Learn English Through Stories: A2 Reading Exercise

In this lesson, you're going to build  your vocabulary with useful phrases and  

expressions to help you communicate  your ideas at a more advanced level.

And we're going to do this in a very fun and  engaging way by reading a story in English.

Welcome back to JForrest English, I'm Jennifer.

Now let's get started.

First, I'll read the headline Fred  the Pig caught after mischief Rampage.

So in this picture, it looks like this is Fred  the Pig and he was caught after Mischief Rampage.

First, I want you to notice my pronunciation here.

Mischief.

Jeff.

Jeff.

Miss Jeff, so here you don't hear this  E sound because we do have a word that  

you may be familiar with which is chief, chief.

Same spelling at this end, but  this here is a long E sound.

Eve chief.

But here you don't hear that long E and it's just  like if you were saying if mischief, mischief.

So notice that pronunciation  And what exactly is mischief?

Mischief essentially means bad behavior.

Bad behavior.

We use this a lot with children.

Of course the children got into  mischief while I was working.

Now let's talk about rampage.

Rampage.

What is this?

This is OK.

This is when you go through an area and you do  that making a lot of noise and causing damage.

So this pig went through an area and as  he was going around he was either making  

noise or causing damage or doing  both of those at the same time.

That would describe a rampage, A mischief rampage.

Now notice the sentence structure.

Fred the pig caught after mischief rampage.

Now what do you notice about  this part of the sentence?

Is this an active sentence or a passive sentence?

It might be difficult for you to identify this  because in headlines of newspaper articles  

or short stories they often omit certain  words that are only there grammatically.

So in this case, to identify the passive  you would normally see the verb to be,  

because that's the correct grammatical structure.

Now correct grammar would be Fred the  pig was caught after mischief rampage.

But native speakers understand  the sentence structure without the  

auxiliary verb And headlines and short story  titles always try to be as short as possible.

And they do that by omitting these  words that are there for grammar  

but not essential to understand the  meaning but the sentence structure.

If you were writing this in any other context,  

you would need was caught the  past simple of the verb to be.

Now that's our passive sentence.

If you wanted to turn this into an  active sentence, what could you say?

Think about that.

Fred the pig was caught.

Well, we don't know who caught Fred the pig,  

but we could just say people, because I  don't know who the subject is, people.

Or maybe officials caught Fred the pig.

Now this is our active sentence  because the subject is doing the  

action where in this case Fred  the pig is receiving the action.

So this is our active sentence  and this is our passive sentence.

I wrote that there for you.

And don't worry about writing all  these notes down, because I summarize  

everything in a free lesson PDF so you  can look in the description for the link.

Now let's continue and learn about Fred's  mischief rampage after numerous complaints.

Numerous is another way of saying, many after  numerous complaints, after many complaints.

And a complaint is when  you see something negative.

So if you went to a restaurant  and you didn't like the food,  

and then you told the the server,  the waiter, this isn't very good.

You are making a complaint, making a complaint.

So that's the verb that goes  with the noun complaint.

I made a complaint about the food.

Now complain is the verb  form and this all complaint.

That's a noun.

As a noun.

Notice it has an article in our sentence  here, after numerous complaints.

There's no article because you don't  use an article when it's a plural noun.

But if you were to use the verb  form, I complained about the food.

So when you dislike something or you have  a negative experience and you make that  

known to someone, you are making a  complaint or you are complaining.

The noun form or the verb form.

After numerous complaints of mischief, we  know what this means and the pronunciation.

Remember, mischief is simply bad behavior.

Mischief GIF Mischief in the  city of Aurora, a £400 LB.

This is the short form to  identify pound a £400 Culprit.

Culprit Well, what or who is a culprit?

Well, Fred the pig is the culprit and  a culprit is someone, or in this case,  

something a pig who has done something wrong.

A £400 culprit.

Fred the Pig has finally been caught  loitering outside a shopping center.

Now, in this case, it is still the passive voice  

because the culprit who is Fred the pig  is receiving the action, and they're not.

