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Module 1 British and American English

Words, words, words

British and American English are different in many ways. The first and most obvious way is in the vocabulary.

There are hundreds of different words which are not used on the other side of the Atlantic, or which are used with

a different meaning. Some of these words are well known — Americans drive automobiles down freeways and fill up with gas; the British drive cars along motorways and fill up with petrol. As a tourist, you will need to use the underground in London or the subway in New York, or maybe you will prefer to get around the town by taxi (British) or ca

b (American).

Chips or French fries?

But other words and expressions are not so well known. Americans use a flashlight, while for the British, it's a torch. The British queue up; Americans stand in line. Sometimes the same word has a slightly different meaning, which can be confusing. Chips, for example, are pieces of hot fried potato in Britain; in the States chips are very

thin and are sold in packets. The British call these crisps. The chips the British know and love are French fries on

the other side of the Atlantic.

Have or have got?

There are a few differences in grammar, too. The British say Have you got ...? while Americans prefer Do you

have ...? An American might say My friend just arrived, but a British person would say My friend has just arrived. Prepositions, too, can be different: compare on the team, on the weekend (American) with in the team, at the weekend (British). The British use prepositions where Americans sometimes omit them (I'll see you Monday; Write me soon!).

Colour or color?

The other two areas in which the two varieties differ are spelling and pronunciation. American spelling seems simpler: center, color and program instead of centre, colour and programme. Many factors have influenced American pronunciation since the first settlers arrived four hundred years ago. The accent, which is most similar

to British English, can be heard on the East Coast of the US. When the Irish writer George Bernard Shaw made

the famous remark that the British and the Americans are two nations divided by a common language, he was obviously thinking about the differences. But are they really so important? After all, there is probably as much variation of pronunciation within the two countries as between them. A Londoner has more difficulty understanding a Scotsman from Glasgow than understanding a New Yorker.

Turn on the TV

Some experts believe that the two varieties are moving closer together. For more than a century communications across the Atlantic have developed steadily. Since the 1980s, with satellite TV and the Internet, it has been possible to listen to British and American English at the flick of a switch. This non-stop communication, the experts think, has made it easier for British people and Americans to understand each other. But it has also led to lots of American words and structures passing into British English, so that some people now believe that British English will disappear.

However, if you turn on CNN, the American TV network, you find newsreaders and weather forecasters all speaking with different accents — American, British, Australian, and even Spanish. One of the best-known faces, Monita Rajpal, was born in Hong Kong, China, and grew up speaking Chinese and Punjabi, as well as English.

This international dimension suggests that in the future, there are going to be many "Englishes", not just two main varieties. But the message is "Don't worry." Users of English will all be able to understand each other — wherever they are.

Module 2 The Human Traffic Signal

The road

At 3,500 metres, La Paz, in Bolivia, is the highest capital in the world. Life is hard at high altitude, and the mountains make communications difficult. Many roads are in bad condition and accidents are frequent. One road

in particular, which goes north from La Paz, is considered the most dangerous road in the world. On one side the mountains rise steeply; on the other side there is a sheer drop, which in places is hundreds of metres deep. Although there is not a lot of traffic, on average, one vehicle comes off the road every two weeks. The drop is so great that anyone inside the vehicle is lucky to survive. In theory, the road can only be used by traffic going uphill from 8 in the morning, and by traffic coming downhill from 3 in the afternoon. But in practice, few drivers respect

the rules.

