Episode 83

EPISODE 83
LEVEL A1.2/A2.1

 

READING COMPREHENSION

 

HOUSEHOLD JOBS

Well, my day after work is not the most exciting either. I come back home late and I eat dinner with my wife. I hate household jobs and fortunately it is my wife who does the washing (= washes our clothes), the ironing (= makes our clothes flat) and the like. I do the hoovering (= clean the carpets with our Electrolux), not every day, of course. My wife also does the cooking (= prepares our food), but I do the washing up (= clean the dishes). We bought ourselves a dishwasher (= a special machine for washing dishes) a few years ago and I love this machine very much. We tend to stay in (= stay at home) during the week, we read books or magazines and watch TV. We do the same things every week.

 

More contexts for the new words: 

• Sometimes my grandmother sweeps the floor in the kitchen.
  (= She makes it clean with a broom) 
• She likes to bake a cake at weekends.
  (= She likes to make a cake) 

 

EXERCISE 1 

Complete each sentence with one word.

1. We have lots of clothes that often get dirty, so we have to do the ………………………….. every day.
2. After dinner, someone has to take care of all the dishes and do the washing ………………………….. .
3. I hate washing the dishes, so I have recently bought a ………………………….. .
4. I burnt my finger while I was ………………………….. the ironing.
5. We usually eat out, so nobody really ………………………….. the cooking at our house.
6. One of the noisiest household jobs is doing ………………………….. hoovering.

 

EXERCISE 2 

Match the question halves, then answer the questions.

1. Which household jobs                   a) the most time?
2. Is there any household job           b) that you actually like?
3. Which job takes you                      c) do you hate doing? Why?

 

ENGLISH IN USE  

In this lesson we talked about actions which are regular. We can use many structures to show that something we do repeats, for example – like in the text above:
We do the same things every week.

Instead of „every week”, we can use: every day, every month, every year, every summer etc. The only thing we have to remember about is that these expressions should be at the end of a sentence, as in the following:
I go to work every day. not: I every day go to work.
I go there every summer. not: I every summer go there.

 

IDIOM CLOSE-UP 

 

A/ Single mums don’t have it easy.

B/ No, they don’t. They WORK THEIR FINGERS TO THE BONE with the household chores – and they have to earn the money somehow!

 

If you work your fingers to the bone, you work very hard.

 

 

PHRASAL VERBS CLOSE-UP

1. When you WASH UP, you wash the cups, plates etc. after a meal.

I can help him to cook and wash up.
The dinner things haven’t been washed up yet.

 

2. When you WASH something OFF, you remove dirt by washing.

Wash all the dirt off before you cook the potatoes.
Don’t worry about the dirty marks on the shirt. They’ll wash off easily.

 

EXERCISE 3 

Decide if the sentences below are true or false. Correct the false ones.

1. When you get food on your clothes, you should wash it off quickly.
2. When you wash up, you put the dirty clothes into the washing machine.
3. If you work your fingers to the bone, you’re a musician.

 

 

NEWS

 

STRIP CLEANING

Fed up with doing the cleaning yourself? Bored with the ordinary cleaning services? How about a completely new approach to keeping your flat clean – strip cleaning! You might have heard about this unique and entertaining practice. A pretty girl – or a macho guy, take your pick – comes to your place. They do all the regular cleaning – all the rooms are bound to be pristine. However, the added benefit is that they will progressively undress while doing their job. Or they can start off in their underwear, if you don’t want to wait. What then? Feel free to watch!

 

GLOSSARY 

– approach – method, way of doing sth

– take your pick – make your choice

– pristine – very clean

 

download lesson (pdf)