The story isn't focusing  on who caught Fred the pig,  

which is why we don't even  know who caught Fred the Pig.

And that's why I had to just  write people or officials,  

because that's not the purpose of the story.

The purpose of the story is learning  about how Fred the Pig was caught.

A £400 culprit has finally been caught  loitering outside a shopping center.

Let's talk about this verb to loiter.

Loiter is the verb.

Notice that pronunciation Oy,  oy loy, loiter, loiter, loiter.

Now when you loiter, you stay in a public place.

This could be a mall, a restaurant, a school  without an obvious reason to be there.

Well, what's the obvious reason to be at a mall?

To purchase something.

But oftentimes younger people,  and maybe older people as well,  

will go to the mall as a form of an activity.

But they have no intention of buying something.

They don't even have any money, but they're  in the mall and they're just staying there.

So they're taking up space.

Maybe they're making noise,  disturbing people and they're  

not actually customers because  they are not buying anything.

So in that case, those people are loitering.

And a lot of public places like malls, schools,  will have a sign that says no loitering, which is  

telling you unless you're here to buy something,  I don't want you here and you shouldn't be here.

Which makes sense because you shouldn't go to  a location unless you plan to buy something,  

right from the mall's perspective.

Personally, I also go to the mall sometimes with  friends without the intent of buying something.

So in that case, I am loitering.

But this pig, Fred the Pig, has finally been  caught loitering outside a shopping center.

So this looks like perhaps  it's the shopping center.

And obviously he has no reason  to be there, so he's loitering.

Fred the Pig was loitering.

All right, let's continue.

Officials say Fred, who  dodged them for several days.

Let's talk about the verb dodge.

This is a great verb to have in your vocabulary.

When you dodge dodge, odd.

When you dodge something or someone, you  avoid, you avoid that something, I'll add.

Or someone, because it's  very common to dodge someone.

And why do you avoid that something or someone?

Usually because if you get that something or  that someone, it will be unpleasant in some way.

So Fred the pig dodged them.

So in this case, it's officials, the  officials who were trying to catch him.

Fred the pig dodged.

Officials avoided officials.

Why?

Because if the officials caught him,  he would be in danger, potentially.

Of course, that's what the pig would think.

Now, this is a very common word  that you can use in your speech.

For example, I've been  dodging my boss's phone calls.

So this is the exact same thing as saying I've  been avoiding avoiding my boss's phone calls.

So my phone rings.

I look at it, it's my boss, and I press  silence or decline, or I just let it ring.

That's how I dodge my boss's phone calls.

Why would I do that?

Because if I talk to my boss, something  unpleasant is going to happen.

Maybe I did a bad job with the report and  I know my boss is mad about the report,  

so if I pick up that call, he's just going to say  Jennifer, why did you do that report like that?

And it's going to be unpleasant for  me, so obviously I want to avoid that.

I want to dodge that.

Officials say Fred, who  dodged them for several days,  

is always hungry and loves his belly scratches.

So this is scratch and then his belly.

I don't know if you have any pets.

Do you have any pets?

So notice, that's how you would ask that.

Do you have any pets?

I'll write this for you.

Do you have any pets?

A very common question to ask and to answer.

You can say I have and then  whatever your pets are.

I have two cats, a dog, a bird  and a £400 pig for example.

Or you can simply say no I don't.

Or you might talk about a pet you had in the past.

I had a dog, but now I don't have any pets.

Technically, you don't even need  to say this because if you said  

I had a dog because this verb is in the past.

I know now you don't, but I'm just showing  you if you wanted to expand on your answer.

So share your answer to this  question in the comments below.

Do you have any pets?

And this is true for me.

I have two cats.

I have two cats.

What about you?

What about you?

Share that in the comments below.

Are you enjoying this lesson?

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Now let's continue with our lesson.

It took about 8 people and  five hours to capture him.

Capture is another way of  saying catch, capture, catch.

And you can use capture specifically with animals.

