American EnglishElectronic-Text

Unit 3 American English Lesson 91 DialogueYang Mei is now studying in the States. She meets her new teacher, Sara, for the first time. Sara is an American. They are talking before the term starts.SARA: So you are Yang Mei. Nice to meet you.YANG MEI: How do you do? Im sorry. I know only a little English. I have some difficulty in pronouncing some of the words in English. SARA: No, you re doing fine. YANG MEI: Thank you. SARA: And when do you take your next exams? YANG MEI: In June. SARA: I see. What do you want to do next fall? YANG MEI: Pardon? Would you please say that again more slowly? SARA: What do you want to do next fall? YANG MEI: Next what? Im sorry I dont quite follow you. SARA: What do you want to do next September? Do you have any plans? YANG MEI: Id like to study medicine and become a doctor. SARA: Right. Nice meeting you, Yang Mei. Bye. YANG MEI: Goodbye.2 Practice Complete the sentences.1 How do you pronounce this _? a fall2 Do you spell _ with an “s” or a “z”?bword3 Do you say _ or _?cspell 4 What does _ mean? d address / address 5 How do you _ “physics”?esay6 Do you _“wheel” hwi:l or wi:l ?fchooseNow ask your partner for the answers.Lesson 10ReadingRead the passage quickly and find out some American English words and expressions.AMERICAN ENGLISH (1)Many students want to know about the differences between American English and British English. Written English is more or less the same in both Britain and America, though there are some spelling differences. For example, the words colour, centre and travelled are spelt color, center, and traveled in American English. The differences in the spoken language are greater. For example, Americans say dance dns, and in southern England they say d:ns. In America they pronounce not nt; in southern England they say . However, most of the time, people from the two countries do not have any difficulty in understanding each other. How did these differences come about? There is no quick answer to this question. When people from England travelled to other countries, they took the English language with them. At first, the language stayed the same as the language used in Britain, but slowly the language began to change from one part of the world to another. Sometimes, the English spoken in America or Canada or Australia changed; but sometimes the language spoken in these places stayed the same, while the language in England changed. For example, 300 years ago, the English talked abut “fall”. Today, most British people talk about “autumn”. But Americans still talk about “fall” just as people do in some parts of western England. In the same way Americans use the expression “I guess” (meaning “I think”) just as the British did 300 years ago.A great many words and expressions have come into the language from American English, for example: movie, gas, store, mail, radio, right away (at once), way of life, and so on.Turn to page 68 and do the exercises.Lesson 111 Reading AMERICAN ENGLISH (2)American English has changed over the centuries, too. There are several reasons for this. One of the reasons is that people travelled to America from all the European countries and from other parts of the world, too. They started to use English, but they also brought in some words from their own languages. For example, the word “cent” in American money is from old French. One of the states in the USA is called “Florida”, in Spanish this means the “land of flowers”. There are a great many American Indian words, for example “to howl” means” to cry”. And “cookbook” is a German word.2 Language study Indirect Speech DIRECT SPEECHINDIRECT SPEECH“I like singing.”“I am waiting for a bus.”“I visited Europe last year.”“I have never met an American.” “I will see you next week.”She said she liked singing.She said she was waiting for a bus.She said she had visited Europe the year before. He said he had never met an American. He said he would see me the next week.3 PracticeChange these sentences from Direct Speech into Indirect Speech. Remember to change the tenses.EXAMPLE: “Ive never been to the States.” She said she . She said she had never been to the States.1 “You speak English very well.” She said I .2 “I have some difficulties with pronunciation.” She said she .3 “A great many place names in the States are Spanish. He said that .4 “Ive always been interested in geography.” He said he .5 “At the beginning of this century a great many Europeans went to live in the USA.” She explained that .6 “I cleaned the cupboards in the lab.” He said he .7 “I dont have any more tapes.” She said she .8 “I have to finish my experiment.” She said she .Lesson 121 Listening Turn to page 129.2 Word study Write the words in the spaces in this word table.NOUNVERBADJECTIVEdifferenceXdifferentspeechspeakXdifficult pronunciationxmixxEuropeX3 WritingA few days later, Yang Mei spoke to Sara about the Chinese language. Change these sentences into indirect Speech. Begin each sentence :She said .“In China about seven people in ten speak putonghua.”“My elder brother taught me some of the Chinese characters.”“There are over 50,000 different characters in Chinese.”“I learnt about 5,000 characters at school.”“I practised writing them for homework.”“I didnt find Chinese easy at first.”CHECKPOINT 3 Grammar Direct and Indirect Speech(2) If the verb “say / tell” is in the Past Tense, you usually change the verb tenses into Indirect Speech. “American English is a little different from British English.”She told us that Americ