Ex. 12. Fill in the articles. Learn the dialogue by heart

AT THE POST OFFICE

A: I'minterested in ... economic developments at home and abroad. What periodical would you advise me to subscribe to?

B: I think you should subscribe to ... Economist. It gives full coverage to ... questions you are interested in.

A: Is it ... newspaper or ... magazine?

B: Strange enough but the question isn't as easy as you might think. The matter is that this publication has ... format of ... magazine but is registered as ... newspaper. It has ... colour cover and some colour sections.

A: How often does it come out?

B: It is ... weekly periodical which comes out every Saturday except for ... combined issue ... last week in December and ... first week in January.

A: Ah, well, I see. Does it cover any other problems besides ... economics?

B: Yes, sure. The Economist gives ... fullcoverage to ... world politics and current affairs, ... business, ... finance and ... science. It also carries several reviews on ... books. For those who are interested in ... brain-teasers there are various cross­
words.

A: It sounds interesting. And how much is ... subscription for ... year?

B: I believe ... price is quite reasonable for such ... serious periodical. It is 78.00 pounds.

A: Hm... Can I have any discount? You see I am a student... .

(Vertogradova L.A., Fastovskaya T.B., Stepanova E.N. Practical English, 3 Year, 1998.)

Ex.11. Read, translate and retell the text.

NEWSPAPERS IN RUSSIA


It is almost impossible to imagine our life without newspapers. Millions of copies of them appear every day. There are few homes to which at least one newspaper is not delivered every morning. Many people subscribe to two or even more newspapers, others buy morning or evening papers at the newsstands.

There are national daily newspapers, such as Komsomolskava Pravda, Economicheskaya Gazeta, Nezavisimaya Gazeta. There are also national weekly papers, for example, Argumenti i Fakty, Literaturnaya Gazeta, Nedelya. Most national papers express a political opinion and people choose the newspa­per they read according to their own political beliefs.

There are local papers in all parts of Russia. In Moscow the most popular local news­papers are Moskovsky Komsomolets and Vechernyaya Moskva. There are also many free local newspapers which are delivered to people's homes whether they ask for them or not. They usually contain a lot of advertisements.

One can find newspapers for children and teenagers, for sports fans and for people from all walks of life.

Many people subscribe to The Moscow News. This is a weekly newspaper of Novosti Press Agency. It was first published on the 5th of October, 1930.

The newspaper contains current news, detailed articles about home and international events, reviews of new books, plays, TV shows, letters of readers to the editor. I like to read articles on social issues and the pages devoted to literature and the arts. I like fiction, and it's a pity that the newspaper doesn't run novels and stories by progressive English and American writers as it used to. I wish the newspaper published jokes, short stories and items about traditions, places of interest, and famous people of English-speaking countries. It would be very useful for those who study English. I think The Moscow News helps a lot in studying English, in learning a lot of new words and expressions.

Moskovsky Komsomolets is a four-page newspaper, but onSaturdays there are eight pages in it. My parents don't read all the articles in Moskovsky Komsomolets from the first to the last page. They only choose the material they are inter­ested in. For example, they like to read the articles. They laugh their heads off looking at the caricatures and pictures. And they only look through the rest of the articles. As for me, 1 don't consider Moskovsky Komsomolets a heavy newspaper.


Ex. 13. Look at the picture. What do people read? Answer the questionnaire. How much have you got incommon? Describe one of your favour­ite periodicals.