Let's Learn English! Topic: Imaginary Creatures and Animals! 🐉🦄👻 (Lesson Only)

Well, hello and welcome to this

English lesson about imaginary creatures.

We might also say legendary

creatures or mythical creatures.

There are a lot of different names,

but this should be an interesting lesson.

These are creatures or animals.

Or in English, sometimes we use the

word beings that don't actually exist.

Although for some of them you

might argue that they do exist.

Maybe you believe that some of these do exist.

We'll see.

But anyways, welcome to this

English lesson about imaginary creatures.

I think it will be a lot of fun.

A unicorn.

So a unicorn, for lack of a better description, is

a horse that has a horn similar to a rhinoceros.

A rhinoceros has a horn which is an actual animal.

A unicorn is a horse or a horse like creature.

Sometimes in English we use the

word like attached to a word.

Horse like creature that has a horn

protruding from the center of their forehead.

When something protrudes, protrudes, it sticks out.

And supposed to have some sort of magical abilities.

I'm not a hundred percent percent percent sure what those

are, but I think unicorn tears can cure illnesses.

But yes, a unicorn, basically a horse

horn or a horse like creature.

I mean it looks a lot like a horse, but

it could simply be a distant relative of a horse.

Very common as a stuffed animal for children.

So as I talk about these legendary, mythical, imaginary

creatures, I will mention how some of them are

still around in popular culture, but this would be

common as a stuffed animal for children.

Centaur.

So kind of a strange looking creature.

A centaur is a cross between a horse and a man.

So the body of a centaur is the body of a horse.

And then we're going to learn the word torso.

So the torso is the part of

the human being from basically the belly

button upwards or from your waist upwards.

So it's the torso of a human with the body of a horse.

And then I don't know if they're always archers.

This centaur has a bow and arrow.

I thought that was pretty cool because I

like shooting bow and arrow as well.

But this, I'm not sure if they're always

archers, but you will meet these creatures in

any kind of fantasy novel or movie.

Fantasy movie.

And I should have introduced that, that these are all creatures

you will read about or you'll see in a movie.

And the genre is called fantasy, basically meaning

a world that has been imagined by someone.

This creature doesn't actually exist, but

it's a centaur, a vampire.

So these became popular just in the last 20, 25 years.

I guess vampires have always Been popular.

A vampire is a creature that is only

awake at night, sleeps during the day.

And this is going to sound kind of

strange, but they drink the blood of humans.

That's kind of gross.

And they live for a very, very long time.

And sunlight is not good for them.

The sunlight will injure them or even kill them.

So a vampire, kind of an interesting creature.

The Twilight novels.

The recent Twilight novels from about 15 years ago,

maybe a little, I'm not sure the exact date,

tell the story of vampire vampires, but there's many,

many different movies and TV shows about vampires.

A creature that looks human but is only

awake at night and hunts humans and drinks

their blood in order to live.

They don't eat food or drink regular food.

So again, kind of, kind of strange.

A dragon.

So this is probably one of the most

popular mythical creatures, legendary creature, imaginary creature.

A dragon is a giant, I guess we would probably say.

I'm trying to think what you would say.

It's a giant animal that sometimes can fly.

It doesn't always have to have

wings, but normally it does.

In the Hobbit or the Lord of

the Rings, the dragon likes gold.

So the dragon Smog sleeps on a pile of gold.

And dragons in some cases can breathe fire.

So we also met dragons if you.

If you watched the A Dance with Dragons or if you

watched A Song of Ice and Fire, if you watched.

I'm trying to think of the actual name of the

show for some reason, you know, with John Snow.

Maybe someone in the chat can remind me of the name.

I did prep for this lesson, but now I.

Oh, sorry.

It's a game.

Game of Thrones.

That's the name.

You will meet dragons that breathe fire.

And it's very dangerous, but an effective animal to

have on your side in any kind of battle.

So a dragon.

There you go, Cyclops.

So a Cyclops is a giant human like creature.