The man

But thanks to one man, the death toll has fallen. Timoteo Apaza is a gentle 46-year-old man who lives in a village near the most dangerous part of the road, known locally as la curva del diablo (the Devil's Bend). Timoteo has an unusual job — he is a human traffic signal. Every morning he climbs up to the bend with a large circular board in

his hand. The board is red on one side and green on the other. Timoteo stands on the bend and directs the traffic. When two vehicles approach from opposite directions they can't see each other, but they can see Timoteo. Timoteo is a volunteer. No one asked him to do the job, and no one pays him for it. Sometimes drivers give him a tip, so

that he has just enough money to live on. But often they just pass by, taking the human traffic signal for granted. The reason why he does it

So why does he do it? Before he volunteered to direct the traffic, Timoteo had had lots of jobs. He had been a

miner and a soldier. Then one day while he was working as a lorry driver he had a close encounter with death. He was driving a lorry load of bananas when he came off the road at a bend and fell three hundred metres down the mountain. Somehow he survived. He was in hospital for months. Then, a few years later, he was called out in the night to help pull people out of a bus which had crashed at la curva del diablo. This last experience had a profound effect on Timoteo. He realised that he was lucky to be alive himself, and felt that it was his mission in

life to help others. And so every morning, week in, week out, from dawn to dusk, Timoteo takes up his place on

the bend and directs the traffic.

Module 3 The Steamboat

There was a big storm after midnight and the rain poured down. We stayed inside the shelter we had built and let

the raft sail down the river. Suddenly, by the light of the lightning, we saw something in the middle of the river. It looked like a house at first, but then we realized it was a steamboat. It had hit a rock and was half in and half out

of the water. We were sailing straight towards it.

"It looks as if it'll go under soon," Jim said, after a couple of minutes.

"Let's go and take a look," I said.

"I don't want to board a sinking ship," said Jim, but when I suggested that we might find something useful on the boat, he agreed to go. So we paddled over and climbed on to the steamboat, keeping as quiet as mice. To our astonishment, there was a light in one of the cabins. Then we heard someone shout, "Oh please boys, don't kill me!

I won't tell anybody!"

A man's angry voice answered, "You're lying. You said that last time. We're going to kill you."

When he heard these words, Jim panicked and ran to the raft. But although I was frightened, I also felt very curious, so I put my head round the door. It was quite dark, but I could see a man lying on the floor, tied up with rope. There were two men standing over him. One was short, with a beard. The other was tall and had something

in his hand that looked like a gun.

"I've had enough of you. I'm going to shoot you now," this man said. He was obviously the one who had threatened the man on the floor. And it was a gun he had in his hand.

"No, don't do that," said the short man. "Let's leave him here. The steamboat will sink in a couple of hours and

he'll go down with it."

When he heard that, the frightened man on the floor started crying. "He sounds as if he's going to die of fright!" I thought. "I have to find a way to save him!"

I crawled along the deck, found Jim, and told him what I had heard. "We must find their boat and take it away,

then they'll have to stay here," I said.

Jim looked terrified. "I'm not staying here," he said. But I persuaded him to help me, and we found the men's boat tied to the other side of the steamboat. We climbed quietly in and as we paddled away we heard the two men shouting. By then we were a safe distance away. But now I began to feel bad about what we had done. I didn't

want all three men to die.

Module 4 The Magic of the Mask

Think of carnival, and you think of crowds, costumes, and confusion. The sounds and sights change from one country to another but the excitement is the same everywhere.

"Carnival" comes from two Latin words, meaning "no more meat". In Europe, where it began, carnival was followed by forty days without meat, as people prepared for the Christian festival of Easter. People saw Carnival

as a last chance to have fun at the end of the winter season. Having fun meant eating, drinking, and dressing up.

The most famous carnival in Europe was in Venice. At the beginning, it lasted for just one day. People ate, drank, and wore masks. As time passed, however, the carnival period was extended, so that it began just after Christmas. For weeks on end people walked round the streets wearing masks, doing what they wanted without being recognised. Ordinary people could pretend to be rich and important, while famous people could have romantic adventures in secret. Many crimes went unpunished.

The government realised that wearing masks had become a problem. Their use was limited by laws, the first of which dates back to the fourteenth century. Men were not allowed to wear masks at night; and they were not allowed to dress up as women. In later times more laws were passed. People who wore masks could not carry firearms; and no one could enter a church wearing a mask. If they broke the laws, they were put into prison for up

to two years. Finally, when Venice became part of the Austrian empire, at the end of the eighteenth century, masks were banned completely, and carnival became just a memory.

