Упр. 8. Прочитайте тексты про Нью-Йорк.

The Big Apple

People often call New York 'The Big Apple'. Why? In the 1920s and 1930s, jazz musicians all wanted to work in New York.

'There are a lot of apples on the tree,' they said, 'but when you take New York City, you take The Big Apple!'

Yes, everybody wanted some of The Big Apple - and they want some today, too!

More than twenty million people visit New York every year. Lots of them say it is the most exciting city in the world.

When visitors think about New York, they usually think about Manhattan - an island 21.5 kilometres long and 3.7 kilometres wide. But New York City has five 'boroughs': Manhattan, Brooklyn, The Bronx, Queens and Staten Island. The city has 10,000 kilometres of streets, and seven million or more people live here.

Looking up!

If you want to look at the buildings in New York -look up! The city is full of skyscrapers. Many of them are not very beautiful, but some are wonderful, and very modern. Some skyscrapers are interesting because you can see for many kilometres from the top. Some are interesting because of the work people do inside. Some are world-famous.

The Statue of Liberty ... Liberty Island, New York Harbour. Take a ferry from Battery Park. The French people gave this statue to the American people in 1886. You can walk up 354 stairs to get to the top of the statue. There is a museum on Liberty Island, at the foot of the statue.

The Empire State Building ... at Fifth Avenue and 34th Street. Between 1931 and 1970, it was the highest building in the world. It has 102 floors, is 448 metres high, and you can see 120 kilometres from the top. A plane hit the 79th floor in 1945.

The World Trade Center ... on Church Street and Liberty Street. The highest buildings in New York. Two skyscrapers with more than one hundred floors. There are shops and restaurants inside. The 'Windows on the World' restaurant is in 1 World Trade Center and is on the 107th floor.

The United Nations Building ... on the East River at First Avenue and 45th Street. You can see the flags of every country in the United Nations along the front of the building.

Canada

Упр. 9. Прочитайте текст и ответьте на вопросы.

Quebec - French by force

In the 19605, the French speakers of the Quebec region of Canada gained political power there. Since then, they have passed many laws designed to protect the French language.

In 1977, Bill 101 made French the official language of Quebec,

imposed French language tests for admission to many professions and ruled that most businesses with more than fifty employees must operate in French. It also prohibited the use of English on commercial signs, although this was modified in 1993, when it was decided that English could appear on outdoor signs as long as the French words were more prominent. There is still, however, an official 'language police', the Office Quebecois de la Langue Française, who constantly check that these language laws are not broken.

Most controversially, Bill 101 made it obligatory for almost all students, particularly those moving to Quebec from outside the region, to attend French-only schools until they reach college age. In 2002, on the 25th anniversary of Bill 101, a new law even closed the loophole that had allowed children who had been previously educated at anglophonc schools, or those in private education, to continue to attend English speaking schools. Although all pupils at francophone schools in Quebec have English lessons, they do not start them until the fifth grade. Critics of the system say that this puts them at a

serious disadvantage if they want to study or try to get a job outside

of Quebec when they leave school.

1. Find five ways that Bill 101 affected day-to-day life in Quebec.

2. What modification to the Bill was made in 1993?

3. What do the Office Quebecois de la Langue Française do?

4. What modification to the Bill was made in 2002?

5. Do children at French-speaking schools in Quebec study English?

6. Why could children at French-speaking schools be at a disadvantage?

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