Answer the following questions about yourself, your friends and your ideas about friendship.

1. Do you like to give advice to your friends or ask them for advice?

2. Have you ever let down your friends or felt that they had let you down? Can you forgive this? Have you been forgiven?

3. What do you think of this ancient saying “Socrates is my friend but the truth is dearer to me.”?

4. If your friend doesn’t support you in an argument, are you offended or respect his/her opinion?

5. Have you ever let out a secret your friend entrusted you with? How did you feel after that? Has the opposite happened in your relations with your friends?

6. Usually there is a leading and a supporting partner in a friendship. Two leaders very seldom get on well together. In your relationship with your friend which partner are you? If you are a leader, are you always considerate about your friend`s feelings? If you are a supporting partner, do you try to suit yourself to the demand of the leader?

7. Have you ever asked your friend to lie for you in an awkward situation? What was his/her reaction?

8. What do you appreciate most of all in your friend(s)?

49. Read two letters to a youth magazine and express your opinion about them. What advice could you give to these people?

a. “My friend has strict parents who do not like him going out to the disco. He wants me to lie for him by telling his mum that he is at my house. I don’t want to lie, but I don’t want to let him down either. What can I do? I want to help but do you think he is pushing things too far?”

b. “There has been a series of thefts of property and money in our group, and various things seem to have disappeared. The police have been called in, they were looking into the problem but so far nobody has been punished. The other day I called on my best friend. He was out and his mother asked me to wait in his room. As I was waiting for him to turn up, I started looking around and suddenly came across a couple of things stolen a week before. I went hot and cold. I didn’t know what to do, and when my friend finally came I said nothing. I don’t want to lose my friend or to break up his family – he already has enough trouble with his dad. On the other hand, theft is a serious crime. If I turn the blind eye, I will be letting down my other group mates. What shall I do?”

50. Try the following ideas on and say if you agree or disagree with the statements?

1. You feel safe with good friends because they never say anything that hurts you.

2. You need to think carefully about what you say to a good friend.

3. Being with a good friend is a comfort because you can say what you want.

4. Good friends never worry about anything that you say to them.

5. A good friend is someone you can count on and who will always be there when you need him.

UPPER-INTERMEDIATE LEVEL

Describing people: appearance

Hair, face, skin and complexion

What sort of person would you find attractive? Blonde, fair, dark or ginger-haired/red-haired?

She has such beautiful auburn hair! [red-brown]

Fair and dark can be used for hair, complexion or skin.

Height and build

Fat may sound impolite. Instead we often say a bit overweight. If someone is broad and solid, we can say they are stocky. A person with good muscles can be well-built or muscular. If someone is terribly thin and refuses to eat, they may be anorexic.

General appearance

She`s a very smart and elegant woman, always well-dressed; her husband is quite the opposite, very scruffy and untidy-looking/messy-looking.

He`s very good-looking, but his friend`s rather unattractive.

Do you think beautiful women are always attracted to handsome men? I don’t. I think personality matters most.

First impressions are always important.

Describing people: character

Intellectual ability

Ability: intelligent bright clever sharp shrewd able gifted talented brainy (colloquial)

Lacking ability: stupid foolish half-witted simple silly brainless daft dumb dim (the last four are predominantly colloquial words)

Clever, in a negative way, using brains to trick or deceive: cunning crafty sly

Attitudes towards life

Frank is pessimistic while Helen is optimistic – he always expects the worst to happen while she looks on the bright side.

It is strange that one of the twins is so extroverted while the other is so introverted – Ben loves being the focus of attention while Bill would far rather be alone with his thoughts.

I feel very tense (or wound-up/stressed-out) after a very busy day at work but, after a hot bath and a cup of tea, I`ll soon feel relaxed.

Jane is very sensible – she`d never do anything stupid. In other words, she`s very practical and down-to-earth.

Rupert is very sensitive – he gets very upset (or worked-up [more colloquial]), if he feels people are criticizing him.

Attitude towards other people

Enjoying other`s company: sociable gregarious

Disagreeing with others: quarrelsome argumentative

Taking pleasure in other`s pain: cruel sadistic

Relaxed in attitude to self and others: easy-going even-tempered laid-back

Not polite to others: impolite rude ill-mannered discourteous

Telling the truth to others: honest trustworthy reliable sincere

Unhappy if others have what one does not have oneself: jealous envious

One person`s meat is another person`s poison

Some characteristics can be either positive or negative depending on your point of view. The words in the right-hand column mean roughly the same as the words in the left-hand column except that they have negative rather than positive connotations.