Again, I'm using the word like attached to a word.

So similar to a human, but much bigger.

And they only have one eye.

So they have one eye in the middle of their forehead.

Kind of an interesting and bizarre looking creature.

It was kind of hard to find a

picture of a Cyclops that wasn't too scary.

I didn't want this lesson to

be filled with extremely scary pictures.

But this is a Cyclops, a giant animal.

I'm not sure if they all have a horn. I'm not.

I don't think that's part of it.

But with a single eye in the middle of their head.

So, yes, a Cyclops.

I Would not want to meet a cyclops.

They look very, very scary.

And then the phoenix.

So the phoenix is a bird, and the unique ability

of the phoenix is to die, usually in a burst

of flames or in fire, and then to be born

again or to rise up from the ashes.

So the phoenix is often used as a symbol

for persistence, a symbol for someone who is very,

very good at coming back from after falling down.

So I'm trying to think of a better example.

But again, a phoenix is a bird.

It's a bird that at the end of its life,

or as it dies, will burst into flames in some

stories and then will rise up from the ashes.

Ashes are what are left over after a fire.

So the phoenix will rise again

from the ashes and be reborn. Cool.

Yeti or Abominable Snowman?

It's hard to say.

Abominable Snowman.

Now, I have two versions of this.

We have Bigfoot or Sasquatch, and we

have Yeti or the Abominable Snowman.

Yeti, or the Abominable Snowman is a giant

ape like creature that lives somewhere around the

Himalayan mountains or in the Himalayan mountains.

And people have never actually seen one, but people

have seen evidence or they think they've seen one.

So whether Yeti exists or whether the Abominable

Snowman exists is up to you to decide.

But definitely a giant, like, definitely

taller than a human type creature

who lives in the Himalayan mountains.

I don't know if anyone has climbed the

Himalayan mountains, but maybe you've seen footprints in

the snow and you thought maybe it was

from Yeti or the Abominable Snowman.

You want me to say that word again?

Abominable.

Abominable Snowman.

Tricky word to say.

And then, of course, in North America, we have

Bigfoot or Sasquatch, seen usually around the Rocky Mountains.

Again, an imaginary creature.

But maybe if you've gone hiking in the

Rocky Mountains, you've seen evidence, really big footprints,

and this is what Bigfoot would look like.

We would say Bigfoot is a cousin of Yeti.

And we also use the word

Sasquatch to describe this creature.

I think this photo has been debunked.

When something's been debunked, it's

been proven to be false.

Sometimes people think they see something and they take a

photo and they say it's a UFO or Bigfoot.

But then later there's evidence that it's

just a man in an ape suit. So.

But this Bigfoot again, would be a giant ape

like creature that roams, I think, mostly the Rocky

Mountains is where you would possibly run into it.

A hydra.

So a hydra is a creature, I think a creature

that lives in the ocean but that has multiple heads.

And I think the problem with a hydra is

when someone battles a hydra, if they cut off

one of the heads, it grows back.

So a very difficult creature to kill.

But we do use this word sometimes in English to

describe, you know, you could describe a company as well.

They're like a hydra.

Like when one department closes

down, another department opens.

Like they're multi headed.

Sometimes we describe government like this.

Like the government's like a hydra which has

so many departments and so many heads that

when you close one department, another department.

But anyways, a hydra, an animal, a fictional animal.

Imagine an imaginary animal that has multiple heads.

Nessie or the Loch Ness Monster.

So in Scotland, in the Highlands

of Scotland there is a lake.

Loch Ness.

Notice loch and lake sound very similar.

There's a reason for that.

And in Loch Ness there is maybe a monster

and that monster is called the Loch Ness Monster.

I think this is one of the only photos.

I don't know if this photo is copyrighted.

I hope I don't get in trouble for using it.

But Nessie or the Loch Ness Monster is possibly

an ancient aquatic creature that lives in Loch Ness.

So I don't know if this creature

exists, but there have been sightings.

So when you talk about Bigfoot or yeti

or Nessie, when you say there are sightings,

it means people think they saw it.

