english

1. ©Oxford University Press English File third edition – Elementary
Files 1&2
Hollywood, Los Angeles
California is a state on the west coast of the United States. It is a very big state – from Mexico in the
south up to Oregon in the north. There are three big cities in California: San Francisco in the north,
San Diego in the south and between these two, Los Angeles – or LA.
Los Angeles is a very busy city. Nearly 4 million people live there. There are also lots of different
districts in the city – places like Santa Monica on the coast and Pasadena in the east. Some of these
districts are very rich. This is Beverly Hills. It is a famous area in the north of the city. This street is
Rodeo Drive. It has a lot of expensive shops.
LA, especially the Hollywood area, is the home of the movies. One of the reasons for this is the good
weather. You need good weather to make movies. Hollywood is also the home of the movie studios.
This is the headquarters of Sony Pictures. Sony make the Spiderman and the Men in Black movies.
They do not make many movies in Hollywood today, because it is too expensive. In fact, they make
movies in Canada, in England, in Eastern Europe and sometimes in Australia and New Zealand.
But the movie industry employs lots of people in Los Angeles – about two hundred and fifty
thousand in total. Many actors, writers and directors live in the city and the studios also employ a lot
of agents and lawyers too.
Hollywood does not make many movies any more, but it makes a lot of television programmes. In
fact, programmes like CSI and Glee – which are set in Las Vegas and Ohio – are actually made in
Hollywood.

2. ©Oxford University Press English File third edition – Elementary
Files 3&4
A British policeman
There are nearly one hundred and seventy thousand police officers in the United Kingdom. They
work for fifty-two separate police forces. These forces can be very big like the Metropolitan Police
Force in London. There are over thirty-one thousand police officers in London.
Most British police forces are more than a hundred and fifty years old. People sometimes call British
policemen ‘Bobbies’ after Sir Robert Peel, the man who started the Metropolitan police. Bobbie is
short for Robert.
Markus Gerber is a police officer at St. Aldates Police station in Oxford. He works for Thames Valley
Police. It is a small police force. It only has seven and a half thousand police officers.
Markus usually works during the day but sometimes he works at night. He often works at the
weekend too. On a day shift he starts work at 8 o’clock in the morning. He works until 6 o’clock in
the evening. On a night shift he starts at 8 o’clock in the evening and works until 4 o’clock in the
morning. He usually works 40 hours a week.
Like all British police officers, Markus wears a special uniform. In the summer he wears black boots,
black trousers, a black t-shirt, a safety vest and a yellow jacket. In the winter he wears the same
clothes, but he has a warmer jacket.
Markus doesn’t have a gun. Police officers in Britain don’t carry guns. But Markus has a lot of other
equipment. He wears a radio so he can always be in contact with his command centre. He also
carries a baton, a gas spray and a pair of handcuffs.
Every day Markus leaves the police station and goes ‘on patrol’. He usually patrols on foot but
sometimes he needs a car.
Being a police officer is difficult but there’s a lot of variety. Markus talks to lots of different people
every day and he responds to many different emergencies. He keeps Oxford safe.

3. ©Oxford University Press English File third edition – Elementary
Files 5&6
Williamsburg, New York
New York is the number one city to visit in the United States. When we think of New York, we think
of places like the Empire State Building, Central Park, and Times Square. In fact, many visitors to New
York spend all their time in Manhattan. But New York is actually five different boroughs and
Manhattan is just one of them. The other boroughs are Queens, Staten Island, the Bronx, and
Brooklyn.
Welcome to Williamsburg, my neighbourhood in New York. It is not on Manhattan island, but it is
across the East River in Brooklyn. Williamsburg is a great place to live. It is home to many different
communities from all over the world. It is a very fashionable part of New York. A lot of artists and
musicians now live in the neighbourhood, and because it is so fashionable and people like living
here, houses and apartments are now very expensive.
The main street in Williamsburg is Bedford Avenue. On Bedford Avenue, there are lots of fashionable
shops and restaurants. Williamsburg is now also very popular with tourists. And many of these
visitors come to Bedford Avenue to visit the shops, restaurants, and street stores. You can see other
interesting things on Bedford Avenue. These street artists are painting a mural on the wall.
But the number one store to visit in Williamsburg is not on Bedford Avenue. Beacon’s Closet is a
store full of second-hand clothes. People bring in their old clothes for the store to sell. Young people
buy these ‘vintage’ clothes, because they are very fashionable.
Williamsburg is now so popular that new buildings are going up all the time. This building is going to
be a new hotel, and these are new apartments. But there is a problem. Apartments in Williamsburg
are now so expensive that many of my neighbours are moving back across the East River to
Manhattan.

