Episode 118

EPISODE 118
LEVEL A2

 

READING COMPREHENSION

The business of giving

Today many rich and famous people give money to charity. Technology billionaire Bill Gates recently gave $31 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Other technology leaders also give away money. Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay, and Jeff Skoll, eBay’s first CEO, want to use their billions to help “make the world a better place”. Why do charities receive so much money? One reason is that there are more rich people than in the past. The world now has 691 billionaires, compared with 423 in 1996. Rich people in many different countries give millions of dollars, euros, yen and other currencies to charity. What can the world of charity learn from the world of business? Michael Porter, a management guru at the Harvard Business School, believes that the rich need to think about how their charitable foundations spend money. In the USA, it is traditional for the rich to give money to hospitals, libraries and universities. These are very important but some people don’t think that this does not always help the poor. People with a lot of money often have useful social connections. They usually know how to market ideas and how to interest the media in a subject. So, some people think that the rich can give more than money , They can also use their time, social connections and skills to help find solutions to some of the world’s problems, such as poverty and the environment.

 

Exercise 1

Complete the collocations with the appropriate words, as they were in the text.
foundation / guru / leader / market / rich / social / world

1. ___________ and famous
2. technology ___________
3. the ___________ of business
4. management ___________
5. charitable ___________
6. ___________ connections
7. to ___________ ideas

 

Exercise 2

Find in the text words which mean:

1. fundacja
2. kontakty, koneksje
3. oddawać, rozdawać
4. organizacja charytatywna
5. otrzymywać
6. powód
7. przydatny
8. rozwiązanie (problemu)
9. środowisko
10. ubóstwo
11. umiejętności
12. w porównaniu z
13. waluta
14. założyciel
15. zarządzanie

 

Exercise 3

What’s the difference?

Today many rich and famous people give money to charity. Technology billionaire Bill Gates recently gave $31 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Other technology leaders also give away money …

The above sentences use the verb “give”, meaning “da(wa)ć”, but the third “give” is part of an expression “give away”, a so-called phrasal verb. That’s why its meaning is slightly different, and would be: “rozda(wa)ć” or “odda(wa)ć”. The particle “away” changed slightly the meaning of the main verb “give” but it’s quite easy to guess what the meaning is. Sometimes, however, phrasal verbs have totally different meanings than their original, base verbs!

Try and match the English and Polish equivalents:
1. give in       zaprzestać czegoś
2. give out    poddać się, ulec
3. give up     wydawać, wręczać

 

Grammar corner…

The text above uses such form as “the rich” / “the poor”: … it is traditional for the rich to give money to hospitals, libraries and universities. These are very important but some people don’t think that this does not always help the poor. It’s probably not difficult to guess that they mean, respectively: rich and poor people. So when we want to talk about a group of people who share the same quality or characteristic we may use “the” and the adjective which describes this characteristic.

 

Exercise 4

Following the rule above how would you say in English:

1. bezdomni
2. bezrobotni
3. chorzy
4. młodzi
5. starsi
6. niepełnosprawni

 

GLOSSARY

rich – bogaty
famous – sławny
charity – organizacja charytatywna
foundation – fundacja
leader – lider
to give away – rozdawać, oddawać
founder – założyciel
to receive – otrzymywać
reason – powód
compared wih – w porówniu z
currency – waluta
management guru – guru w zakresie zarządzania
charitable – charytatywny
connection – kontakty, koneksje
to market – wprowadzać na rynek
skills – umiejętności
solution – rozwiązanie
poverty – ubóstwo
environment – środowisko

 

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