There's no photo, there's been a sighting.

So they think they've seen Nessie.

So again, possibly an animal that's still

alive from the dinosaur age or some

sort of mythical aquatic creature.

Aquatic means it is in the water, Nessie.

This is why I'm doing this lesson. By the way.

There was an article about the Loch Ness monster.

Maybe another sighting.

So reindeer exist. So I'll be clear.

Reindeer do exist.

If you go to northern parts of the world you will

find reindeer and they do look, but they don't fly.

But we do have this story around Christmas

about Santa Claus and that he has flying

reindeer that pull his sled through the air.

So flying reindeer are imaginary.

They do not exist.

I have gone outside on Christmas Eve and

I've never seen reindeer flying through the air.

But they, the normal reindeer do exist.

So if you go somewhere at, at

Christmas you might see reindeer if you're

in northern Europe or something like that.

But the flying kind are totally imaginary.

So Pegasus has a capital letter because

this is an actual winged horse.

And this is the name of the winged horse.

Now, if you're playing a video game where you

can create different animals, maybe they have a Pegasus,

but a Pegasus is essentially a horse with wings.

So if you look here, you can

see a beautiful white horse with unicorn.

There's no horn protruding from the forehead,

but this horse like creature or horse

has wings and so it can fly.

That would be very cool.

I imagine if the world was filled with animals like

this, like Pegasus, travel would be a lot easier.

I could just jump on my

Pegasus and fly somewhere very quickly.

That'd be very handy.

That'd be a nice way to go to work, wouldn't it?

Well, it'd be cold in the winter, but it certainly

would be fast because you could fly straight there.

You could go as the crow flies.

We say in English, by the way, as the crow flies means

to go from point A to point B in a straight line.

So airplanes, they fly as the crow

flies, like in a straight line.

A mermaid.

It took me a while to find a picture

of a mermaid that was acceptable for this lesson.

A mermaid is part female human and part fish.

So in some stories, when you read about

mermaids, they will be on the rocks on

the shore as sailors are going by.

Mermaids, again, are fictional creatures.

They don't exist.

But if they did exist, they would be partially fish.

So their bottom is fish, their torso is human.

Remember the word torso from when

we were talking about the centaur?

So the torso of a human.

So from the belly button up the torso and then

the bottom part would be fish, rather large fish.

So, and by the way, a mermaid is a female and

a merman, a lesser known term, would refer to a male

of that species or whatever you would call it.

So mermaid, the minotaur.

So the Minotaur, I want to say it's like a human with

the head of a bull or the head of a cow.

But it's really part man, part bull.

Like, if you look at this picture, the Minotaur has

hooves like a bull and it has the head of

a bull, but it has the body of a human.

It's also very large.

And if you know anything about the Minotaur, it's from

a story where the Minotaur lives in a maze.

I'm not going to give you all the details,

but every year the local people have to.

I think it's every year, every seven years, they

have to give or sacrifice people for the Minotaur.

It's kind of A strange story, but I

would not want to meet this creature ever.

So part bull, part man, 100% scary.

That's how I would describe the Minotaur. A werewolf.

So when you watch stories that have vampires, often

there will also be werewolves in the story.

Kind of a different sort of imaginary creature.

A werewolf is a human looking creature, but depending on the

story, maybe when there's a full moon, it will turn into

a large wolf or into just a normal wolf.

So a werewolf is, I guess you

could say part human, part wolf.

But they're only in one form at a time.

So when you meet a werewolf, if they did

exist, they might look like a normal human being.

They might be a little hairier

than a normal human being.

If you watch a story where they have

werewolves, sometimes in their human form, they look

like a human, but a little hairier.

And then either for some reason or because of

a full moon, there's a lot of different reasons.

They will transform from their human

form into their werewolf form.

So I'm using a few words there.

I'm in human form right now, so that

means that I look like a human. When the.

When there's a full moon, though, I transform,

I change, and then I become a wolf.