4. ©Oxford University Press English File third edition – Elementary
Files 7&8
Edinburgh Castle
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland. It is a very beautiful, old city. About four hundred thousand
people live in the city, and six million people visit every year. Every year in August there is a festival
in the city with a lot of theatre, music, dance, and comedy.
The original city was built on the Royal Mile. This is a street in Edinburgh’s Old Town. The Royal Mile
is about one point six kilometres long. It starts at Holyrood Palace and finishes at Edinburgh Castle. It
is called the Royal Mile because it connects two royal homes.
The castle is nearly a thousand years old. It stands on an enormous piece of volcanic rock and it
looks down on the rest of the city. King David the first of Scotland was the first king who built on the
rock in about eleven thirty. He built this chapel and named it Queen Mary’s Chapel after his mother.
For the next three hundred years the castle was at the centre of wars between England and
Scotland.
In the fifteenth century the castle became the home of the king of Scotland; each new king added to
the castle. In fifteen eleven, James the fourth built the Great Hall. In the sixteenth century James the
sixth added extra defences to the castle entrance.
In the eighteenth century Scotland officially became part of the United Kingdom. The last battle at
the castle was in seventeen forty-five, when Prince Charles Edward Stuart, who was nicknamed
Bonnie Prince Charlie, tried to capture the castle. In the early nineteenth century, the castle was a
prison, but it is now a tourist attraction.
About one and a quarter million people visit the castle every year. They come to see the buildings
and to hear the stories. They also come to see and hear the one o’clock gun – soldiers fire this every
day at exactly one o’clock. But they really come for the views of the city of Edinburgh.

5. ©Oxford University Press English File third edition – Elementary
Files 9&10
The history of the sandwich
Sandwich – an item of food consisting of two pieces of bread with a filling between them, eaten as a
light meal.
The word sandwich probably comes from John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich. He was an
Englishman who lived in the 18th Century. He loved playing cards and he didn’t want to stop playing
to eat. With a sandwich, he could play and eat at the same time.
Today many other languages – including French and Spanish – use the word ‘sandwich’.
But the sandwich did not become popular because of John Montagu. In fact, the sandwich became
popular in the nineteenth century when people began to work longer hours and needed something
practical to take to work.
Today the sandwich is the most popular snack in the world. You can put anything in a sandwich.
British people eat the most sandwiches in the world; every year we buy approximately two billion
sandwiches. And of course we also make sandwiches at home.
This is a Mortons shop in Oxford. There are four Mortons shops in Oxford. Here you can buy drinks,
snacks, crisps and sandwiches. A lot of sandwiches. Most people in the UK buy sandwiches at
lunchtime, especially when they’re at work. Sandwiches are quicker and easier to eat than a full
meal, but they can still be healthy and filling. Mortons are always thinking of ways to make their
sandwiches tastier and more interesting. They have a lot of classic sandwiches, like cheese salad,
chicken, and bacon lettuce and tomato, known as a ‘BLT’. But they have some more unusual
sandwiches, like falafel and humous.
'How many sandwiches do you sell a day?'
'It depends which day of the week it is, what time of year it is, I would say approximately one
thousand sandwiches a day.'
'How much do people spend on their lunch?'
'I guess, on average, it would be between four and five pounds.'
'Which sandwiches are the most popular?'
'Chicken sandwiches are in general the most popular. Also, mozzarella which we combine with our
own basil mayonnaise.'
'What’s your favourite sandwich?'
'There’s a sandwich that has probably, has probably had the most influence in my life which is the
goat’s cheese sandwich because I met my, a customer used to come into our shop and order, I only
knew her as large black coffee and goats cheese sandwich. And this customer, then, has actually
transformed into being my wife.'
The sandwich has changed a lot since John Montagu’s time, but it’s still as popular as ever.

6. ©Oxford University Press English File third edition – Elementary
Files 11&12
The Electric Cinema
There are more than eight hundred cinemas in the UK today. Many people enjoy watching new and
old films on the ‘big screen’. Cinemas became popular in the UK in the early 1900s and some of them
are still working today.
This is the Electric Cinema on the famous Portobello Road in London. There has been a cinema here
since 1910. Visitors came from all over London to see the latest films at the Electric Cinema. But in
the 1920s and 1930s there was more competition for the cinema as bigger cinemas opened in
London.
However, customers still came to the Electric Cinema, and still paid to see Hollywood’s newest films.
After the second world war, cinemas became less popular as more people bought televisions. Even
big Hollywood films were less popular. In the 1960s the Electric Cinema decided to make changes; it
began to show independent and foreign-language films. However, this change did not help. In the
1970s and 1980s very few people went to the cinema and in 1993 the Electric Cinema closed.
In the late 1990s, the cinema re-opened. And the new owners continued to make changes. The
cinema now has comfortable leather seats. There are also two-seater sofas at the back of the
cinema, and there’s a café and a restaurant.
Since 2001, the cinema has started to show different types of films – old, classic films, foreign-
language films and the latest Hollywood films. So now the Electric Cinema, already 100 years old, will
continue to entertain people in the 21st century.