They now hope to find his  forever home, his forever home.

So in this case, forever is being used as  an adjective to describe the type of home.

And you see this a lot now when animal shelters  are trying to to find homes for their animals.

They might have these really adorable pictures of  a cat or a puppy, or a pig, apparently, and say  

Fred is looking for his forever home, which means  that they want someone to adopt Fred permanently.

Notice how adopt is used with animals.

You're probably familiar with  the verb adopt for children.

You can adopt A child if you're unable to  

have children of your own or  simply because you want to.

You can adopt A child, but  you can also adopt A pet.

And obviously when you adopt A  child is a permanent situation.

So that's why they're using this verb as  well, because they want you to know that  

when you take this dog home with  you, that's a permanent situation.

That dog now has his forever home.

Let's continue.

City officials first became aware  of Fred on September 24th when they  

received a call about a pig that  was tearing up a person's yard.

All right, let's talk about  the phrasal verb to tear up.

In this context, tear up means cause damage to  because they're talking about a person's yard.

A yard is the area in front of  one's house or behind one's house,  

where there's grass, trees, flowers.

That's your yard.

You can have your front yard or your  backyard, or you can simply say yard.

So yard, grass, flowers, trees, bushes,  

and then if he was tearing it  up, maybe he was digging a hole.

He was eating the flower so he was  causing damage to that person's yard.

Now tear up can also be  used with a piece of paper.

Right now I'm tearing up this piece of paper.

I'm taking a whole piece of paper  and it's going into smaller pieces,  

so that's to tear up in the  sense of a piece of paper.

Now look at this sentence  and notice my pronunciation.

First notice is the exact same spelling as we just  

saw here for tear up a person's  yard or tear up a piece of paper.

But listen to the pronunciation.

I teared up ear so I wrote it  out phonetically for you ear.

So that long E sound, I tear it up.

When I watch the sad movie I tear it up.

Oh so when you tear up you get tears in your eyes.

I tear it up when I watch the sad movie.

I always tear up when I watch sad movies.

You don't want to watch a sad movie  with me because I always tear up.

OK, so notice that same exact same phrasal verb,  

but different pronunciation  and different meanings.

But the context will make it obvious.

It's not possible that tears were  produced in this person's yard,  

so it doesn't make sense  that this would be tear up.

So it's always the context  that will make it obvious.

So a pig that was tearing up, causing damage  to a person's yard, the area in front of their  

house or behind their house with grass,  trees, flowers, bushes, shrubs, a fence.

But when animal officers arrived on the  scene, they were not able to find him.

More calls came in the next day.

Notice you need the for next day, the next day.

Sometimes I see students  forget the and they just say.

Next day more calls came in the next  day, this time about a pig in traffic.

So traffic of course, with all  the cars on the road in traffic.

Then another call about a pig that  was ruining someone's landscaping.

Landscaping is what you do to  a yard to make it beautiful.

So landscaping is when you add flowers,  a garden, trees in specific areas,  

some decorative rocks and other  decor to make your yard beautiful.

That is called landscaping.

Now this pig, Fred the pig.

Oh, that Fred the pig.

He was ruining to ruin.

Ruin is also when you cause damage to.

But if you describe something as ruined,  

it means that the damage was permanent and  you can't save it, so it's no longer useful.

So permanent damage to something.

So tear up to me sounds less severe.

The amount of damage is about here,  but ruin the amount of damage is here.

So to cause permanent damage to  something, I'll write that for you.

Let's continue.

He was then spotted again.

When you spot something or someone,  it means you identify them.

You identify them by seeing that  person or that something visibly.

So let's say you're at a conference  and there are many, many people,  

but then all of a sudden you spot your colleague.

Oh, I spotted Joan.

My colleague Joan.

I spotted Joan.

So you were able to?

Identify Joan in this large  area of many other people.

Here's another example with spot.

Can you spot the mistake in this report?

So again, can you identify the mistake?

Can you see it?

Can you notice it?

But the important part is, and  I wrote it here for it for you.