But in the late 1970s the tradition was revived by students. They began making masks and organising parties, and threw bits of brightly coloured paper (called coriandoli) at tourists. The town council realised that carnival was

good for business, and the festival was developed for tourists.

Today, carnival in Venice is celebrated for five days in February. People arrive from all over Europe to enjoy the fun. Hotels are fully booked and the narrow streets are crowded with wonderful costumes. German, French and English seem to be the main languages. But the spirit of Venice carnival is not quite the same as the great American carnivals. If the key to Rio is music and movement, then in Venice it is the mystery of the mask. As you wander through the streets, you see thousands of masks — elegant or frightening, sad or amusing, traditional or modern — but you have no idea what the faces behind them look like. Nobody takes them off. If the masks come off, the magic is lost.

Module 5 A Life in Sport

They called him the prince of gymnasts. When he retired at the age of 26, he had won 106 gold medals in major competitions across the world. They included six out of seven gold medals at the 1982 World Championship, and three at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles (as well as two silver and a bronze). Li Ning was the best. When sports journalists met in 1999 to make a list of the greatest sportsmen and sportswomen of the twentieth century, Li Ning's name was on it, together with footballer Peléand boxer Muhammad Ali. But even though he had won everything it was possible to win in his sport, Li Ning retired with the feeling that he had failed. He was disappointed because he had not performed well in the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

But it was this sense of failure that made him determined to succeed in his new life. A year after his retirement, Li Ning began a new career — as a businessman. But he didn't forget his sporting background. He decided to launch a new brand of sportswear, competing with global giants like Nike and Adidas. He made the unusual choice, for a Chinese person, of choosing his own name as the brand mark. The bright red logo is made up of the first two

pinyin letters of Li Ning's name, L and N.

Li Ning's sports clothes came onto the market at just the right time. The number of young people with money to spend was on the increase —and sport had never been so popular. Li Ning's

designs were attractive, and they had a major advantage over their better-known

rivals — they were cheaper. A pair of Nike trainers, for example, could cost up to

five times as much as a similar Li Ning product. Success for Li Ning was

guaranteed, and it came quickly.

In just a few years, Li Ning won more than fifty percent of the national market.

Today a Li Ning product is purchased every ten seconds. But the clothes are not

only worn on the athletics track or the football pitch. If you go into a school or

university anywhere, the chances are you will see students in Li Ning tracksuits

with the familiar logo. The company has also grown internationally. The Spanish

and French gymnastics teams wear Li Ning clothes, while Italian designers are employed by the company to create new styles. Whenever Chinese athletes step out onto the track during the 2008 Olympics, they will be wearing Li Ning tracksuits.

But Li Ning's goal when he retired was not to make money. His dream was to open a school for gymnasts. He was able to do this in 1991. Since then, he has continued to help young people to achieve their sporting ambitions.

Like Pelé

and Muhammad Ali before him, who have worked with the United Nations for children's rights and peace, Li Ning has discovered that the work of a great sportsman does not finish when he retires from the sport. It starts. And if you are a great sportsperson, anything is possible, as Li Ning's advertising slogan says.

Module 6 Saving the Antelopes

On a freezing cold day in January 1994, Jiesang Suonandajie found what he was looking for — a group of poachers who were killing the endangered Tibetan antelope. Jiesang knew he had to move quickly. He shouted to the poachers to put down their guns. Although surprised, the poachers had an advantage — there were more of them. In the battle which followed Jiesang was shot and killed. When his frozen body was found hours later, he was still holding his gun. He had given his life to save the Tibetan antelope.

At the beginning of the twentieth century there were millions of antelopes on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. By the 1990s the number had fallen to about 50,000. The reason is simple: the wool of the Tibetan antelope is the most expensive in the world. It is soft, light, and warm — the ideal coat for

an animal which has to survive at high altitudes. A shawl made from the wool (known as "shahtoosh", or "king of wools" in Persian) can sell for five thousand dollars. For poachers the profits can be huge.

