Lekcja 40: A Busy Summer

Yes, the summer season has arrived. We can finally start thinking of vacations, weekend trips and barbecues. The temperature has risen and the days are scorching hot. Going to work might no longer be a pleasure, especially if there is no air conditioning in the office.

The summer is the perfect season to show off our new summer dress or Hawaiian shirt. It’s a time of outdoor cafes, ice-cream parlors and long warm nights. Summer is a time to kick back and unwind. In other words, it’s a time of total bliss. So, why on earth, would we want to spoil this atmosphere by doing something meaningful like enrolling on a language course?

Summer is a time to enjoy a change of pace from your normal working hours. It's an opportunity to focus on different interests or on activities that you don't have as much time for during the rest of the year. It’s a great time to take up new challenges, like learning a foreign language. If we google for learning languages we will find a mile-long list of schools offering language courses in and outside of Poland. The most popular destinations abroad, in case of learning English, are England, Ireland, Spain and Malta. Why are they so popular? In the case of England or Ireland, what better way to learn a language than be submerged in the history and culture of a country where it’s spoken natively? In the case of Spain and Malta, the choice is connected with combining a summer vacation with education.

If you decide to study this summer, you should spend some time looking at and comparing offerings. Picking the first school on a list might not be a wise choice. For good recommendations we should ask among our friends or on chat forums. We also have to know that most schools, knowing that people would like to make the best use of their summer months, offer short intensive courses or tailor-made courses, geared towards a special interest like art, traveling or films. Therefore, we need to decide what our aim is for those two months and what we hope to achieve. Do we want a general, grammar or topic based course? Two months is not a long time, that is why we can’t expect any miracles. What we can do is continue learning once the summer is over.

Wersja audio

Vocabulary

Word-of-the-week

bliss – perfect happiness (rozkosz, błogość, szczęście)

Glossary:

scorching – very hot (upalny)

to kick back – to relax (zrelaksować się)

enrolling – to put yourself or someone else onto the official list of members of a course, college or group (zapisać się)

submerged – immersed in, surrounded by (zanurzać się)

wise – possessing or showing the ability to make good judgments (mądry)

tailor-made – specially made for a particular purpose (dostosowany do wymagań)

geared towards – to design or organize something so that it is suitable for a particular purpose, situation or group of people (nastawiony, ukierunkowany na)

Practice makes perfect

Complete the gaps with words from the text

1. It’s Friday night let’s just ………………….. and enjoy the rest of the evening.

2. My sister ……………..in a yoga class. She wanted to do it for a long time, but never had the time.

3. My grandfather was a very ………………..man. He would always give us the best advice.

4. The iron was …………………hot. He burnt himself.

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