A; I heard you received a prize for you book.
B: yes, I did. I won a prize for “best local history book” at the annual book award.
A: congratulations! You must be very proud of your achievement.
B: actually, I was happy just to get the book published. Winning the prize was an added bonus.
A: what was the prize?
B: I won $200 to spend on any books of my choice.
A: that’s a great prize for a person who writes books! Have you every won a prize before?
B: I shared a prize with some friends last week. We won a bottle of whisky at a pub quiz.
A; I won $10 in the lottery1 last month. Perhaps next time, I’ll be luckier and win the jackpot!
Intermediate2
A: have you bought a present for jim’s birthday yet?
B: no, I haven’t. I can’t think of anything to get him.
A: I’m having the same problem. I want to get something really special. Jim always seem to know exactly what to get people as gift.
B: I know. He bought me that beautiful sweater for my birthday. It was exactly what I wanted. And it fit me perfectly3!
A: he bought me an iron.
B: that doesn’t sound like a great present.
A: maybe not, but my iron was getting old. In fact, it stopped working the week after jim bought me the new one. It’s as if he knew that my old iron would soon stop working!
B: let’s think. He loves football, doesn’t he? I saw signed photographs of famous footballers in a shop near hear. Let’s go and have a look. You know which team he supports, don’t you?
A: yes, I do. Let’s go. We should be able to find something suitable. We should get him something old…something historic4.
B: it’ll be an expensive present, but we can share the cost.
A: I’ll be happy to get him something special, even if it coasts a little extra.
B: yes. He always get us special gift. We should repay5 his kindness.
words
gift present annual prize award bonus recipient prize winner ceremony party
