Compelling Conversations: for Advanced students

BEING HOME

“The strength of the nation derives from the integrity of the home.”

—Confucius (551-479 B.C.E.), great Chinese philosopher

Sharing Experiences

Everybody lives somewhere. Share the story of your home with a conversation partner by responding to these questions. Feel free to add other questions.

1. Do you live in a house or an apartment?

2. How long have you lived there?

3. Why did you choose your current home? What attracted you?

4. Did you have a checklist when looking for a home? What was on it?

5. What legal documents did you have to sign before moving in? Lease? Mortgage? Other? Did you have to pay any fees?

6. What do you like about it? How long did it take you to make a decision?

7. What do you dislike about it? What, if anything, annoys you?

8. Which is your favorite room? Why? What does it look like?

9. Which room is the heart of your current home? Kitchen? TV room?

10. What changes have you made to this residence? Paint? Repairs?

11. What further changes would you like to make?

12. What paintings, posters, or other artwork do you have?

13. Do you have any pets? What’s their favorite spot?

14. What, if any plants or flowers, do you have? Where are they?

15. How did you find your current home? Word of mouth? Ad?

Vocabulary

Which words do you already know? Working with your conversation partner, use each of the vocabulary words in a sentence.

artwork | neighborhood | neighbors | prefer | residence

current | interior | homesick | suburb | appliances

Sayings

What do these proverbs and sayings mean? Discuss them with your conversation partner or a friend. Identify your favorites.

Home is where the heart is.

You can’t go home again.

Home is where we grumble the most and are treated the best.

Birds return to old nests. —Japanese

A house is not a home.

Mi casa es su casa. —Spanish

The Conversation Continues

1. When you were a child, did you live in a house or an apartment?

2. How long did you live in one residence?

3. What did you like about it? What did you dislike?

4. With whom did you live as a child?

5. Which was your favorite room? Why?

6. Which room was the heart of your childhood home?

7. Have you ever felt homesick? What did you miss the most?

8. What is your favorite childhood memory at home?

9. Is your old neighborhood the same today as it was when you were a child?

10. Would you like to live there now? Why or why not?

11. Would you rather live in an apartment or a house? Why?

12. Would you rather live in a city, a suburb, a small town, or the country? Why?

13. Can you suggest some places to find interior design ideas?

14. What would your dream residence be like? Can you describe it in detail?

15. What modern appliances would your dream house have?

16. What makes a house or an apartment a home?

Discussing Quotations

Read and review these quotations with your conversation partner, in a small group or on your own. Consider what each one means. Then select a quote you like and one you dislike.

1. “He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.”

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), German playwright

2. “Anger in a home is like rottenness in a fruit.”

—Talmud

3. “A man’s house is his castle.”

—Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634), English lord

4. Home: “The place where when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”

—Robert Frost (1875-1963), American poet

5. “Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.”

—John Howard Payne (1791-1852), American lyricist

6. “A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life: he is to furnish, watch, show it, and keep it in repair, the rest of his days.”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American writer

7. “A man travels the world over in search of what he needs, and returns home to find it.”

—George Moore (1852-1933), Irish playwright

8. “No matter under what circumstances you leave it, home does not cease to be home. No matter how you lived there – well or poorly.”

—Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996), Russian-American Nobel winner

9. “Home is the girl’s prison and the woman’s workhouse.”

—George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish playwright and Nobel winner

10. “A woman should be home with the children, building that home and making sure there’s a secure family atmosphere.”

—Mel Gibson (1956-), film director, actor

11. “The best way to keep children at home is make the home atmosphere pleasant, and let the air out of the tires.”

—Dorothy Parker (1893-1967), American writer

12. “Modern apartments are built on the principle that half as much room should cost twice as much money.”

—Evan Esar (1899-1995), American humorist

13. “Peace and rest at length have come, All the day’s long toil is past, And each heart is whispering, Home, Home at last!”

—Thomas Hood (1798-1845), English poet

On Your Own

Select five adjectives (spacious, cozy) for your dream home. Walk in your neighborhood, and “shop” for a home or apartment building you would like to live in. Describe the building and the neighborhood to your group or conversation partner, or write it down for yourself.