– ‘stop working’ (machines). We use this phrasal verb when things stop working unexpectedly for some reason.

pick up– ‘lift with your hand or hands’; when we use our hands to lift something from the floor or the table, we say that we’re pickingit up.

put on– we use this when talking about clothes; if you want to wear something, you first have to put it on. When you want to stop wearing something, you takeit off.

sit down– ‘move from a standing position to a sitting position’. The opposite is stand up.

warm up– when we say that we want to warm up, we mean that we want to get warmer.

173

Life and living – television

In this unit we’ve been talking about preferences and choices, and you’ll certainly have plenty of choices to make if you turn the TV on in the UK. To begin with, there are five main terrestrialchannels: BBC1, BBC2, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. The BBC

(British Broadcasting Corporation) is a government- fundedbroad-casting agency, paid for through taxes– every householdthat uses a television (even if they never watch the BBC!) has to pay for a TV licenceevery year (it costs about £120). Because they’re funded in this way, the BBC channels don’t need to carry adverts(or commercials) during and between programmes (though they do advertise their own programmes, so you still get commercial breaksbetween programmes – but they’re all for the same company!). ITV

and Channel 4 aren’t publicly funded, and financethemselves primarily by carrying advertising. In the past, the five terrestrial channels were very distinct, but many viewersnow see them all as quite similar, particularly BBC1 and ITV, which are increasingly in competition witheach other.

These days there are also many additionalchannels available via satelliteand cable– you can subscribeto a service, and for a monthly feeyou can have a dishfitted to your house so that you can pick upa wide rangeof channels, not only in English but in many other languages as well.

You can buy TV guides every week, which list all the programmes on all terrestrial and main satellite channels. The weekend newspapers also publish their own guides for the week. But if you want to ask someone what programmes are scheduled, you can simply say ‘What’s on tonight?’. And if you don’t like what you’re watching, you can use the remoteto ‘turn over’ (phrasal verb =

‘change channels’) or even ‘turn off’ ( another phrasal verb! = ‘switch off’) and do something else instead – there’s always the radio (five main BBC stationsand lots of independent and local stations, including new digital radio channels). Or you could get out of the house for a bit and get some exercise!

Glossary

terrestrial– transmitted by television masts rather than satellite fund (something)– provide the money to pay (for something) agency– organisation

174

taxes– money we pay to the state for the government to use household– group of people sharing a home

licence– a piece of paper you have to buy from the government to be allowed to do something

adverts– short films designed to encourage you to buy things commercial breaks– interruptions during and between programmes to show adverts

finance– fund

distinct– visibly or noticeably different from each other viewers– people who watch television

similar– looking almost the same as each other, having almost the same appearance

increasingly– more and more

in competition with– trying to be or do better than additional– extra, more

via– through

satellite– machine that orbits the earth and relays TV and radio signals cable– an underground electronic bundle of wires that feeds television signals into homes

subscribe– pay a regular amount of money to have a continual service fee– the payment you make to subscribe to a service dish– piece of equipment to receive satellite signals pick up– receive (television and radio signals) range– selection, choice

scheduled– planned to be shown, set down in the TV guide remote– device for controlling your television at a distance, so you don’t have to get out of your chair to change channels

station– channel (but we say channelfor TV and stationfor radio) exercise– physical activity to keep yourself fit

11 I’ll see you at

half past five!

In this unit you will learn how to:

• make arrangements with people

• tell the time

• use other time expressions

• buy tickets for public transport

• use prepositions in wh-questions

Dialogue 1

Adrian’s buying a train ticket over the phone.

ADRIAN:

Could I have a return ticket to Glasgow for tomorrow?