It's because you're trying to.

So I was trying to identify Joan in the crowd.

I was trying to spot Joan.

And you're reading a report carefully because  you're trying to identify, to spot the mistake.

So you're trying to do this.

It's not just things you see  because they're around you.

You have to be trying to identify it to use Spot.

He was then spotted again three  days later on September 27th.

So this makes sense because  they're trying to see Notice,  

identify Fred the Pig in the early morning hours.

This time Fred was in a position where  he could be captured, captured again.

Remember, we can use caught, which this  article has used quite a lot as well,  

where he could be captured,  caught, Miss Allen said.

Still, it was no easy task.

Notice the sentence structure here,  because to make this negative,  

generally we don't just add no  before something in English.

Generally you need an auxiliary verb.

Still, it wasn't an easy task.

This is the standard way  to make something negative.

Was not was not an easy task.

And then the contraction of was not  which native speakers very commonly used.

Is wasn't.

It wasn't an easy task.

This to say, it was no easy task.

This is an alternative structure that  we use mainly to emphasize the negative.

So I want to make it sound stronger.

If I just say, oh, it wasn't an easy task.

It was no easy task.

It's more forceful to emphasize  that no, it wasn't an easy task.

It was no easy task.

So you could say maybe learning English was  no easy task until I found Jennifer's videos.

Learning English was no easy task  until I found Jennifer's videos.

And now hopefully it is an easy task.

Was no easy task.

Was not an easy thing to do.

So feel free to put this in the comments if you  

agree that now it's easier because  you have my lessons to help you.

And by putting this in the comments, you're  practicing this alternative sentence structure.

So put that in the comments.

Learning English was no easy task  until I found Jennifer's videos.

All right, let's continue.

He was, he just wasn't ready to give  up his holiday of running around the  

city and eating what he wanted to eat, she said.

So of course the he is Fred the Pig,  and this is talking about the fact  

how he didn't want to be captured,  caught, and it was no easy task.

Well, and remember, before the pig, Fred,  the pig was dodging was dodging them,  

which made it no easy task to capture him.

Dodge is a void now.

Why?

Because he wasn't ready to give up his holiday.

This is a useful phrasal  verb to give something up.

In this case, the something is his holiday and  

when you give something up  you simply stop doing it.

You stop doing the something or  you stop using the something.

So a lot of people use this  when they quit smoking.

Oh, I need to give up smoking,  

I need to stop smoking, stop doing  the activity or using the activity.

So in this case, stop his holiday.

He wasn't ready to give up his  holiday of running around the  

city and eating what he wanted to eat, she said.

Of course, he wasn't ready to give it up.

After he was captured, staff  affectionately gave him the name Fred.

So when you do something affectionately,  you do it with love, love, friendliness,  

oh, admiration and affectionately.

This is an adverb and it modifies the verb Gave  him the name because at the beginning the story  

sounded like, oh, this pig is causing damage,  this pig is ruining yards, this pig is loitering.

So these negative things about the pig.

But the staff feel affection towards the pig,  

so they affectionately gave him the name Fred to  show that they're not mad at the pig, they are.

They feel friendliness or love towards the pig.

So the staff affectionately gave  him the name Fred and he has been  

staying at the Aurora Animal Shelter ever since.

So because this isn't in the  present perfect continuous vertens,  

I know the pig is still there now.

The pig, Fred, the pig is still at the  Aurora Animal Shelter now, Miss Allen said.

He is an unusual addition to  the shelter animal shelter.

This is an area where they they care for  abandoned pets or pets without homes.

They call that a shelter to the shelter,  which more commonly houses cats and dogs.

Of course, they don't get many  pigs at animal shelters in cities.

Of course, staff are not sure how he  ended up on the streets of Aurora.

When you end up to use the phrasal verb,  

it talks about your your final  state or your final decision.

So he's on the streets of Aurora, but they have  no idea how that became his final location.

How did he get there?

How did he end up there?

So you can use that.

This is a very common phrasal verb.

