Nice to meet you

One of the things you learn when studying English is how to present yourself and most people learn phrases such as “How do you do?” or “Hi, my name is…”. However, one thing that language teachers don’t explain is that British people very rarely use these expressions. British people are not very good at introductions in informal situations. They are not sure what to say or what do with their hands. Whereas Brazilians or Americans will confidently extend their hands to people they meet at parties or social situations, English people prefer just to smile.

Expressions like “Hello, I’m John Smith”, “Hi, my name is…” are only used when we have to identify ourselves; for example when we go to an appointment at the dentist’s or the hairdresser’s, or if we’re telephoning someone to ask for information about ourselves.

Dialogues in school books where English teenagers present themselves to each other on the first day of school are pure fantasy. In informal social situations, British people prefer to stay chatting about something neutral like the weather, or else they use humour to break the ice. When the conversation has progressed, or even just before leaving, you can say, “I’m Ann, by the way.”, or “I didn’t catch your name”. If you meet the person again you can say, “Hello again” or, more colloquially, “Hi ya”, which stands for “Hello, nice to see you again”.

In the case of formal meetings or business situations, many language courses teach the expression “How do you do?” – to which you should answer “How do you do?”. This phrase is also recommended by the website ediplomat.com and Drett’, the famous specialist publisher that has a range of guides on British etiquette. I have said “How do you do” in my entire life and no one has never said that to me! In today’s Britain this expression is best reserved for extremely formal situations. It is, however, something that people over 60 might say, so if your elderly boss or professor uses this expression with you, then it’s polite to answer in the same way

Read the text and mark the CORRECT alternative form question:

Windsurfing around Britain

   Kevin Cookston, a 23-year-old engineering student, has been keen on windsurfing for many years. Recently, he set a new record for travelling all the way round the coast of Great Britain on a windsurf board.

   'I don‟t really know why I did it,‟ says Kevin, ‟just for the fun of it, I suppose. It was there to be done, that was all.‟ Despite lacking both the obsessive ambition and the funds that normally go with attempts to break records, Kevin made the journey in eight weeks and six days, knocking one week off the previous record set in 1984.

   Leaving from Exmouth in the south-west of England, Kevin travelled up the west coast of England and Wales, before going round the top of Scotland and then coming back down the other side. The journey officially covered 2.896 kilometres, although given the changes of direction to find the right wind paths, the actual distance Kevin travelled is probably closer to 4.000 km.

    Kevin fitted his fitness training in around his final year university examinations. ‟I didn‟t have that much time to prepare,‟ he explains. ‟But I went running often and supplemented that with trips to the gym to do weight training. I found I got a lot better during the trip itself actually. At the start, I was tired and needed a rest after four hours, but by the end I found I could do ten hours in a row no trouble.‟

   Kevin had a budget of £7.000 to cover the whole expedition. The previous record had been set with a budget twice that size, while a recent unsuccessful attempt had cost £40.000. Budgets have to meet the cost of fuel, food and accommodation for the support team, as well as the windsurfer's own equipment and expenses.

   Previous contenders had been accompanied by a boat on which they slept at night, as well as a fleet of vehicles on land to carry their supplies. Kevin made do with an inflatable rubber boat and an old van manned by four friends who followed his progress. Overnight arrangements had to be found along the way. Apart from the odd occasion when they enjoyed the hospitality of friends, the team made use of the camping equipment carried in the van, and slept on the beach.

   When asked if his athlete‟s diet was a closely kept secret, Kevin replied that he ate a lot of pasta and added the odd tin of tuna to keep up his energy. ‟Basically, we had anything that was on special offer in the nearest supermarket, he confided.

  Such a prolongued period of gruelling windsurfing made relaxation important however, and for this, Kevin favoured the pub method. This also provided social opportunities.“The people we met were really encouraging he recalls“. 'They thought what we were doing was really great. It was hard work, but we had a lot of fun along the way“. 

   Kevin has been windsurfing since he was thirteen years old and he is also a highly-ranked competitor at national level. ‟I don‟t know where I‟m ranked now,‟ he says, `because I‟ve missed a lot of important competitions this year. But what I did has more than made up for that and I‟ll be doing my best to be up there amongst the winners once I get back into the competitive sport next season‟. Given his unique achievement this year, Kevin seems well-placed to take on the world‟s top windsurfers. 

Fonte: First Certificate Practice Tests Plus 1, pg 116 Kenny/ Luque-Mortimer, Ed. Longman

Nazi labor camp guard living in New York deported

to Germany

By Sheena McKenzie, CNN Updated 2155 GMT (0555 HKT) August 21, 2018

             (CNN) A former Nazi labor camp guard who has been living in the United States for decades has finally been deported to Germany after years of diplomatic wrangling, the White House announced on Tuesday. Jakiw Palij, who worked as a guard at the Trawniki Labor Camp, in what was then German-occupied Poland, had been living out his post-war years in Queens, New York City.

            Palij, 95, was born in what was then-Poland and now Ukraine, and immigrated to the US in 1949, becoming a citizen in 1957. The former Nazi guard lied to US immigration officials about his role in World War II, saying he worked on a farm and in a factory, the White House said in a statement. In 2001, Palij admitted to US Department of Justice officials that he had in fact trained and worked at the Trawniki Labor Camp in 1943. On November 3, 1943, around 6,000 Jewish prisoners at the camp were shot to death in one of the single largest massacres of the Holocaust, according to the White House statement.

        "By serving as an armed guard at the Trawniki Labor Camp and preventing the escape of Jewish prisoners during his Nazi service, Palij played an indispensable role in ensuring that the Trawniki Jewish victims met their horrific fate at the hands of the Nazis," the White House added. In court filings, Palij has denied wrongdoing, claiming that he and other young men in his Polish hometown were coerced into working for the Nazi occupiers. In 2003, Palij's US citizenship was revoked. The following year, a federal judge ordered that Palij be deported -- but none of the European countries to which he could have been sent, would take him.

         […]Attorney General Jeff Sessions praised the work of the Justice Department's best-known Nazi hunter, Eli Rosenbaum, and his team in successfully removing the 68th Nazi from the United States. Palij's case represents the closing of an era -- until now he was the only remaining active case from the Nazi era pursued by the Justice Department's Office of Human Rights and Special Prosecutions.

          The atrocities of the Trawniki camp, where Palij worked, aren't well known in part because the killing was thorough, historians say. One document researchers uncovered helped illustrate the extent of the killing. A soldier broke the butt of his rifle, which meant he was required to file a report so the German SS would issue him a new one. The report mentioned an operation that killed 4,000 people at Trawniki, mostly Jews.

Available at: <https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/21/politics/nazijakiw-palij-deported-germany-intl/index.html>.

Text 3:

Simple Steps to Improve Your English Reading Comprehension

1- Read the right books

If you dislike science fiction, you might not want to read a book about a man stuck on Mars. When you're choosing books (and other texts) to read, keep two things in mind:

1st. What you're interested in

2nd. Your reading level

Whenever you can, you should read things that you enjoy. You should also choose books that are at an English level just above the one you're most comfortable with. You want to challenge yourself just enough to learn new things, but not enough to get frustrated with your reading.

2. Ask yourself questions while reading and after reading

There's more to understanding a book than just reading the words!

There are a few things you can do before, during and after you read to help you better understand the text.

Before you read, browse the text. Take some time after you read too, to browse again and summarize what you remember. Try to quickly say or write a few sentences that describe what the text was all about.

Thinking about what you read will show you how much of it you really understood, and help you figure out if you still have questions.

Adapted from:

https://www.fluentu.com/blog/english/how-to-improve-englishreading/