Often working at night, the poachers shoot whole herds of antelopes at a time, leaving only the babies, whose wool is not worth so much. The animals are skinned on the spot and the wool taken to India, where it is made into the shawls. From there, it is exported to rich countries in North America and Europe. The business is completely illegal — there has been a ban on the trade since 1975. But in the 1990s the shawls came into fashion among rich people. A police raid on a shop in London found 138 shawls. About 1,000 antelopes — or 2 percent of the world's population — had been killed to make them.

In the 1990s the Chinese government began to take an active part in protecting the antelopes in the Hoh Xil Nature Reserve —the huge national park on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, which is the main habitat of the antelopes. Over the next ten years about 3,000 poachers were caught and 300 vehicles confiscated. Sometimes there were gunfights, like the one in which Jiesang Suonandajie was killed.

But today the government seems to be winning the battle. The number of poachers has fallen. The small group of officials who work in the reserve are helped by volunteers who come from all over

the country, and who are ready for the difficult conditions of life at 5,000 metres. Meanwhile, in those countries where the shawls are sold, police are getting tough with the dealers. International

co-operation seems to be working. Since 1997 the antelope population has slowly begun to grow again.

Module 1:The Man Who Made Spelling Simple

In English the spelling of words does not always represent the sound. So people say

/raIt/ but spell it right, or write, or even rite. Combinations of letters (like ough) may be pronounced in a number of ways. And some words just seem to have too many letters.

For Americans things are a little bit easier, thanks to the work of Noah Webster, a

teacher who graduated from Yale University in 1778. As a young man he had fought

against the British in the American War of Independence, and he felt that written English in the newly independent United States should have a distinctive "American"

look.

So he began his work on American English. His first book, The Elementary Spelling

Book, suggested simplifying the spelling of English words. The book was extremely popular. By the 1850s it was selling one million copies a year, making it one of the most

popular school books ever.

Many of the suggestions were quickly adopted. Center instead of centre, program instead of programme, and flavor instead of flavour. Others, however, such as removing silent letters like the s in island or the final e in examine, were not.

Webster is best known for his American Dictionary of the English Language, which first appeared in 1828. It introduced lots of new American words, with information about their pronunciation and use, and, of course, the new spelling. The British criticised the dictionary, but it quickly became a standard reference book in the States.

Today, Webster's dictionary is still the number one dictionary for American students.

Module 2 Growing Jobs

What sort of jobs will people be doing ten years from now? According to a survey

published by an American university, the ten fastest growing jobs will be related to

computers and health. They include computer systems analysts, data analysts and database managers. But there will also be a rise in the demand for health care professionals. Some of these will be new jobs, such as bioinformaticians, who combine

computer skills with knowledge of biology. Others will be more traditional. For example, more home care nurses will be needed to look after the rapidly ageing population. But many youngsters will need professional care, too: 14 million Americans suffer from speech or language problems, and six million of them are under

the age of 18. The number of speech pathologists (who help people who have problems

speaking) is expected to double by the year 2012. And social workers will continue to

be in demand.

Of course there will be plenty of other new jobs, some of which we probably can't

even guess. But for those who love the outdoor life, a good bet could be the leisure

industry. As more and more countries open up to tourism, more travel agents will be

needed, but the real demand will be for guides to take groups and even individuals on

adventure holidays. For people doing this job, common sense, physical fitness and an

outgoing personality are likely to be more important than computer skills.

Module 3 The Life of Mark Twain

Often the lives of writers resemble the lives of the characters they create. Mark Twain, who wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, was no exception. To start with, the author's name, Mark Twain, is itself an

invention, or "pen name". Twain's real name was Samuel Clemens. "Mark Twain", which means "watermark two", was a call used by sailors on the Mississippi to warn

shipmates that they were coming into shallow water.

