Cover of the textbook English File Advanced - Student's Book

The key answer of exercise 7

The key to exercise solutions in chapter 4A - An open book for the textbook English File Advanced - Student's Book with authors Christina Latham-Koenig, Clive Oxenden, Jerry Lambert and Kate Chomacki from Oxford University Press

Question

  1. Underline the foreign word or phrase in each sentence below. What do you think they mean? Which languages are they from?
  2. Listen and focus on how the foreign words or phrases in a are pronounced. Then practise saying the sentences.

Answer

a)

  1. faux pas (from French) = an action or remark that causes embarrassment because it is not socially correct
  2. déjà vu (from French) = the feeling that you have experienced sth before
  3. cliché (from French) = a phrase or an idea that has been used so often that it no longer has meaning and is not interesting
  4. debacle (from French) = an event or situation that is a complete failure and causes embarrassment
  5. aficionado (from Spanish) = sb who likes a particular sport, activity, or subject very much and knows a lot about it
  6. al dente (from Italian) = not too soft, still with a perfect bite
  7. schadenfreude (from German) = a feeling of pleasure at the bad things which happen to other people
  8. tsunami (from Japanese) = an extremely large wave often cause by an earthquake

b)

  1. faux pas /,fəʊ 'pa:/
  2. déjà vu /,deɪʒa: 'vu:/
  3. cliché /'kli:ʃeɪ/
  4. debacle /dɪ 'ba:kl/
  5. aficionado /ə, fɪʃə'na:dəʊ/
  6. al dente /,æl 'denteɪ/
  7. schadenfreude /'ʃa:dnfrɔdə/
  8. tsunami /tsu: 'na:mi/