854. The Invitation (Learn English with a Short Story)
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You're listening to Luke's English Podcast. For more information, visit teachaluke.co.uk. Hello, listeners. Welcome back to Luke's English Podcast. How are you today? I hope you're doing fine. So, here's a brand new episode, and this one is a short story episode. This is one of those episodes where I...

read you a short story, and then use it to teach you some vocabulary and some grammar, okay? So, I'm always looking for short stories, always looking for little stories that I can use in episodes of my podcast. This particular story, I found this one on the website Quora.com. I don't know if you're familiar with Quora. Basically, it's a website where people can post questions and

And then other users of the website will post their responses to those questions. And the responses get upvoted or downvoted. And if a response gets upvoted a lot, it then gets pushed up to the top of the page. So I was looking on Quora and one of the questions I found there was something like this. Can you share any true scary stories? Can you share any true scary stories? That I think was the original question that someone had posted.

And the top response, the most upvoted response, was the story that I'm going to tell you today. It was actually posted by a guy called Lance Stevenson. I'm pretty sure that the story happened in the United States of America, the USA. And it was posted, yes, as a true scary story. Okay, first of all, I'm going to just read the story to you and you can try to understand it, right?

If you're looking at the video version, you will see the story on the screen. You'll see the text on the screen next to me. If you are listening to the audio version and you want to read the text as well, then you can just go to the page for this episode on my website. You'll find the whole story copied there for you. So you can check out the text in your own time if you want to read it as well.

So listen to the story, try to understand it, and you can think about this. Can you identify the scary elements? So what's scary about this story? Try to imagine what is going to happen next and what happens at the end. So can you get the specific details? What is the scary element to this? After I've read the story to you, I will summarise it in my own words, just to try and clarify it, just to make sure that you've got the details and that you've understood everything.

the kind of, the twist, let's say, the twist at the end of the story. And then after that, I'll go back through the text of the story and break it down for language, highlighting vocabulary, and also some bits of grammar as well. We'll be looking at things like gerunds and infinitives and participle phrases and other things. We're going to look at the way that the story was told with different kinds of structures, okay? Right, so let's get started then.

with this apparently true scary story. All right, are you ready? Yes, you're ready? Okay, well, let's begin then. So I've decided to call this story The Invitation. So here we go then. What is scary about this story? About seven years ago, I got an invitation to attend a dinner party at my cousin's house.

I have a pretty large family and I'd never actually seen this particular cousin before. I'd only ever spoken to him on the phone. I was surprised that his family unexpectedly invited me over, but I was curious to finally meet them. The invitation had an address that I didn't know and the GPS was unfamiliar with it too.

It was in one of those areas where Google Maps doesn't work properly because of poor phone reception, so I had to use an old-fashioned paper map. I marked the location on the map, tried to get a sense of where I was headed and set off in my car. As I was driving, I started to notice how far I'd travelled into the countryside and away from civilisation.

I saw trees, farms and fields passing by. Just trees, farms and fields. And more trees, and more farms, and more fields. Where the hell am I going? I thought to myself. I'd never ventured out so far in that direction before. I drove for quite a long time, trying to locate the address I had marked on the map.

The thing is, in this area a lot of the roads don't have names, or the names aren't clearly marked by road signs. I just had to try to match the layout of the streets to the layout I could see on the map. I finally found a place at a location that looked like the one I'd noted on my map. I was pretty sure that this was the right spot, so I parked and got out of the car.

Approaching the house, I noticed how dull and dreary it looked. It was completely covered in leaves, branches and overgrown trees. "This can't be it," I said to myself. But as soon as I walked onto the rocky driveway, my aunt and uncle came out to greet me. They seemed excited and welcoming. "Hello, hello, come in, come in," they said, beckoning me inside. Walking into the house, I asked where my cousin was.

Answering immediately, one of them said, "Oh, he just went to run a few errands. He should be back later." I waited in their kitchen and we spent a couple of hours talking about my mother and my family. My aunt made a delicious homemade pot roast that I finished off in minutes. After dinner, we played an enduring game of Uno. It was surprisingly fun and competitive. My aunt, in particular, seemed delighted to be playing.

When we finished the game of Uno, it was almost dark and there was still no sign of my cousin. My aunt and uncle assured me that he'd be back any time soon. Despite what they said, I decided that I had to leave. It was almost dark outside and I knew it would be a nightmare to find my way out of this dreadful place after sunset with no street lights or road signs.

As my GPS just wasn't working, I asked my aunt and uncle the most efficient way to get to the highway. They gave me a puzzled look. But we thought you were staying the night, they said. I told them I couldn't because I had work the next day and couldn't afford to miss another day. It's much better if you leave tomorrow morning. Trust us, you'll get lost, they said.

