English for everyone

No one can avoid stress, especially nowadays. But we can reduce its effects. Here are some simple rules how to manage stress.

Live in the present!
• Live in the present — don’t waste time worrying about how much better things were in the past or what might happen in the future. Most people have perfected the art of living in the now.

Love yourself!
• Relax your demands on yourself a bit, most of us expect too much.
• Always be kind with yourself. Be a friend to yourself.
• Discuss your problems with a friend, relative, or some other person. Don’t keep them to yourself.
• Stop whatever you are doing, put your feet up and read your favorite book or watch your favorite TV show. You deserve it!
More »

Madam Tussaud’s Museum

Madam Tussaud’s is the most popular waxworks museum in the world. There are wax models of the famous and infamous, both living and dead. You can meet great characters of history and art. There are actors, film stars, pop-singers, criminals, politicians and members of the Royal family here. There is a place where you can see all the celebrities at once.
The museum is situated in Marylebone Road, not far from the street which is famous as the home of the first great detective in fiction, Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.
There are several halls at Madam Tussaud’s: the Grand Hall, the Chamber of Horrors and The Spirit of London exhibition.
The wax figures are extremely realistic. When they look at you their eyes are sparkling and you feel uncomfortable. Computer-controlled figures (audioanimatronics) are especially popular with the visitors. Their speech and sound are recordered onto CDs and synchronized with the movements.
In the Grand Hall you will find all kinds of celebrities and there is a special place for the Royal family.
Most people agree to be portrayed, but some refuse. Mother Teresa was one of the few who declined, saying her work was important, not her person.
More »

English prepositions are very confusing. Can you fill in the correct prepositions in this passage? The first one is done for you.

(1) On Wednesday I had an important interview (2) ___ a job. I got up (3) ___ 7 o’clock in the morning and shaved carefully. I put (4) ___ my best jacket and trousers. I had to travel (5) train, so I walked to the station. (6) ___ my way I saw a man who was painting his fence (7) ___ red paint. The man didn’t notice me: he was looking (8) ___ the fence.
Then he turned suddenly and splashed my beautiful trousers! I was very angry (9) ___ the man. He apologised (10) ___ me, but the damage was done. There was a department store not far (11) ___ the station, so I decided to buy a new pair.
More »

Steve Mason had lived in New York for three years. His address book was filled with the phone numbers of girls he knew and had dated. Then why, he wondered, was he sitting in a phone booth about to dial PL 1-2450 — the phone number of a girl he had never seen or even heard about?
Because he was curious.
He had seen the name Pam Starr and the number PL 1-2450 twice in one week. The first time had been on the wall of a phone booth on 42nd Street. It was just one of the many names and numbers written on the phone booth wall. Then a minute ago he saw the name and number again — this time near a phone in a drugstore. The name Pam Starr was the same.
The handwriting was the same. And beneath it the same person had written, ‘Quite a chick.’
More »

Independence Day is the most important American holiday. United States of America were born on July 4, 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was signed and America started the fight for freedom from British rule.
Before this date, the King of England, George III, ruled the thirteen colonies in America.
In 1767, the British government placed new taxes on tea and paper that the colonists imported from abroad. The colorists got angry and refused to pay. George III sent soldiers to keep order.
In 1772, a group of colonists dressed up as Indians threw 542 chests of tea belonging to the East India Company into the waters of Boston harbor – it was so called Boston tea party. King George didn’t think it was funny and closed Boston harbor until the tea was paid for.
More »

Who is the tallest man in the world? Who is the fattest woman in the world? How heavy is the heaviest man? Who has the longest moustache? How long can a person talk without stopping? What distance can a man cover if he walks on his hands? Which is the most visited Web site?
All these facts can be found in the Guinness Book of World Records. It has information about the world’s tallest, shortest, loudest, heaviest, richest, rarest and greatest. It demonstrates people’s achievements in nearly every field: from sports to politics, from entertainment to science, from the business world to pastimes.
It is also a wonderful portrait of human eccentricity, showing the great lengths to which some people will go to become record breakers.
More »

Skye

Skye is located off Scotland’s northwest coast, some 184 km from Glasgow. The island measures 77 km in length and 38 km at its widest. The largest island in Scotland’s Inner Hebrides, Skye covers an area of 1,740 sq km, about half the size of the state of Rhode Island in the USA. Skye’s landscape is dominated by the spectacular Black Cuillin Hills, which an English journalist H. V. Morton (1892-1979) described in his book In Search of Scotland. “Imagine Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries frozen in stone and hung up like a colossal screen against the sky. It seems as if Nature when she hurled the Coolins up… said: ‘I will make mountains which shall be the essence of all that can be terrible in mountains.”
More »