For example, I might say I ended  ended up staying home last night.

This implies that my final decision or action  was to stay home, but because I used ended up.

It implies that I was considering other  options, but I ended up staying home.

So this was out of all the  option options I was considering.

This is my final option.

I ended up staying home last night.

I ended up adopting a pig named Fred,  which I don't think I'll end up doing,  

but I guess it's a possibility  because I do love animals.

But I don't think I can take  Fred home for his forever.

Home staff are not sure how he  ended up on the streets of Aurora,  

how that became his final position.

They have speculated that he  may have been a backyard pet.

Remember I explained backyard already?

A backyard pet that grew to be a  much bigger size than expected.

You're probably wondering  about the verb speculate.

It has the same meaning as the verb guess.

When you guess an answer, for  example, it means you're not  

100% certain what the correct answer  is, but you're just going to guess.

So when you speculate, you don't know 100% what  the answer is, but you're just you're guessing.

You're using the information that  you have to provide an explanation,  

but you're not 100% certain.

So they're guessing that he was a  backyard pet that grew to be much  

bigger than expected, but they're not 100% sure.

If this is correct, they probably  got him as a little piglet.

So a baby pig is called a piglet.

Baby pig, just like a baby cat is  a kitten, a baby dog is a puppy.

So this is a baby pig is  a piglet, a little piglet,  

and he just continued to grow, Miss Allen said.

Nobody has claimed Fred, so this  means nobody has said Fred is my pig.

If someone said Fred is my pig,  then that person claimed Fred.

But unfortunately nobody has said that  and he seems to like his new home for now.

But staff are hoping to find a farm for him where  he can play and be at ease, at ease, At ease.

You need the preposition at.

This would be another way of  saying be relaxed, relaxed.

If you're at ease it means you're relaxed.

There's no tension and they're  looking for a farm that can be.

Remember the expression we we learned as well?

That can be his forever home.

His forever home.

I don't know about you, but I love animal stories.

I love animals.

I always tear up when I hear about animals.

So let's all say in the comments,  good luck Fred, good luck Fred.

And hopefully Fred will find his forever home.

So put good luck Fred in the comments.

And that was the end of the article.

So what I'll do now is I'll read  the article from start to finish  

and this time you can focus on my pronunciation.

So let's do that now.

Fred the pig caught after mischief rampage.

After numerous complaints of  mischief in the city of Aurora,  

a £400 culprit has finally been caught  loitering outside a shopping center.

Officials say Fred, who  dodged them for several days,  

is always hungry and loves his belly scratches.

It took about 8 people and  five hours to capture him.

They now hope to find his forever home.

City officials first became aware  of Fred on September 24th when they  

received a call about a pig that  was tearing up a person's yard.

But when animal officers arrived on the  scene, they were not able to find him.

More calls came in the next day,  this time about a pig in traffic.

Then another call about a pig that  was ruining someone's landscaping.

He was then spotted again three days later  on September 27th in the early morning hours.

This time Fred was in a position where  he could be captured, Miss Allen said.

Still, it was no easy task.

He just wasn't ready to give up  his holiday of running around the  

city and eating what he wanted to eat, she said.

After he was captured, staff  affectionately gave him the  

name Fred and he has been staying at  the Aurora Animal Shelter ever since.

Miss Allen said he is an unusual addition to the  shelter, which more commonly houses cats and dogs.

Staff are not sure how he ended  up on the streets of Aurora.

They have speculated that he  may have been a backyard pet  

that grew to be a much bigger size than expected.

They probably got him as a little piglet and  he just continued to grow, Miss Allen said.

Nobody has claimed Fred yet and he  seems to like his new home for now,  

but staff are hoping to find a farm for  him where he can play and be at ease.

Did you enjoy learning with this  short story about Fred the Pig?

Would you like me to review more short  stories to help you build your vocabulary?

If you do, then put Yes, Yes, Yes in the comments.

Put Yes, Yes, Yes in the comments so I  know you want more lessons just like this.

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