Английский оригинал текста:
1 Read the text once and choose the most appropriate title for it.
- A world without money
- The history of coins
- The past and present of money
Have you ever wondered 1 what the world was like before cash, cheques and credit cards? Well, 2) before invention of money, people bought and sold goods through a system known as bartering. This meant that they 3) exchanged goods. For example, if someone wanted some tomatoes and had a basket of fruit to offer, he swapped it with someone else who had tomatoes 4) and wanted to get some fruit. An interesting fact is that the word salary’ has its origins in the Latin word for 'salt', which is what the 5) ancient Romans used as a means of payment.
One of the first forms of money was actually a type of seashell, the cowry. People in southeast Asia and parts of Africa used cowries from 1500 BC to 200 AD. Money, as we know it today, has a very 6) long history. There are several opinions about who the inventors of coins were. Many experts claim that the Lydians, 7) people who lived in the part of the world that is now Turkey, invented the first coins nearly 3000 years ago. Paper money dates back to ancient China. A shortage of copper made the Chinese start producing money made from paper. The first recorded use of paper money goes back around 1300 years ago.
Today, money is more than paper or metal currency. People have been using credit cards instead of money since the early 1900s. Consumers use cheques to pay for what they have bought, even in supermarkets. Someone can use the Internet to pay their household bills. Indeed, today a person can spend vast amounts of money, without even laying their hands on a single 8) coin or banknote!
- A world without money
- The history of coins
- The past and present of money
Have you ever wondered 1 what the world was like before cash, cheques and credit cards? Well, 2) before invention of money, people bought and sold goods through a system known as bartering. This meant that they 3) exchanged goods. For example, if someone wanted some tomatoes and had a basket of fruit to offer, he swapped it with someone else who had tomatoes 4) and wanted to get some fruit. An interesting fact is that the word salary’ has its origins in the Latin word for 'salt', which is what the 5) ancient Romans used as a means of payment.
One of the first forms of money was actually a type of seashell, the cowry. People in southeast Asia and parts of Africa used cowries from 1500 BC to 200 AD. Money, as we know it today, has a very 6) long history. There are several opinions about who the inventors of coins were. Many experts claim that the Lydians, 7) people who lived in the part of the world that is now Turkey, invented the first coins nearly 3000 years ago. Paper money dates back to ancient China. A shortage of copper made the Chinese start producing money made from paper. The first recorded use of paper money goes back around 1300 years ago.
Today, money is more than paper or metal currency. People have been using credit cards instead of money since the early 1900s. Consumers use cheques to pay for what they have bought, even in supermarkets. Someone can use the Internet to pay their household bills. Indeed, today a person can spend vast amounts of money, without even laying their hands on a single 8) coin or banknote!
