8.2 Vocabulary. Dependent Prepositions.

‘I can’t wait to become fluent in English. I’m a little bit jealous of Ahmet because he never seems to worry about talking in front of the others. He’s so popular with the girls of the group, who seem very interested in him. Whenever I speak to them they make fun of me and boast about how good they are at English. Personally I don’t think that their fluency differs from mine. In fact, I think that Maria’s level is similar to mine.’

‘Let’s not spend all day arguing about / over this. I’m tired of all the competitiveness between you lot. Why can’t you just be content with what you’ve got. You’re never going to be satisfied with the level of English that you have. We are not capable of improving much in ten days. What does it matter if you’re good at, bad at, excellent at, or completely hopeless at speaking another language. In a few years we could all be married to different people, be responsible for big families, and be completely bored with our lives. Life is too short to waste. C’mon! Let’s live it up and enjoy ourselves!’

‘What do you think of Ali, this new student from the The Free People’s Republic of Zangonia?’

‘He seems OK. Good and bad really. Gentlemen of the The Free People’s Republic of Zangonia have some very positive characteristics. They are very generous to friends and helpful to people who want something. At least, he’s been very nice to us since we met him. He seems quite fond of  Sophie and Maria too.’

‘Yes, he seems keen on them. Maybe he wants to get married to both of them! Men from the The Free People’s Republic of Zangonia are not as rude to people as Londoners are. People here are very suspicious of foreigners. Especially our teacher and his crazy friends. Last night I was completely ashamed of their behaviour and frightened of / about how we are all going to end up. We should be really angry with them.’

‘Yeah, but it’s fun isn’t it?’