Dorota Giżyńska Barbara Bednarczyk

Can You Hear Me?

Phones are everywhere, in the shop, in the tram, in the park and on the beach. It’s also possible that you’re reading this text on your mobile phonemobile phonemobile phone. Modern phones do not look at all like the first phones, but they are still used for the same purposepurposepurpose: to communicatecommunicatecommunicate with people.

Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. Let’s go deeper into the history of his inventioninventioninvention. Bell was born in 1847 in Scotland. His mother was deafdeafdeaf. Bell’s father developeddeveloped [develop]developed a system to teach deaf children to communicate. Bell helped his father in his work and began inventing things on his own. Then, he moved to America. In 1872 he opened a school in Boston to teach deaf kids how to speak.

The first telephone call took placetook place [take place]took place in 1876 between Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant Thomas Watson. They were about 3 km away from each other. The first words spoken were “Mr Watson, come here. I want to see you.”

Alexander Graham Bell created his own company in 1877, the Bell Telephone Company. After that telephones started to appearappear (verb)appear in big US cities. Early phones needed an operatoroperatoroperator. In 1920, London and the United States were connectedconnected [connect]connected by the first phone service.

The biggest problem for communicationcommunicationcommunication was wireswires [wire]wires. All phones were landline phoneslandline phones [landline phone]landline phones. They were connected by wires or lines. Many companies worked to solve this problem. In 1973 the phone company Motorola demonstrateddemonstrated [demonstrate]demonstrated the first cell phonecell phone [AmE]cell phone. It was known as the “brickbrickbrick” because it was big and heavy. It had no wires but only twenty minutes of battery lifebattery lifebattery life. It was also very expensive.

Now, mobile phones are very different. You can talk, send textssend textssend texts and take photos, too. Most people in the world have smartphones. They runrun applicationsrun different applicationsrun applicationsapplications. Apps let people play games, shop, read, get maps and directionsdirections [direction]directions, set appointmentsappointments [appointment]appointments, and do many other tasks.

Can you imagine your life without a phone?

1 Źródło: Dorota Giżyńska Barbara Bednarczyk, licencja: CC BY-SA 3.0.