I shrugged it off and told them not to worry. Ah, don't worry, I've got a pretty good sense of direction. I could find my way out of the Sahara Desert, I told them. Looking aggravated, they strongly advised me to stay the night for my own sake. Their body language was weird too, as they became more serious and insistent. My uncle stood, shaking his head.

and my aunt began to move about the place, picking up a set of keys to unlock what I assume was a spare bedroom. At this point I was getting annoyed and irritable. I sighed. "'Fine, I'll stay the night then, but I have to get up very early for work,' I said. Both of them seemed strangely ecstatic that I was staying the night."

As soon as they went out of the room to get bed sheets and pillows, I ran out of the door, got in my car and hastily pulled away. I know it was rude, but I suddenly felt the urge to get out of there quickly. It seemed to take me ages, but I finally found my way back to the main highway and drove back through the night, wondering why my cousin had never turned up.

I got home several hours later than I expected. It was after midnight and I didn't want to wake my parents up. Climbing over my fence and entering the back door, I noticed that the kitchen lights were on. As soon as I took my first step through the door, I saw my mum sitting there looking impatient. "'Where have you been?' she asked. "'I was at Aunt Deborah's, I told you,' I replied. "'Then why did she call saying you never arrived?'

To this day, I still have no idea who I visited. Okay, so that's the story. Hmm, did you understand all of that? What did you think? Did you think it was scary? I don't know. Did you understand it enough? What's going on? What was actually going on here? Now, I've read that story to people before and...

To an extent, some people misunderstood what was going on or they expected something to be happening. So let me go through the story again and try and tell it to you in my own words to make it clear what happened. So here are things that I think didn't happen. So I remember telling that story to other people in the past. They have assumed that the aunt and uncle...

Like, they assumed that maybe the reason the cousin didn't turn up is because the aunt and uncle maybe had killed him or something. I remember one person I read that story to thought that the pot roast was suspicious. Like, what was in the pot roast? Did they kill the cousin and then they put him in the pot roast and he ate the cousin? I don't think that's what's going on. Basically, the creepy thing about this is that the guy...

almost definitely got the wrong house. He went to the wrong house and he spent an evening with two people who he thought were his aunt and uncle. Two people who essentially seemed to be pretending to be his aunt and uncle and who were lying to him about the cousin and stuff. They were just strangely delighted to have a stranger in their home.

They were sort of weirdly excited to have someone at home with them, and they really wanted that person to stay the night, which is strange. So who were these people? We don't know because he got the wrong house. And meanwhile, his real aunt and uncle and his cousin were in a different house somewhere waiting for him to arrive.

So a key thing to know about this is that at the beginning of the story, the storyteller, the writer, says that he'd never actually met his aunt or uncle or cousin before. And that seems a little bit...

odd, right? A little bit strange that there would be members of your family, especially an aunt, an uncle and a cousin that you'd never actually met before. But I suppose it's possible, right? Some people have very large families. And especially in the United States, which is such a big country, if there are members of your family who live fairly far away, then it's not completely strange to have never seen them or never met them. And some families are a bit, you know,

Some families are not that close, you know, and sometimes if there's like a bad relationship between the parents that they just don't see each other, you know. So, you know, there's that. Right. So let me just let me try and clarify the story. So.

The story starts with the guy saying that seven years earlier he received an invitation to have dinner at his cousin's house. And he'd never actually met his cousin or his aunt or uncle before, so he was surprised that they had sent him a dinner invitation. He'd only ever spoken to his cousin on the phone, so he had actually spoken to his cousin, but never actually met them face to face. Another slightly strange thing is that you'd imagine that maybe he would have seen photos of them, but

But apparently not in this case. So, the address was in a remote location quite far away from where the guy lived. And he had to go there by car. But the GPS, his satellite navigation in his car, his GPS couldn't locate the address.

Also, the address, that area is very difficult to navigate because there are no street names or road signs. It's very poorly indicated. Apparently, very bad mobile phone reception, so he wasn't able to use Google Maps. He was forced to use an old-fashioned paper map and mark the location.

mark the address on the map, and then set off in his car. And after driving for a long, long time through lots of countryside, further and further away from civilization, out into the middle of nowhere, he eventually found what he thought was the right place. Because the streets didn't have street signs on them, it was difficult for him to locate the right address. But he tried to match what

The streets he could see with the streets he could see on the map. And he found what he thought was the correct house. He wasn't completely sure. But when he stepped onto the driveway, when he approached the house, what he thought was his aunt and his uncle. These two people quickly came out of the house and greeted him and sort of very enthusiastically welcomed him in.

And I guess he didn't really have time to think about it, but he assumed that these two people must be his aunt and uncle.

