Everyday life of American people as compared with British way of life. Executors: Razumeeva Albina Student of the 10th form, gymnasium № 70. The teacher: Kirikova Rosa Alexandrovna. Ekaterinburg, 2006

The aim of my project work is to learn some information about everyday life of people from the USA and Great Britain. I wish to widen my knowledge about their habits, houses, favourite food, transport, job, teenagers, education, and timetable, peculiarities of the language, traditions, fashion and clothes in detail. I think that this information is quite useful because our way of life differs from theirs. While working over this topic I put some objectives: Firstly - to develop skills of research work and their application to the solution of actual practical tasks and to widen my outlook as for everyday life of Americans and British is concerned. Secondly -to enlarge my vocabulary with terms connected with the topic. Thirdly - to find out answers to some questions closely connected with the topic and to learn some more information about the lifestyle of American and British people; to compare the information about the UK and the USA; to help my friends with some advice how to behave in these countries. Finally I wanted to improve my knowledge of the English language, to investigate the theory that could be helpful for my future career. While working on my project I have come to such hypothesis: I suppose that Russian people can easily feel comfortable in the USA and Great Britain.

English Character. The first chapter points out the English character and its peculiarities. As for me I was surprised that they called themselves the most illogical people. But I thought they were prim, cold, practical and snobbish and of course very polite. But now I don’t think so.

The American character The second chapter focuses on American character. Because Americans have come from so many nationalities, there is a far wider range of what is “acceptable” than in some countries where the inhabitants have grown up with a common heritage.

Traditions, Holidays and Customs of Great Britain The third chapter is mostly about traditions and customs of Great Britain, which are bright interesting and amazing.

The National Holidays in the USA In my forth chapter there is some information about National Holidays in the USA which differ from British ones because their essence and ways of celebrating.

In the next chapter I explore the roots of the British language. After that the following chapter is about the differences between British and American English.

One Day with the British Family In the seventh chapter I show one day with the British family where you can see a typical day of British. I want you to feel the atmosphere of their life. One Day in the American Family And my last chapter is about the way of life in the American family. Here you can find the information about American lifestyle from every point of view.

Table of Contents. Practical Part I Questionnaire Practical Part II

Practical Part I After I have read the letters from my friends who stayed in the USA and in Great Britain I realized that their perception of the country was different. For example most of the visitors of the USA said that they would like to live only in New York or any other big city as the life in small towns is too dull for them. As for people who visited Britain they didn’t experience such a big culture shock and they were eager to choose any place for their living either a big or a little town. But all of them mentioned that both Americans and British were friendly and kind to them. And of course everybody noticed that Russian culture differs greatly from American and British culture though it doesn’t interfere with mutual understanding.

Questionnaire.

Practical Part II. In my second part of the practical work I interviewed three American women who lived in the USA in the state of Utah and now live in Russia. I can say that I got great pleasure from the conversation with them and I want to mention that this three American women were very chatty, cheerful, considerate, easy-going, kind, sociable, liberal and smiling. They seemed to be very patriotic and they wouldn’t like to live and study in any country but America. Moreover they know history and traditions of their country very well. I learnt a lot of useful facts about their lifestyle. Besides I would like to add that in February I had a chance to spend some days with British teenagers. They came to my school on exchange programme. We went to the tourist center and talked a lot, so I can say that we have a lot in common. They were very interesting, cheerful and polite, but seemed to be a bit childish. To my mind Russian teenagers are more serious.

So I asked them questions like that: What country would you like to live in? What country would you like to study in? What do you think about Russian people? Do British people know a lot about Russia? If yes, what do they know? What is the main difference between Russian and British from your point view?

In conclusion I want to say that socializing with the foreigners is very important not only for language studying but for self-development. We become more tolerant and widen our knowledge about the world. So my hypothesis is right that Russian people can feel comfortable in the USA and Great Britain.