Relationships
Overview
B1 level activity to revise past tenses and learn phrasal verbs connected to relationships. The activities include: speaking, reading, matching, rephrasing and inventing a story.
Speaking
Discuss
What are these?
What are they used for?
Do you use them?
Why? Why not?
What about Meetic, eDarling…? What do you think about this kind of websites?
What about more traditional ways to know people?
Speaking: ordering a story
KEY
8B
5C
9D
11E
3F
6G
2H
4I
12J
10K
7L
In these comic strips we have Tim's love story, but they are in the wrong order. Taking into account that the first one is A, and J the last one, try to order the story.
Reading
Read the story and check your answers.
ACROSS A CROWDED ROOM
It was love at first sight. I saw her standing on the other side of a crowded room sipping a glass of wine. Our eyes met. I walked over to her and said, 'You seem to be on your own. Can I join you?'
She smiled and said yes. At first she came across as rather shy, but as I got to know her better I found out she was an open and confident person who was easy to get on with. At the end of the party I said I would like to see her again and asked her out for a meal the following week.
I took her out to a small ltalian restaurant in Soho. After talking for a while, we found out that we had a lot in common - in fact, we seemed to have the same interests and tastes in everything. She smiled at me when I spoke to her, and when our eyes met this time I knew that I was head over heels in love with her. I thought that she was falling in love with me, too. We started going out with each other, and after some time we got engaged and decided to live together. We were both very happy and made plans to settle down and get married the following year.
However, it wasn't long before things started to go wrong. She seemed less affectionate and loving as the weeks passed, and I started to feel she was going off me. She criticized me all the time. 'Why are you always going on at me?' I asked.
In the end I wondered if we were suited to one another. I was keen on hard rock and she was fond of classical music. I was interested in sport and she was interested in politics. We finalIy fell out over a TV programme. We had a terrible row, broke off our engagernent, and called off the wedding. A week later she moved out. I was heartbroken, and it took me a long time to get over it.
A few months later I heard she was engaged to a man who worked in local government. They got married, but after two years their marriage broke up and they got divorced.
I tell you this because last night I went to a party and I was drowning my sorows when I saw her standing on the other side of the room sipping a glass of wine. I saw a man walk over to her and l heard him say, 'You seem to be on your own. Can I join you?
Vocabulary: Relationships Phrasal verbs
There are some phrasal verbs along the text. Look at them in context in the text and match them with the deifinition.
To ask someone out somewhere | To cancel something (an arrangement or event) |
To break something off | To come to an end |
To break up | To discontinue something, to bring something to an abrupt end |
To call something off | To give the impression of having a particular characteristic |
To come across as something
| To have an argument with someone and stop being friendly with them |
To fall out (with someone) (over something) | To invite someone to go out somewhere (to a restaurant or theatre) |
To go off someone | To keep complaining about something to someone (informal) |
To go on at someone | To spend time with someone socially, often to have a romantic relationship |
To go out with someone | To start to live a stable, regular life in one place (perhaps after buying a house or getting married) |
To settle down | To stop liking someone (informal) |
Vocabulary: Relationships Phrasal verbs practice
Rephrase the sentences using one of the previous phrasal verbs.
- The concert has been cancelled.
- Stop criticizing me all the time!
- He's invited her to the theatre.
- Julie is having a relationship with a man from China.
- He gives the impression of being a determined person.
- THeir marriage has ended.
- My best friends have had an argument and aren't talking to each other.
- She's starting to dislike him.
- I have just ended my relationshi`with Peter.
- I want to get married, buy a house and have a permanent job.
Speaking
Choose five of the phrasal verbs and invent a different story.