Hello and welcome to a new English lesson on Learn British English Free on
YouTube. My name is Chris. This is a special lesson; it's about a television
programme called 'The Crown'. It's on the website Netflix and it's a very popular
programme for people who are interested in the Royal Family in Britain and our
current queen, Queen Elizabeth II. I did a free lesson about episode 1 of
the first series last year and this time I'm doing this free lesson about episode
1 of the second series which was released before Christmas in 2017.
Like last year's one, I'm going to talk about a selection of vocabulary from the
episodes. This is for advanced students because the programme is for native
speakers. I'm going to talk about idioms and unusual vocabulary; I won't tell
you about the episode - it's not a spoiler alert
thing - but I will explain the themes and the point of the lesson is that you will
understand some important vocabulary and then you will be able to hear it in
context if you watch the programme. So if you watch 'The Crown' and it's interesting
for you, this lesson should be helpful. Let's try the first word. Please have a
look at the list in the description or on the PDF document.
The first is: misadventure misadventure ; and this normally describes a situation
where someone has an adventure but in a bad way - something negative or bad
happens or is an accident or mistake, and it's the title of the first episode of
the second series so we know that there's going to be some element of
misadventure about this episode. There are there's lots of talk in it
about the marriage between Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh.
The Queen says the steps that we've taken 'haven't quite done the trick' - you
can see the quotes in the document as well.
She says this at the beginning, after about one minute and thirty seconds, and
if something does the trick or doesn't do the trick,
it means it's successful; it works. In this case, the Queen is talking about
something - 'the steps we've taken haven't done the trick' - they haven't worked.
Another idiom the Queen uses: 'lay our cards on the table'. If you do this,
remember it's an idiom, you are explaining your plans and intentions: 'So
I thought we might take this opportunity to lay our cards on the table,' she says,
again to the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Phillip, to explain to each other our
plans and intentions. 'Egalitarian' ;
egalitarian - the Prime Minister of the time, Anthony Eden, is in this episode a
lot and he is talking to the students at Eton. An egalitarian is someone who
believes everyone is equal and should have the same opportunities in life. In
his speech, he mentions this: 'to which I, as a fully paid-up egalitarian, say...'. He's
describing himself as an egalitarian.
Repentant. Repentant. If you are repentant it means you feel sorry for something
you've done - something bad. the Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, is involved in an
argument with President Nasser in this episode, he says, 'it won't be long before
President Nasser comes back repentant and humiliated.' Another idiom now: 'to keep
someone' if you keep someone it means that you make them wait and
when Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, is about to leave on his trip, the Queen
says to him: 'We won't keep. You have a safe journey.' - means you can go now I;
won't make you wait any longer. We won't keep you. And the final term for this
first episode: 'a wild spirit'; another sort of idiom describing a person - someone who
does what they want. Their spirit is wild; free; they might do things depending on
how they feel; they might not be very logical; and Lord Mountbatten, another
character, is talking to the Queen after around 40 minutes in the episode. He says,
'You married a wild spirit,' and he is trying to help the Queen understand some
of the Duke of Edinburgh's behaviors and what he is doing with his time.
That concludes the bits of vocabulary I wanted to tell you about that feature in
episode one of series two of 'The Crown' on Netflix. I will be watching and
summarising the other episodes in the series; like before, I won't publish those
on Learn British English Free, but you can contact me and through the private
lessons we can discuss those as well if you want to. The Queen - 'The Crown' programme
then is quite popular; for me it's so-so - it depends if you are interested in the
Royal Family, and of course if you have Netflix but do check it out if you have
the time and we can always discuss it if you want to. Thank you very much for
watching; please do follow me I'll be posting other free lessons about other
stuff on Learn British English Free on, YouTube, on Facebook, Instagram and
www.learnbritishenglish.co.uk - my main website. I'll see you then.