Learn English Through Stories - An English Comprehension Lesson

In today's English lesson,

I'm going to tell you two stories.

One of the stories will be true.

The other story will be a lie

and you'll need to try and figure out which one is which.

I like English lessons like this

because as an English learner,

you really need to understand each story

in order to make a decision.

So I'll tell you two stories, two stories about me.

One will be true, one will be a lie.

Are you ready?

(bright upbeat music)

Story number one.

Let's call this story The Kite.

Once when I was a kid,

my mom's uncle visited us from the Netherlands.

He flew over on a plane

and he came to visit us here on the farm,

and he brought gifts.

He brought gifts for me and my brothers and sisters.

We were very, very excited.

The gift that I received was a kite,

a really cool, orange kite.

It was really big.

It came in a box

and I remember I had to put it together.

I had two sticks and I had to attach

all of the strings and the fabric.

And when I was all done,

the kite was ready to test out

but it wasn't windy on the day I got the kite,

so I couldn't go outside with my mom's uncle and try it out.

But I do remember putting it all together.

It was a really nice-looking kite.

The next day, my mom's uncle came back

for tea or coffee or something,

and it was a windy day,

so we went outside and we spent some time.

He taught me how to fly the kite.

I would hold the string and he would go

and throw the kite in the air and I would run,

and eventually the kite was flying.

It was super fun.

So I let the kite go really high in the air

and eventually the string broke,

and the kite flew away and landed down by the river.

I ran down really quickly and I found the kite.

Luckily, it wasn't broken.

I was very, very happy that it wasn't broken.

Then, my mom's uncle and I

went with my dad to the hardware store

and we bought really strong fishing line.

Fishing line is something you use with a fishing rod

and it's very thin but it's very strong.

When we came back home,

we attached the fishing line to the kite

instead of the string that came with it.

And then, we tried flying the kite again

and it worked way better.

I was super happy.

It was a fun experience.

I flew the kite quite a bit when I was a kid,

lots of fun.

I don't know if you've ever had a kite.

Anyways, that's story one, The Kite.

Do you think it's true or do you think it's a lie?

Story number two, let's call this one Basketball.

When I was a kid,

I really wanted to be on the basketball team at school

but I wasn't a very good basketball player.

A lot of my friends lived in town

or they lived in the city

and they could practice basketball all the time

but I lived out here on the farm.

There are no really good spots to bounce a basketball

and I didn't have a basketball net

but I really, really, really wanted to play basketball.

So my parents got me a basketball

and I would practice in the barn.

And eventually, they got me a basketball net.

They bought me a basketball net

and we mounted it on the wall of the barn.

Many, many evenings I would practice

shooting the basketball, bouncing the basketball.

We also call it dribbling by the way.

I would practice a lot.

I would try and get my brothers and sisters

to practice with me

but none of them wanted to play basketball with me.

So I just practiced by myself and I got better.

I got better and better,

and I knew that basketball tryouts

were coming up in a few months,

so I practiced almost every night of the week.

I became really good at dribbling.

I became really good at shooting the basketball

and getting it in the net.

So basketball tryouts came.

I went, I signed up on a piece of paper at school

that I wanted to try out.

I went to the basketball tryouts

and I showed off all of my basketball skills

as best as I could.

And then I waited

because after, I think there were two tryouts,

after two tryouts,

the coach was going to post the list of who made the team.

So I was very nervous.

On that day,

I remember going to school

and I looked at the list

and my name was not on the list.

I was heartbroken.

I was very, very sad.

I had spent all this time learning to play basketball

and I didn't make the team.

So that was story number two, Basketball.

Do you think it's true

or do you think it's a lie?

Okay, so you've heard both stories

and now you need to decide which one you think is true

and which one you think is a lie.

If you need to,

you can go back and listen to each story again.

Maybe you'll hear a few hints in one of the stories

that make you think it's either true or that it is a lie.

I'll let you think about it for a few seconds here.

And then, I'll tell you which one is which,

one, two, three.

The story about the kite is true.

The story about me trying to learn how to play basketball

and make the basketball team,

that was just a lie.

I know I probably told it in a way where you believed it

but that one was not true.

I do remember a time when my mom's uncle

came from Holland and he gave me a kite.

It was super fun.

I had never had a kite before,

and so I did a lot of kite flying,

I guess you would say.

And I do remember that the string broke

and we went to the hardware store

and bought fishing line to use instead.

Anyways, once again, sorry for lying to you.

Sorry for telling you a story that wasn't true

but I hope both stories allowed you to learn

just a little bit more English.

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Leave a comment about what you thought of this lesson

and if you have some time,

why don't you stick around and watch another English lesson?

(bright upbeat music)