Tell your friend about the most traditional types of housing in Great Britain choosing the right preposition from the brackets
In Great Britain, families prefer to live (at, in, into) houses rather than flats.
There are different types of housing (on, at, in) Britain. Terraced houses are attached (with, to, for) each other in a long row. They are usually found in towns and cities and many were built in the 19th or early 20th century as houses (for, with, without) workmen. Today, Victorian terraced houses are very popular city homes.
(At, in, on) the 1930’s a large number of semis were built. They share a central wall. Typically, a semi has a small garden (to, at, in) front of it and a fence divides a larger garden (on, at, in) the back. Semis are still built where land is expensive.
A detached house has land (below, round, above) it. More and more modern homes are detached, although (to, towards, in) areas where building land is expensive, the houses may be very close (at, with, to) each other.
Country cottages are often old stone buildings which were part (of, for, on) a farm. Today many people who work (in, on, at) the cities buy cottages so that they have a place to go (in, on, for) the weekend.
A bungalow is a house where all the rooms are (in, on, at) the ground floor. As there are no stairs, many older people dream (after, of, for) going to live in a bungalow when they retire.
A block of flats. In the 1950s and 1960s local councils cleared a lot of slums (in, from, on) the inner city areas and knocked down terraced houses (on, in, about) very poor areas. Block of flats or tower blocks can vary (for, with, from) 3-5 storeys high up to 10-20 storeys high. Each storey contains 5 or 6 flats (of, to, for) families. But people don’t like to live (with, in, without) them because there are many social problems.
4. You’ve bought a new flat. Decide with your partner what furniture you would need to make it comfortable. Use the words in the box below. Say which room(s) each piece of furniture would normally be used in.
| Sitting room | Bedroom | Kitchen | Bathroom | Entrance Hall |
| sideboard chest of drawers dressing table shelf stool hat-stand dresser mirror carpet .lampshade wall-unit cupboard wardrobe armchair cooker sofa desk bookcase |
5. Work in pairs. You friend is telling you about a new flat he has moved to. Restore the dialogues. Use the questions from the box given below.
1)A: …..?
B:Oh, yes, we have, and we expect you to come to our house-warming party next Saturday.
A: Thank you. I’ll be very glad.
2) A: …..?
B: Yes, a very nice one, with all modern conveniences.
A:…?
A: It’ a four-storeyed dwelling house built by the City Municipals. It’s a five minute walk from an underground station.
3) A: Ann has no taste at all. Her room is simply awful.
B: …?
A:It’s rather small. There is a big table in the middle. There is a long narrow bed by the window and there are some old chairs between the bed and the table. There are also some awful pictures on the walls.
4) A: We are lucky to have such a good flat in the centre of the town.
B: ….?
A:No, there is little furniture here, only the most necessary things.
5)A:…?
B:Five – a living-room, kitchen, bathroom and two bedrooms.
A: …?
B: OK. Well, when you enter the flat, you’re in the living-room. The kitchen is off the
living-room to the left. There’s a door at the far end of the living-room that leads into the
hall. The two bedrooms are down the hall on the right, and the bathroom is on the left.
6) A:…?
B:Oh, I’d love to. What a nice wardrobe, is it walnut?
A: Yes, it matches the bed and the dressing-table.
B:…?
A:No, that’s Mother’s work; she also did the lampshade for the reading lamp on the bedside table.
B:Oh, how pretty they are. I see you’ve got a built-in cabinet here. …?
A:I keep some pillow slips and sheets, a spare blanket and even a pillow there.
| Are you planning to buy new furniture? Is it in a multistoreyed house? Did you embroider the bedspread and the curtains yourself? There’s not much furniture in this room, is there? What do you keep in it? How many rooms does it have? Have you already moved into the new flat? Would you like to see my bedroom? What is it like? Can you describe the floor plan? Is it a two-room flat? |
6. Work in pairs. Describe how different appliances make our life easier. Use the following word combinations from the box.
1) Today’s vacuum cleaners … and … at bay without having to lug heavy machines around the house or … outside. Nowadays you can go a step further and buy a …that will even … for you.
2) Washing up once meant hours at the …, and the weekly … was a battle. Now, with …, washing clothes and washing up has never been quicker or easier. … clothes was another headache. Thankfully, … have taken the work out of the process, making drying effortless.
3) Not surprisingly, … are increasingly popular, load them and start them up, and sparkling crockery and cutlery will be the result, also important are the … of a dishwasher.
| dishwashers, food processor, beat your rugs, drying, microwave, cleaner, wash your carpets, tidying up the room, keep dust, laundry, tumble-dryers, storing food, iron the linen, time-saving qualities, clean carpets, microchip technology, sink, freezer, polishing furniture, air conditioning |
1. Complete the chart below by putting the words in the box in one of the three categories.
| basement, block of flats, hall, terraced house, cottage, bungalow, mop, attic, tea towel, semi-detached, cellar, corkscrew, ground floor, bucket, washing-up liquid, study, table, mat, landing, detached house, dustpan, sponge, crockery, cushion, ironing board, villa, cutlery, pillow-slip, broom, rug. |
| Types of home | Parts of a house | Things we find in the house |