His lifestyle

His country

His money

THE RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD

His Majesty, Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah, the twenty-ninth Sultan of Brunei, is the richest man in the world. He is descended from one of the oldest ruling dynasties on earth - a royal line that goes directly back over 600 years to 1363.

When one of his daughters was eleven years old, he gave her a birthday party. It was in the ballroom, of Claridges Hotel in Mayfair, London, and it cost £100,000, but for the Sultan this is not a great amount of money.

The Sultan's total Wealth is more than $25 billion. He owns hotels all round the world: the Dorchester in London, the Beverley Hills Hotel in Los Angeles, and the Hyatt Hotel in Singapore. He has a fleet of private planes, including an airbus. One of his London houses has the biggest garden in the city, except for Buckingham Palace.

Some years ago, in Brunei, he built the biggest palace in the world. It has 1,788 rooms, 5 swimming pools, 257 toilets, 44 staircases, and 18 lifts. The dining-room can seat 4,000 people. There are 564 chandeliers with 51,490 light bulbs. A servant is employed fulltime to change bulbs - about 200 a day. The total cost of the palace was $400 million. In 1996, he had a special party there for his fiftieth birthday. It lasted three days and the guests included Michael Jackson, the American musician, the Infanta Elena from Spain, and Prince Charles from Britain.

Brunei is one of the smallest but richest countries in the world. Its wealth comes from oil and gas. Many people in the west think that Brunei is in the Middle East but it isn't. It's in East Asia, on the north coast of the island of Borneo. It sells the oil and gas to Japan, and earns $2 billion a year - that is $229,000 every hour- from it. And the beauty is that there are so few people to share all this money. The population of Brunei is only 230,000. The Sultan and his three brothers are part of the government.

Despite all his money and power, the Sultan is a very shy man. He often goes to international meetings but says very little. In 1965, when he was nineteen, he married his cousin, Princess Saleha, who was sweet, pretty, and only sixteen. Time passed and she became more and more reserved. In 1980, the Sultan met an air hostess called Mariam Bell. She is much more outgoing than many Bruneian girls and the Sultan fell in love with her. So, in 1981, he married her, too, and now two wives and ten children - four princes and six princesses - all live happily together in the palace. And the Sultan himself? With all his wealth, is he a happy man? Nobody asks him that.

Завдання до тексту:

1. Дайте відповіді:

What did you find out about the Sultan of Brunei?

What does he own?

Describe his palace.

What did you find out about Brunei?

2. Знайдіть у тексті дієслова ‘to be’, ‘to have’ та закінчення ‘s’ і прокоментуйте їх вживання.

NO PARKING

Jack Jones left his office at 6 p. m. He had had a very busy day. When he got to the station there were thousands of people waiting, so the train was very crowded.

Glad of the fresh air, he walked from the railway station near his home, and in a few minutes reached the street where he had lived for many years. What he saw as he came round the corner made him very angry indeed.

Can’t you read? He said angrily to the man who had just got out of a car right in front of the gate of Mr. Jones’ house, and he pointed to the “No Parking” notice that he had got a local builder to put in the front garden.

“No,” said the man in an unpleasant manner. “1 was never taught.” Mr. Jones became angrier than he had ever been before. When he entered his house Mrs. Jones tried to calm him, but it was useless.

He changed into his working clothes, which he always wore when he was working in the garden, and went out to do some work.

He looked carefully at the well-made and neatly painted board that faced the street. It so clearly indicated that there was to be no parking outside his house. He remembered telling the painter to make it clear, so that it could be read quite easily by people as they drove by in their cars.

To make matters worse, the houses farther down the street had no cars parked outside them. This was because, a few weeks earlier, the police had fixed up a notice with the words “Police Notice-No Parking” in clear white letters on a bright blue background. Suddenly an idea started to form in his mind, and he began to see the possibilities of a scheme for clearing away these wretched cars that had been obstructing the front of his house, all day long, for many months now.

He didn’t tell his wife about it so that when he brought home a large flat parcel a few days later, she was very surprised. He changed into his working clothes, took the parcel with him, and went out into the garden.

A little while later he took his wife out to see what he had been doing. To her surprise she found that he had taken down the little black and white “No Parking” notice, and in its place was a new board painted bright blue with white lettering on it which said “Polite Notice-No Parking”. Jack Jones was never troubled with cars parking outside the gate of his house again. It is a funny thing, but true, that people usually read what they expect to see. Hardly anyone noticed that it was a “polite notice” and not a “police notice”.

Завдання до тексту:

1. Дайте відповіді:

Why was Mr. Jones so angry?

What words were in the notice in front of the houses down the street?

What was in the parcel Mr. Jones brought home?

What do people usually read?

2. Знайдіть усі заперечні речення в абзацах 4,5 та вкажіть, чим висловлено заперечення.

3. Прокоментуйте вживання дієслів to be та to have в абзацах 4,5.

4. В якому ступені порівняння вжиті прикметники в абзацах 4,5.

5. Які займенники вжиті в абзацах 4-6, вкажіть їх розряд.

BRITISH WAYS OF LIVING AND SOME OF THE ENGLISH CUSTOMS

Some of the English customs are interesting. People in England do not shake hands as much as people do in Europe. Men raise their hats to women but not to each other. When you go to a friend’s house for a dinner, it’s not the custom to say: “Thank you” at the end of the dinner as in our country. There you wait until you are leaving to go home and then you say. “Thank you for inviting me.” Very few people have servants in their homes. It is very difficult to get servants and servants’ wages are high, so the men help their wives in many ways.

