1The roast dinner and fish and chips
2Pies, breakfast and desserts
3Watch again: the details (1)
4Watch again: the details (2)
5True or false?
True or false?
Did you know? Shepherd's pie is made with lamb (a shepherd looks after sheep!). Made with beef, it's called cottage pie. And in Britain, chips are French fries: potato chips are called crisps.
6Watch again and complete
Drag each word into the right gap (or click a word, then a gap). Click a gap to take the word out.
You can find all kinds of international foods in the UK today, but most still serve traditional British dishes. Some people cook them at home, too. Here are the top five favourites, according to a by UK Taste. — One: roast dinner. Roast dinner is the classic British Sunday . The most popular meat is roast , and this is usually served with Yorkshire pudding, a mixture of flour, milk and eggs. You usually eat roast dinner with roast or potatoes, boiled vegetables and : juices from the meat made into a sauce. — Two: fish and chips. This is the original British food. It's fresh fish in batter, a mixture of flour and milk, with chips made from thick-cut potatoes. You usually put salt and on the chips. Some people are fans of mushy , too, which is a kind of mash made from dried peas. — Three: meat pies. A traditional British pie has on the top and sometimes on the bottom, too. To make steak and kidney pie, for example, you cut beef and kidney into pieces and cook them in gravy. Then you cover this with pastry and bake it in the . Other popular pies have mashed potato on the top of pastry. These include shepherd's pie, made with minced , and fish pie, made with different types of fish in a creamy sauce. — Four: cooked breakfast. The traditional full English breakfast is , eggs, sausages, tomatoes, baked beans and fried bread. It's quite , so people don't often eat it at home, except maybe at the weekend. It's popular in some cafés, for example on or close to places where people work manual jobs. — Five: dessert. British people love foods, too. Of course, a big favourite is apple pie and . The pie is made from sweet pastry filled with apples and . And the custard is a sweet sauce made from eggs, milk and sugar that is served . Another popular dessert is sticky toffee pudding, which is a soft cake made with dried fruit called and covered in a sweet sauce, often eaten with custard or ice . Trifle is served on special . It's made of fruit such as strawberries and raspberries and pieces of sponge cake covered in custard and cream.
7Grammar: the passive (it is served, they are made)
“Roast beef is usually served with Yorkshire pudding.” When the action is more important than who does it, we use the passive: BE + past participle.
- singular: Custard is served warm.
- plural: Chips are made from thick-cut potatoes.
- with an adverb: It is often eaten with ice cream.
- Irregular participles: eat → eaten, make → made, fry → fried, bake → baked.
- To say what is used: made from (transformed: mash made from dried peas), made with (one main ingredient: a pie made with lamb), made of (the parts you can see: trifle is made of fruit, cake and cream).
Choose the right form.
8Pronunciation: the -ed ending
Three ways to say -ed. Click ▶ to listen:
- /ɪd/ after t or d (an extra syllable):
- /t/ after a voiceless sound (p, k, f, s, sh, ch):
- /d/ everywhere else:
Listen to the verbs in the news, then to a few more. Say them out loud.
How do you say the -ed?
9The words of the news
All the useful words of the news, sorted by theme, with their French translation and a ▶ button to hear them. Hide one language and test yourself!
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