Like Huck, Mark Twain led an adventurous life. He left school early, and as an adolescent, determined to make his fortune in South America, set off from his home in

Hannibal, Missouri, for New Orleans. He wanted to take a boat to the Amazon, where he

thought he could get rich quickly. He arrived in New Orleans without a penny in his

pocket only to find that there were no boats for South America. Forced to change his

plans, he worked for several years as a pilot on a steamboat, taking passengers up and

down the Mississippi, the great river which flows from the north of the US near the

Canadian border, down to the Gulf of Mexico.

Later he became a journalist and began writing stories about life on the river. Twain's vivid and often amusing descriptions of life on the river quickly became popular, and established the reputation he still enjoys today as one of America's greatest writers.

Module 4 The Meaning of Carnival

Carnival today is an international, multicultural experience. But how did it become

so? To understand what carnival is all about, we need to look at the history of America

and the meeting of two cultures — European and African.

The arrival of Europeans in America, and the opening of huge farms and plantations

to grow cotton, fruit and vegetables, meant there was an immediate need for people to

work on them. This marked the beginning of the slave trade. For more than two hundred years, until the beginning of the 19th century, when the trade was finally stopped, millions of people were taken by force from their homes in Africa and transported to the New World to work as slaves. Six million were taken to the Caribbean islands where there were British and French landowners.

Naturally, the Europeans also imported their own festivals. So the slaves were forced to watch as their masters celebrated carnival with food, drink, and masked dances. In Trinidad, the slaves began to hold their own carnival celebrations: they painted their faces white, imitating their masters and making fun of them. But at the

same time they were continuing their own African traditions — such as walking round

a village wearing masks and singing — a custom which they thought would bring good

luck.

When the slave trade was abolished in 1838 the former slaves took over the carnival. It became more colourful and more exciting than it had been before. Magnificent costumes were made and musical bands created. Carnival became a celebration of freedom.

With the passing of time, the white inhabitants of the island began to take part in

the carnival, too — and they were welcomed by their former slaves. Carnival became a

way to unite different communities, as people forgot their everyday problems and enjoyed themselves eating, drinking, and dancing. Today, visitors from all over the world come to this small state in the Caribbean to join in the fun. Carnival has become

a celebration of life itself.

Module 5 Marathon: the Ultimate Olympic Event

The final event in the Olympics is the marathon. It is also usually the most exciting.

As the leader comes into the stadium to run the last few metres of the 42-kilometre

race, the crowd rises to its feet to shout and cheer. The name of the race comes from a

battle in Ancient Greece. According to the story, a soldier ran from the scene of the

battle, Marathon, to Athens, to bring the news of a Greek victory against the Persians.

He died just after arriving.

The marathon has been an Olympic event since the modern games started in 1896.

At first the distance was 40 kilometres — the distance between Marathon and Athens.

In 1908, however, at the London Olympics, it was changed. The King of England wanted the runners to leave from his castle in Windsor and arrive in a new stadium in

central London. The distance was 26 miles — about 42 kilometres. In fact, the 1908

marathon ended dramatically. When the leader, an Italian, entered the stadium he turned the wrong way and fell onto the ground. Officials picked him up and helped him

to the finishing line, just as the second runner, an American, entered the stadium. The

Americans protested and in the end the American runner was declared the winner. Since then, there have been many more exciting marathons.

In fact, you don't have to wait for the Olympic Games to run or watch a marathon,

as there are marathons in over sixty countries and hundreds of cities around the world

today. One of the most famous marathons is in New York, and is watched by two million people around the streets and across the bridges of the city's five boroughs,

and past New York's famous landmarks. But perhaps one of the most beautiful and

extraordinary marathons ever is the Great Wall Marathon, which most competitors find

is the toughest course to run.

The marathon is the final Olympic event because it is thought to be the hardest. But

experts believe that most people — even people who are not particularly good at sport

— can run a marathon, if they train for it.