👉Communicative area: discussing birthdays and birthday customs and traditions
👉Active vocabulary: a highlight, to be on cloud nine, to congratulate on, to overshadow, for luck, actual
1. What birthday customs and traditions do you know?
2. Which of them do you observe in your family?
3. What can
you do to make a birthday
celebration a memorable event?
Read the information about birthday traditions in English-speaking countries and check your guesses.
How much have you
guessed correctly?
There is so much to love about this day. Candles, lights, balloons, birthday presents, and wishes from your near and dear ones make you feel on cloud nine.
Of course, the highlight of all the celebration is a birthday cake! Birthday cakes as we know them now arrived in the 17th century, but then they were only for the rich. Britain introduced them as part of birthday celebrations in the middle of the 19th century. Soon after that, the candles on the cake were added. In Australia and New Zealand, instead of the big classic birthday cake, you are more likely to see “fairy bread”: sliced white bread spread with butter and covered with hundreds of colourful sugar candy sprinkles. In addition to this simple dessert, birthdays “Down Under” are often celebrated with a barbecue in the garden!
In Ireland and the UK, you might want to watch out on your birthday! To congratulate you on the occasion, your friends give you the “bumps”: they lift you in the air by your hands and feet and raise you up and down, one time for each year and then one for luck. Canada has an unusual custom the origin of which is unknown. They say that on your birthday it’s very important to make you too slippery (скользким) for any bad luck to get hold of you. That’s why your nose should be covered with… butter for luck.
Landmark birthdays give people a good excuse to make the most of the special occasion. A sweet 16th birthday party is mainly marked in the US and Canada. Its aim is to celebrate entering a different stage of a person’s life. In the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, a teenager’s 18th birthday celebration is more important. They are presented with a key (a real one or a birthday card with a key painted there) to open new doors. At 21, the birthday boy or girl traditionally gets a copy of the newspaper for the day they were born. Get to 100 and you even receive a birthday card from the Queen!
Birthdays are too fun to only celebrate once a year, so why not mark a second time – on your half birthday, the day that falls exactly six calendar months before or after your actual date of birth? The idea is popular with people whose actual birthday is overshadowed by other major events, such as Christmas. In the United States, half birthdays are often marked by young children whose actual birthdays do not fall within the school year to give them the opportunity to celebrate in school with their friends and teacher.
What is a landmark birthday?
What is a half birthday?
Are the birthday traditions in English-speaking countries close to
ours?
What do you think of their birthday traditions?
Compare the short exchanges below. What do they have
in common? Why are different tense forms used in the answers?
1. – Why are you unhappy? – I have missed my friend’s
birthday party.
2. – Why were you unhappy? – I had missed my friend’s
birthday party.
Explain the following statements about Harry Potter’s birthdays.
Use the information in the box. Mind the tenses!
1. On the morning of his twelfth birthday, Harry was
unhappy.
2. On the day of his thirteenth birthday, Harry was almost
on cloud nine.
the Dursleys / completely forget it was his birthday; his
friends / send him nice birthday presents; his friends / not
congratulate him; he / get a permission letter to go to the
village of Hogsmead; another event / overshadow
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