Dialogue B

Dialogue A

The House

A house may be built of wood, stone, brick, concrete. A building may be one-, two-, three- or four-storeyed and higher. There are many multi-storeyed houses in our town now.

American multi-storeyed buildings are called skyscrapers. London houses have mostly 2 or 3 storeys (and only 5% have from 8 to 10 storeys). Our first floor is usually called the ground floor in England. And our second floor corresponds to the English first floor. The Americans call the floors as we do: first, second, etc.

The house we live in is our home. The house may front a street, a park, or a square. It may have a southern, northern, eastern or western aspect. The windows of my room overlook a lane.

When people move into a new flat they usually have a house-warming party.

There may be a one-room flat, a two-room flat, etc. Most of the flats nowadays have all modern conveniences such as: running water, gas, electricity, central heating.

The entrance to the house from the street is called the front-door. There is sometimes another entrance too, leading into the house from the yard, the back-door.

The staircase leads to the upper floors. We go upstairs or downstairs. The staircase consists of stairs (steps). The steps between two landings are called a flight of stairs, and the door of the flat usually opens on to the landing.

When the visitors come, they knock at the door or press the bell. Then one of the inhabitants answers the door (the bell) and the visitor asks if the person he wants to see is in or out.

Task 2.Learn the dialogues by heart.

- So, you moved into a new flat, didn’t you?

- Yes, last Saturday we had our house-warming party. Now we have a nice three-room flat with all modern conveniences in a new block of flats in the center of the city. Here is the front entrance.

- Shall we mount the stairs?

- No, there is a lift to take us up. This is our landing… By the way, Peter’s flat is two flights down.

- Let me help you out of your coat. Hang your hat on the peg. Now I’ll show you round the flat. This door leads to the living-room.

- What a spacious room! What’s the floor-space?

- About 25 square meters.

- I like the pattern of the wall-paper. It makes the room look cosy.

- The room is not well-furnished yet. The sofa fits in very well, but the writing-desk looks out of place here.

- But don’t crowd the room with furniture. There must be space to move about. I don’t like heavy pieces of furniture.

- You are quite right. An overcrowded room doesn’t show good taste.

- You get a fine view from the balcony.

- On the right you see a service-block and shops. Everything is close at hand.

Task 3.Describe your flat, or retell the text.