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)