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VOCABULARY Vocabulary verb patterns (1)

SC AND SKILLS Birthdays Skills Reading: a magazine article;
Listening: Personal stories

QUICK REVIEW be going to Work in pairs. Find five things you're going to do next weekend that
your partner isn't going to do: A Are you going to have a lie-in on Sunday? B No, probably not.

Speaking, Reading and Vocabulary a Read the article again. Answer these questions.

1 Why are birthday cakes round and why do we
Work in groups. Discuss these questions.
put candles on them?
1 How do people celebrate birthdays in your country?
2 How much does Time-Warner earn from
2 When's your birthday? What are the advantages and Happy Birthday to You every year?
disadvantages of having a birthday at that time of the year?
3 What do people eat on their birthdays in China
3 Where were you on your last birthday? What did you do?
and Korea?
4 Why did people send birthday cards a hundred
a Before you read, check these words with your teacher or
years ago? -
in a dictionary.
s What does a pif\ata usually look like and how
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a candle shine seaweed blindfold a donkey a stick do you get the sweets out of it?
6 What happens on Tet in Vietnam?
b Work in pairs. Look at photos A-E. What do you know
b Work in pairs. Compare answers. Which
~ about these birthday traditions?
things in the article did you find the most
c Read the article. Put the photos in the order they are interesting or surprising?
discussed.
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- Margaret Robson investigates the origins of birthday traditions around the world.

or many people, you can't celebrate your birthday couldn't come to a person's birthday party or
without a birthday cake. These have been common if they didn't remember to send a present. The
F in Western countries since the 15th century, but British love sending birthday cards - they send
people have been making them for over 2,000 years. It about 800 million every year - but in places like
was the Ancient Greeks who decided to make the cakes Spain, sending cards still isn't very common.
round so that they look like the full moon. They also put For a lot of people who live in Latin America, the
candles on the cakes to make them shine like the moon. pinata is central to birthday celebrations. A pinata is
Nowadays parents tell their children to make a wish a container, usually in the shape of a donkey, filled
before they blow out the candles (one candle for each with sweets and hung from a tree. The birthday
year, of course). In China they have small birthday cakes person is blindfolded and then tries to hit the pinata
called sou bao, which are the same shape and colour as with a stick. The person keeps hitting the pinata until
a peach, while in Korea, the traditional birthday food isn't it breaks open and the sweets fall to the ground.
cake, but seaweed soup. Interestingly, not everyone celebrates their birthday
In most English-speaking countries, people start on the day they were born. In Vietnam, everyone
singing Happy Birthday to You before the cake is celebrates their birthday on New Year's Day - or Tet,
cut. This is the most recognised song in the English as it's called in Vietnamese. On the first morning
language, but it isn't as old as you might think. It first of Tet, adults give children a red envelope containing
appeared in print in 1912 and was bought by The Time- 'lucky money' to help them celebrate becoming
Warner Company for $5 million in 1998. The company one year older.
earns over $2 million from public performances of the Whatever your country's traditions, a birthday
song every year. should always be a special day. So I hope you
Everyone likes getting birthday cards, of course, enjoy yourself next time someone asks you to
J but this is also a fairly new tradition. People only began go to a birthday party - and don't forget to buy

sending birthday cards about 100 years ago if they them a present!
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