IMPORTANT DAYS.

You will hear some people talking about dates which are important for them. Listen attentively. Then, prepare a similar talk about an important date in your life. Record and submit for evaluation.

Karen:

Um... one of the most important days for me really is New Year, because New Year in Scottland is really very, very important... in fact, it’s not so much New Year’s Day, the first of January, but it’s the evening before, New Year’s Eve... so on the thirty-first of December, at about seven o’clock in the evening, the cleaning begins, and I remember when I was a child, my mother spending hours cleaning the house to make sure that everything would be special, and ready for the New Year ... and then when it gets to twelve o’clock, and the bells start to ring, the first thing my mother does is go to open the door to let the New Year in ... and then everyone has something to drink and we wait for the first foot. The first foot is the first person who comes to your house in the New Year, and they’re very, very special because they bring you your luck for the whole year, and the first foot has to bring three very important things. They bring shortbread, which is a special kind of biscuit, they bring coal, for warmth, and they bring something to drink...

JOHNNY:

Chinese New Year is never on the same day every year because we follow a special calendar which follows the Moon. So sometimes it’s at the end of January and sometimes it’s at the beginning of February.

At Chinese New Year we like to wear our new clothes and we also like to eat special food which has special meaning, such as Chinese mushrooms and oysters and delicious sweets; hopefully they bring us lots of good luck and lots of money.

Now, it’s special for children because they get little red envelopes of money from adults, so what they do is they go to adults, they say “Happy New Year” and they get a little red envelope and because I’m not married, I get the little red envelope too.