English character.
What kind of people are Englishmen? First of
all they are reserved. They never talk much to strangers and do not show many
emotions. They never tell anything about themselves. If they travel by train they will try to
find an empty compartment. They also may travel with other passengers many
miles and not to start a conversation. If it starts, you may not ask
questions like " How old are you?",
" Where did you buy your watch?"," What is your
salary?" Those questions are impossible.
Englishmen are also
very modest. They will never say:" I'm good at tennis.", but " I'm not bad at
tennis.", or" I think I'm quite good...". English humor is well known. You can often hear:
He is a man of humor, or - He has no sense of humor.
It is sometimes a problem
in Great Britain to shake hands or not. They do it very
rare: if they are introduced or see people off for long or meet them
after a long time. They embrace one another also very rarely - may be on a
football match when they score a goal.
They say British
people drink more tea than any other nation, and it's true. They
drink it in bed in the morning, round the fire on winter afternoons and
in the garden on summer days. Tea was brought to G. B. from China and
much later than coffee. And it became very popular. There are
two kinds of tea: afternoon tea and "high tea". They have afternoon
tea between three-thirty and four-thirty. "High tea" is between five-thirty and six-thirty. They often
have high tea instead of supper (or dinner) at seven in the evening. For
"high tea" or "big tea" they have cold meat, bread and
butter, cakes and a lot of tea. Most of the British like tea
with sugar and milk, such tea is called "English tea". They
always drink tea out of cups, never out of glasses. P.S. The so-called
English breakfast includes tea or coffee, toasted bread and butter and jam.
Answer the questions.
1. Do Englishmen
like to speak much?
2. Do they like
to speak when they travel by train?
3. What questions
are impossible?
4.
Do Englishmen often say anything good about
themselves?
5. Do they like
humor?
6. Do they often
shake hands and embrace each other?
7. What do
Englishmen like to drink very much?
8. What is “high
tea”?
9. What tea is
called “English tea”?
10. What is called
“British breakfast”?