Grammar ~21 min of the core left

Travelling: the airport and the station

After this lesson you can

I can understand an announcement at the airport, name a country or a city correctly and say where I am going.

Start the lesson Core 19–21 min · steps: 6 · optional: +2

Declared core time. Two of the core blocks carry no figure at all, so the real lesson is longer than this sum.

Grammar

5 min

With place names, the article follows a list, not a rule.

without the with the
countries: Brazil, Italy, France names in the plural or with the word States, Kingdom: the Netherlands, the USA, the UK
cities: Rio de Janeiro, London rivers: the Thames, the Amazon
streets: Oxford Street seas and oceans: the Black Sea
mountain ranges: the Alps

Institutions: the or no article — and this changes the meaning.

go to school to study there (as a pupil)
go to the school to go to the school building (for example, to a meeting)
be in hospital to be there as a patient, ill
be in the hospital to be in the hospital building

Three places go without an article: go home, go to work, go to bed. home has no preposition either: you can't say go to home — here home is an adverb, not a noun.

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Common learner errors

written for your language
1

go to home

✗ I go to home

✓ I go home

The most common mistake of this lesson: Spanish ir a casa, Italian andare a casa, Portuguese ir para casa and German nach Hause have a preposition, and learners translate it with to.

2

The article with a country

✗ the Brazil, ✗ the Italy → ✓ Brazil, Italy. French (le Brésil, l'Italie), Italian (il Brasile), Portuguese (o Brasil) and Greek put an article before most country names. And the other way round: ✗ I'm from USA → ✓ from the USA. Learners whose language has no articles drop it here, and Spanish often does too (de Estados Unidos).

3

The building instead of the purpose

✗ My son goes to the school every day (he is a pupil there) → ✓ goes to school. French à l'école, Spanish a la escuela and German zur Schule (= zu der) have an article here. In the same way ✗ He is in the hospital (he is ill) → ✓ He is in hospital: American English says in the hospital here, but in British English it is only the building.

Pronunciation

3 min

Announcements at the airport and at the station are fast speech with full reduction. You need to recognise the key words:

written sounds
flight to London /flaɪt tə ˈlʌndən/
gate number seven /ɡeɪt ˈnʌmbə ˈsevn/
the train to Rio de Janeiro /ðə treɪn tə ˌriːəʊ də ʒəˈnɪərəʊ/

to before a consonant is /tə/, before a vowel — /tu/. Flight numbers are said digit by digit.

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Text

3 min

I'm going to the UK next week. My flight leaves at seven forty from gate twelve. I have to be at the airport two hours before my flight. My sister lives in the Netherlands, so I'm going to visit her too. After that I'm going home — I go to work on Monday.

Reading aloud

Exercises

8–10 min

1. Gap fill.

  1. I'm from Brazil
  2. She lives in Netherlands
  3. We're going to USA
  4. He works in London
Show the answers
—; the; the; —.

2. Multiple choice.

  1. My son goes to school every day. (he is a pupil there)
  2. I have to go to school tomorrow — there's a meeting
Show the answers
—; the.

3. Error correction.

  1. I go to home at six.
  2. I'm from the Brazil.
  3. He is in the hospital. (he is ill)
Show the answers
I go home at six. / I'm from Brazil. / He is in hospital.

4. Matching.

  1. Thames
  2. Alps
  3. UK
  4. Italy
  5. Rio de Janeiro
Show the answers
`Thames`, `Alps`, `UK` — with `the`; `Italy`, `Rio de Janeiro` — without `the`
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Summary

Covered

  • the article with place names
  • the with institutions versus no article
  • go home without a preposition
  • announcements by ear

Next — lesson 17: the hotel and polite requests.

End of the core

The lesson counts as done once the exercises are done. Everything after this is optional.

Lesson 53

optional

Vocabulary for your deck

13 words
  • flight /flaɪt/ a journey by plane; a plane that leaves at a fixed time
  • gate /ɡeɪt/ the door at an airport where you get on the plane
  • platform /ˈplætfɔːm/ the place at a station where you get on and off a train
  • luggage /ˈlʌɡɪdʒ/ the bags and cases you take when you travel
  • passport /ˈpɑːspɔːt/ the document you show when you go to another country
  • boarding /ˈbɔːdɪŋ/ getting on a plane
  • delay /dɪˈleɪ/ when something happens later than planned
  • arrival /əˈraɪvl/ coming to a place
  • departure /dɪˈpɑːtʃə/ leaving a place
  • abroad /əˈbrɔːd/ in or to another country
  • border /ˈbɔːdə/ the line between two countries
  • before /bɪˈfɔː/ earlier than
  • after /ˈɑːftə/ later than

Writing

Four sentences about your next trip: where to, which flight, when you go to the airport, where after that.

Example

I'm going to the UK next week. My flight leaves at seven forty. I have to be at the airport two hours before my flight. After that I'm going home.

Checklist

The draft is saved on this device
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Practise this lesson in the other sections

Dictationbased on this lesson Write down what you hear. The check shows every word that differs, and how. Write the dictation Reading aloudbased on this lesson Read the lesson text aloud — speech recognition highlights the words it did not catch. Read the text aloud Reading and listeningA1–C1 Texts at every level with comprehension questions; the transcript opens after you answer. Try it

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