Sunday is a very quiet day in London. All the shops are not open and so are the theatres and most of the cinemas. Londoners like to get out of town on Sundays. They often go down to the sea for the day. There are very few outdoor cafes in London. That’s because the weather changes so often and so quickly. The sun may shine one minute and then a few minutes later it may rain.

Foreigners sometimes get a little tired of English cooking, and they go to Soho. Soho is a part of London where there are all sorts of restaurants: French, Italian, Greek, Spanish, Indian and many others.

You notice when yon meet English people that some of them use your first name immediately. Others are more formal addressing you as Mr., Mrs. or Miss before your surname. The question is-how do you address them? When do you begin to use their first name?

There is no simple answer to this. It is not always correct to address people by their first name even though they use your first name. The using of the first name depends on a number of factors. These factors are: the age, status and sex of the person you are speaking to.

As to age it is safe to use the first name of someone who is the same age as yourself or younger. Students, for example, normally use one another’s first names from the moment when they meet.

The other main factor is the sex of the people talking to each other. Even when the age and status are the same a man hesitates before beginning to use a woman’s first name. He must wait when she begins to use his first name as a sign that she considers him as a friend.

You may hear how foreign students say that English is a simple language. They say: “Look how easy it is to address someone in English. There is only one word “you”. In other languages it is more difficult.”

Yes, there is only one form “you”, but this does not mean that Englishmen make no distinction between friends, strangers and people to whom they want to pay respect. When you are friends you use relaxed expressions even slang expressions, that is the whole structure of the sentence may differ, according to the relationship between speaker and hearer. For example: “What time is it, John?” can become “Excuse me, can you tell me the time, please?” if you address a stranger. So the whole question of addressing someone in English is a little more difficult than it seems at first glance.

Notes on the text

customs - звичаї; shake hands - тиснути руки; for inviting me - що запросили мене; quiet - спокійний; so are the theatres - також і театри; get a little tired - трохи втомлюються; cooking-кухня; a number of - ряд; as to - що стосується; safe to use - безпечніше використовувати: as asign - як ознака; to pay respect - виявити повагу; relaxed - вільнi; according to - згідно; a little more difficult - трохи складніше; it seems at first glance - може здатися з першого погляду.

Завдання до тексту:

1. Дайте відповіді:

What can you say about servants’ wages in England?

Why is Sunday a quiet day in London?

What are the main factors which you must pay attention to addressing the English people?

2. Знайдіть в абзацах 1-3 дієслово to be, вкажіть, в якому значенні воно вживається.

3. Випишiть з абзацу 9 слова, утворені за допомогою суфіксів або способом словоскладання.

4. Знайдіть усі прикметники в абзацах 6 тa 8 i визначіть, в яких ступенях порівняння вони використовуються.

5. Прокоментуйте випадки вживання закінчення ' s ' у 1 та 2 абзацах.

FROM THE HISTORY OF SPACE FLIGHT

April 12,1961, will forever remain a landmark in human history as the date on which began the exciting story of Man’s conquest of the cosmos.

But this story did not start on the morning of April 12 – it started many thousand years ago and those who participated in it were not only those scientists, engineers and technicians who directly contributed to the success of this flight. Behind the army of engineers and workers who built and tested the rockets, the spaceship, the thousand and one mechanical and electronic devices, that would ensure the cosmonaut’s safety, was also an invisible line of comrades from the past, the dreamers whose dreams were now to be fulfilled, who had laid the scientific foundations for a flight into space.

While all other experts suggested only gun-powder rockets Tsiolkovsky believed that liquid-fuel rockets alone could reach the extraordinary heights necessary for space travel. He suggested “rocket-trains”, “step-rockets” or, as they are called today multi-staged rockets to attain a speed which would put the spaceship into orbit. He calculated the amount of fuel a rocket needs to break through the resistance of the earth’s atmosphere. He even calculated the angle at which the rocket must take off and laid down that its guidance and control must be fully automatic. The cosmic velocity, required to neutralize gravity and send a spaceship into orbit, he computed, is 8 kilometers per second – the exact speed at which the Vostok I orbited the Earth!

Fifteen minutes after the launching of the Vostok I, radar stations in the Aleutian islands picked up its radio signals and before long the world learned that a man was in space.

Everything worked according to schedule. At a command from the Earth the spaceship began to slow down. This was the supreme test for the thermal-control system, and though the ship was descending in a ball of fire, the temperature in the cabin remained steady at about 20° C. The spaceship was rapidly losing height and, as the atmospheric pressure became bearable, Yuri Gagarin prepared for the landing, his eyes fixed on the altitude meter. Gagarin’s flight has become a demonstration of the scientific advance and industrial power of the country that sent the first man into space.

Завдання до тексту:

1. Дайте відповіді:

How did Tsiolkovsky contribute to the man's conquest of the cosmos?

What rockets did all the experts suggest?

What is the cosmic velocity?

What did Gagarin's flight demonstrate?

2. Знайдіть випадки словоутворення в абзаці 2.

3. Знайдіть випадки вживання присвійного відмінку в абзаці 3; перекладіть українською мовою.

4. Знайдіть всі іменники-означення в абзацах 3,4.

5. Знайдіть слова, утворені словоскладанням в абзаці 3.

6. До якого розряду належать займенники в абзаці 2?

Topics

ABOUT MYSELF

I am Igor Vlasenko. I am 19. I work at a Joint-Stock Company. I am a junior manager. At the same time I study at National Technical University (Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute) at the Extra-mural department. I am a first-year student of Machine-Building Department. My major (speciality) is the Technology of Cutting. I am from Kharkiv.

Task 1. Answer the questions:

Who are you?

What are you?

How old are you?

Do you work or study?

Where do you work?

Where do you study?

What department do you study at?

What is your major?

Where are you from?

Дата добавления: 2015-08-31