Building-up your vocabulary

As is known the place where we live plays a very important role in our lives. It makes us feel secure and helps us know our true selves. It is the only place where we can feel real masters of our lives. One person said that home is a shelter from all terror, doubt, and division. But sometimes for different reasons we may decide to change the place where we have lived for a while and start looking for a new suitable place. Every person is assumed to move house at least once in his or her life. This process may take much time, but it is worth it. We should be very considerate and very peculiar about choosing a new house or a flat. Choosing a place to live in is like choosing a spouse to live with. Mishna once said “Home means wife”. Our ancestors must have also understood it, though in their own way. They thought that each house had its own spirit and you were supposed to win it over before moving house. People tried to do their best to make house spirits their friends; they prepared different tasty dishes and performed different rituals as if a house were a living creature. In the end, moving house became a ritual of its own and got a very nice name – housewarming.

In good old days most people would build their dwellings by themselves. Now the situation has changed. Some people buy a flat or a house (they own it, or it belongs to them). When they do this in Britain, people usually borrow money from a bank or an organization called a building society. This money, which is called mortgage, is often paid back over 25 years, plus some interest (=money you have to use for borrowing money).Other peopleprefer to rent a house or a flat, it means that they (tenants) have to pay money every week or month to the person who owns the house/flat. When they do this, the money they pay is called the rent, and the person who owns the house or the flat is the landlord or landlady.

Most of London's suburban houses consist of two floors: the ground floor and the first floor. All in all there are six or seven rooms in the house. The rooms are usually tiny, in British houses there are no enormous rooms.

On the ground (AmE first) floor there's usually a dining-room, a sitting-room, a kitchen and a hall. In the hall you can see a stand for hats, coats and umbrellas. The rooms on the ground floor are usually quite dark because they don’t get very much sun. They are also quite noisy because they are near the roads and the traffic. Another negative thing is that the rooms might be draughty. This means it is expensive to heat the rooms.

A staircase leads from the hall to the landing on the first floor (AmE second floor). On this floor there are four bedrooms, a bathroom and a lavatory. On top of the roof there are usually three chimneys.

In front of the house they have a small garden, in which they grow flowers: roses, tulips and so on. At the back of the house there's a much larger garden with a lawn and some fruit trees. There's also a vegetable garden where they may grow some kinds of vegetables, such as potatoes, cabbages, cauliflowers, onions and tomatoes.

At the side of the house there is a garage, where they can keep their car. The garden is enclosed by a fence, with a gate in it.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-26