Did I just admit I was a werewolf? Sorry.

These are imaginary creatures, not real.

So again, we use the word

form, human form or wolf form.

And then they transform from one to

the other depending on the situation.

A griffin.

Griffin has the head and wings of an

eagle and the body of a lion.

I think if you ever played a game like World

of Warcraft, I think there are griffins that you can

ride if you are in the human faction.

So again, if you read fantasy novels or

watch fantasy movies or play video games, you

will sometimes see creatures like the griffin.

So head, talons, the front paw, talons.

And wings of an eagle. Eagle. Eagle. That's not a word.

Eagle and then the body of a lion.

Very cool creature.

But I would be quite afraid if I saw one.

I don't know how friendly they are. I'm always.

I'm afraid of something with that big of a beak.

That just looks a little bit scary to me.

A fairy.

So there are a couple of different spellings of this.

I've used the more traditional, I've

used the more common spelling.

But a fairy is a small creature that can

fly, not very big at all, that people sometimes

think they see flying around their garden.

Sometimes fairies will have like little.

They'll light up or they'll glow a little bit.

But it's obviously an imaginary creature.

And I think most, most cultures have

some form of word for fairy.

Just a small.

I think because if you go out in the

morning when it's dark and becoming light and you

see mist and fog and you might imagine that

you see a small glowing creature flying around.

So a fairy.

Very interesting creature.

We have some on our farm. No, we don't.

I was just gonna say we have

some on our farm, but we don't.

A gnome.

So a gnome is a very tiny human like creature.

Often if you see them portrayed, they have funny hats.

This is actually the COVID of

a Dutch book about gnomes.

And when I was growing up, my grandparents had this

book in their house and I just found it hilarious.

But gnomes are little magical creatures that

often live out in your garden.

If you have a garden, you might have garden gnomes.

There's tree gnomes and garden

gnomes and all different kinds.

There may be about this tall,

small, little creatures and you can.

Some people have, they're called figurines where you go and

buy one and you put it in your garden.

A sea monster.

Sometimes we say sea serpent.

A large creature that lives in the ocean.

Very, very scary.

If you were on a ship a long time ago, you

would probably be afraid of sea monsters or sea serpents.

They would be.

They would be something that you would

be afraid would wreck your ship.

Then a really large sea monster

would be called a kraken.

A kraken might come up and try to sink your boat.

This looks like a really large squid.

I would be very afraid if I was a sailor hundreds of

years ago that a kraken would come and attack my ship.

And then of course a ghost.

A ghost is of course someone who has

died and then their spirit has come back.

You can see how you can see through the ghost.

Like a ghost is not a solid creature.

And generally you will see a ghost.

Not that they exist, but you'll see them

in a house that is maybe haunted.

There might be people who have died and

their ghost still lives in the house.

A dwarf.

A small human like creature.

You will see these in movies

like the Lord of the Rings.

Very, very strong, very powerful.

And they usually like to live underground.

They mine different ores.

So this is a dwarf.

And then of course we have an elf.

This is Legolas.

So an elf has pointed ears, more of like.

As much as the dwarf is strong, the

elf has a lot of finesse or dexterity. A troll.

This is a troll doll.

A troll is like a rock like creature.

That is a little bit scary and when you see

them in movies they're not as cute as this.

An orc is a very ugly large creature that.

Sorry, some of you probably like orcs but

it's an ugly large creature featured in movies

like the Lord of the Rings ogre.

An ogre is like Shrek from the movie Shrek.

Actually true ogres I think eat people.

It's a little weird and scary.

A giant is of course an

enormous human like creature, very tall.

A genie lives in a lamp and if you

rub the lamp the genie comes out and gives

you three wishes and then hopefully you choose wisely.

Sometimes genies can be tricky.

A leprechaun from Ireland, a leprechaun is a

small creature, usually likes to play tricks on

people and has a pot of gold somewhere.

And then of course a zombie, a human that has died

and for some reason is alive again and walking around.

So very, very scary.