Dare to Speak English B1 – Lesson 4

The room is quite stuffy, so I’ll open the window and air the room.

My colleague is off sick   ( a few days)

She’s on sick leave (extended)

The autumn half-term break

Has your company ever had a break-in? thefts?

A private school  v a state school

Review!

• It’s 1 am and he hasn’t got in touch to tell me where he is. I’m beginning to get quite anxious (= very worried)   “ankshuss”
• There were one or two delays, but on the whole/overall the trip went very smoothly. (= generally speaking)
• I commute to work by bus and train every day.   (a commuter)
• We managed to sell our apartment at a really good profit. We’re absolutely delighted.  (opp = at a loss)
• You can try to haggle with the seller and see if you can bring the price down.
• A Netflix series
• You buy a hairdryer. It doesn’t work. You take it back to the shop. What do you ask for? A refund, an exchange, a replacement
• When you pay too much tax, you are entitled to a rebate.

 

an amusement park

Children dress up as witches.

All Saints’ Day/Eve

cemetery/ graveyard

a magician

 

Halloween

Did you celebrate Halloween this year? Why/why not?

Did you celebrate as a child?

Did any children come knocking on your door this year?  What did they do?

If you didn’t grow up with the idea of Halloween, is there anything you did instead that is similar? Some kind of celebration or festival?

Did you listen to Six-minute English? What new vocabulary did you learn?

In a cage

A snorkel

A swimming mask

Swimming goggles

The Dominican Republic

I walked on burning coals

cluttered   –   There is a lot of clutter everywhere.

She was a hoarder.

 

Talking about your home

 

Useful vocabulary

spacious or cramped

facilities – the laundry room, the recycling room, a storage room, a bike room, a parking garage, a sauna

a single house – a detached house

two houses joined together  – a semi- detached

a row of houses   – a terrace, a terraced house

a well-insulated house or a draughty house?    insulation

a machine that take people and things up and down between floors  – an elevator/ a lift

an escalator (= moving stairs)

(moving up) the property ladder

To increase/decrease in value

 

Places in the home

A room just for the washing machine/freezer etc  a utility room

A small building in the garden for storing garden tools etc  a shed

A lawnmower

Space at the top of a house/apartment block used for storing things the attic

Space at the bottom of a house/apartment block used for storing things in the basement

 

        

flour – to sweep up broken glass – to sweep up cat litter – a trowel – a colander

 to get rid of things

clean and uncluttered

It’s much more convenient to live in the centre of the city than in the countryside.

He called me at an inconvenient time.

It’s a happy medium.

a sloping roof, a sloping ceiling

The layout of the house

a tap / a faucet

 

For more language to describe property, check out www.rightmove.co.uk , the UK equivalent of Hemnet.