Feifei: Hello and welcome to The English We Speak.
I'm Feifei… and, not for the first time,
it looks like Rob is late…
Rob: Here I am! Yes, really sorry. The bus
was really slow.
Feifei: Hmmm… Bad on the roads today, huh?
Rob: Terrible traffic.
Feifei: That’s funny, because I took the
train in this morning and I saw you at the
other end of the carriage.
Rob: Err, OK. Sorry. Yes. I took the train,
not the bus. Little fib there.
Feifei: Why would you want to fib about
that? Well, not to worry, it gives us the
perfect opportunity to talk about fibs and
fibbing – something Rob is very good at.
Rob: Oh yes, to fib is to tell a small lie,
nothing too serious. Like giving a false
reason for being late. Come on Feifei, you
do it too!
Feifei: I’m always on time! Well, almost
always.
You can use fib as a verb ‘to fib’ - and
it can also be a noun – ‘a little fib’,
or ‘to tell a fib’. Let’s listen to these examples:
Marty fibbed that he was going to study
at his friend Lucio’s house, when in fact
they went to see a movie.
While watching the horror scenes, Marty
was so scared he had to close his eyes.
But after the film he fibbed he was not
frightened at all.
Marty told Lucio that he knew the main
actor from the movie, but that was just
another fib. In fact Marty had just met the
actor for five seconds and taken a quick
selfie together.
Feifei: This is The English We Speak from
BBC Learning English. So anyway, I’m still
a bit confused about why you had to fib
about being late?
Rob: Well, I just had something to do before
coming in to the office.
Feifei: Really? That sounds mysterious.
Rob: Not really. I wanted to go to a shop.
Feifei: Do tell me why.
Rob: OK, OK – well it was going to be a
surprise, but I wanted to buy you a little
cake, because it’s your birthday today and
I can’t come to your party later.
Feifei: Oh, that’s so sweet. Though you
know, it’s not really my birthday today.
Rob: What?
Feifei: Yes. It’s on Saturday. Sorry, a little
fib there. I told everyone it was my
birthday today so they would be more
likely to come to my party.
Rob: Oh right, very sneaky! Enjoy the cake
anyway. Bye.
Feifei: Yum. Bye.