Hallás utáni értés középfokon (B2) – What’s so green about grass?

Középfok (B2)
Hallgasd meg a szöveget és válaszolj a kérdésekre magyarul.

What’s so great about grass?

1. Mikor kezdtek el az emberek nemcsak fűről, hanem gyepről beszélni?

2. Mikor kezdtek el füvet nyírni a kertekben és miért?

3. Milyen előnye volt még az alacsonyabb fűnek a magassal szemben?

4. Mikor készült és hova tervezték az első fűnyírót?

5. Hova került a két első modell?

6. Mivolt a probléma ezekkel a fűnyírókkal?

7. Milyen modell készült el tíz évvel később?

8. Mikor készült el a gőzzel hajtott fűnyíró és miért nem vált igazán népszerűvé?

9. Honnan vette a motort Edwin George a fűnyírójához?

10. Milyen számban adtak el fűnyírókat az 1920-as években?

Transcript: 

Toward the end of a summer mowing, you may be wondering just exactly whose idea it was to plant grass all around the house. Actually, yards have existed since 4000 B.C. butgrass was used only as a background to show off the garden and flowers. The word “lawn”, which means an area of grass that is managed, came to be used only in the 16th century.

Until the 1800s, people admired long grass combined with wildflowers. But you can thank nineteenth- century Europe for starting the idea of mowing yards. At that time the rich and poor alike began enjoying lawn games like golf and bowling, so both castles and cottages were soon surrounded by pretty playing fields. Besides, low grass made it easier to see who was approaching, serving as an early warning of intruders.

With the passing of time, people became anxious to match their neighbour’s yards, and grassy lawns became a status symbol. In early history, unless you had a flock of sheep that could constantly eat the lawn, grass had to be cut by hand, which took a lot of time. This made it possible to upkeep large areas of lawn only for the extremely wealthy and the aristocrats.

Then, in 1830, Edwin Budding invented the first lawnmower. It was pushed from behind and was to be used primarily to cut the lawn on sports grounds and extensive gardens. The first two models were sold to the Regent’s Park Zoological Gardens in London and the Oxford Colleges. People gradually accepted this human-powered push mower. There were, however, two big problems with it. It was made of iron, so very heavy and difficult to manoeuvre in the garden and it did not cut the grass very well. New, lighter models were constructed in the following decades.

A large version, which was horse-drawn was constructed ten years later but was not very popular, because the loose pieces of sod dug up by the horses’ hooves ruined the job.

A steam-powered lawn mower was constructed at the end of the nineteenth century. It did not become really popular because it was very heavy and took several hours to warm up to operating pressure.

It was almost one hundred years after the first lawnmower constructed, just after World War I when Edwin George took the engine from his wife’s washing machine and attached it to the back of his mower, creating the first gas-powered version. Soon after that, in 1922, the first self-propelled, riding lawn tractor was also constructed.

In the 1920s, the most successful company to emerge in the market of lawnmowers was Atco, selling tens of thousands of lawnmowers every year.

Key: 

1. A16. században.
2. A 19. században, a füvön űzött sportok miatt
3. Jobban lehetett látni, ha valaki közeledett.
4. 1830-ban, sportpályákra és nagy kertekre.
5. Londonba (egy állatkertbe) és Oxfordba (az egyetemre).
6. Nehezek voltak, nehéz volt velük manőverezni és nem vágták le jól a füvet.
7. Nagyobb modell, amit lovak húztak.
8. A 19. század végén. Túl nehéz volt, és órákig tartott, amíg bemelegedett.
9. A felesége mosógépéből.
10. Tízezerszámra.