And they welcomed him in very enthusiastically. And then he chatted with them in the kitchen for a couple of hours, talking about his mother and their family. So I suppose, I don't know what's going on there. Maybe these people pretended, you know, they were just like, oh, yeah, yeah, just going along with it. He would talk about his his mum and they would just sort of like just...

and go along with everything. So as far as he was concerned, this was his aunt and uncle. And when he said, oh, what about my cousin? They just kind of brushed it off by saying, oh, he'll be back later. He's just running a few errands. Anyway, would you like something to eat? And the woman made him a pot roast, which is a kind of...

like a roasted meal in a pot with vegetables and some sort of meat and onion and sauce and stuff like that. And he ate the whole thing, apparently was delicious. Then they played a game of Uno, which is a kind of card game. And he noticed that his would-be aunt and uncle were behaving a bit strangely. The aunt in particular seemed to be like,

like ecstatic about playing the game and strangely delighted, you know, and it got darker and darker and he realised that the cousin perhaps wasn't going to turn up. And so he decided that he had to leave. But his so-called aunt and uncle decided

were very keen for him to stay, and they were shocked at the idea that he would leave, and they were like, no, no, no, you must stay. It'll be too difficult to find your way out of the area at this time, so no, no, no, you must stay. And they started to prepare a bed for him, and he suddenly got a weird feeling at this point and decided that he had to leave. He also mentioned something about the fact that he had to work the next day,

And he couldn't afford to miss another day. So probably, you know, he was probably already in a little bit of trouble with his boss for missing days of work previously. And so it was really important that he got back home in time to be able to get to work, you know, without missing another day. So he decided that he really did have to leave. And in the end, he just sort of escaped while they were doing something, while they...

quickly went away to get some bed sheets and pillows. He sort of escaped and went out of the door, got in his car and drove off and managed to find his way home. It took him a long time. And then when he finally got home,

It was late and he wanted just to go straight to bed, but his mum was still up waiting for him and annoyed with him. And she said, where have you been? And he said, I was at Aunt Deborah's, like I told you. And she said, well, why did they call saying that you never arrived? So in fact, the real aunt and uncle were waiting the entire evening for him to arrive here.

He must have gone to another house. And who were these strange people and why were they so keen for him to stay the night? What was going on and what was in that pot roast anyway? Just weird. I mean, so that is one of those sort of stories that is supposed to be scary because of...

what might have happened or what could have happened or the fact that there are lots of unknown things like we don't know who these people were and why they were so enthusiastic about him being in their home and then staying the night and what and some other details like why was the bedroom door locked with a key and why would why was their behavior so odd so there you go that's the story so what do you think do you think it's a true story i mean we've got no idea of

We don't know. We can never know if that was a true story or if Lance, what was his name? Lance Stevenson? Lance Stevenson. Maybe Lance Stevenson just made it up. It could be one of those urban myths.

You know, those sorts of stories which are presented as being true, but they're really just made up and designed to be scary little stories. Like normally stories like this, if we know that they're not true, if we know that they're made up, then they become less effective. They have less impact. If you listen to that story believing it's true, then it makes it more creepy, doesn't it? So who knows? Maybe it's true. Maybe it's just made up. No idea. But I quite enjoy it. I quite enjoy...

the creepiness of it. Okay, so let's now do a language review. Let's see how the story was written. And this is where we're going to focus on some vocabulary and some grammar. I'm actually going to give you the sort of Luke's English Podcast premium treatment now, because normally I do this kind of thing in premium episodes of my podcast.

and that's where I go into the vocabulary and the grammar and stuff in a lot more detail. So this is just a flavour of the sort of thing you can get if you subscribe to my premium content. And if you do that, you'll get loads of extra episodes in your podcast app. So you'll get the premium feed, which means you'll get all of the free episodes of my audio show without any advertising. And also you'll get all these extra episodes...

that involve lots of language teaching from me. And this is just a little taste of the sort of thing that you get in those extra premium episodes. If you're interested in that, by the way, just go to teacherluke.co.uk slash premium info and you can find all the details. Audio episodes that you can get in your audio podcast app with...

With PDFs, every single premium episode has a PDF with worksheets and the rest of it. Vocabulary teaching, grammar teaching, pronunciation practice, memory exercises.

and also video versions. There are video versions of those premium episodes too. So you can get all the information at teacherluke.co.uk/premiuminfo. So let's start then by going through vocabulary from the story, okay? You'll see that I've highlighted some words in the story in orange. Not every single slide here has a word on it. For example, the first slide

About seven years ago, I got an invitation to attend a dinner party at my cousin's house. Okay, fine, nothing in particular to point out there. The next slide. I have a pretty large family. Pretty large, right? It just means fairly large, quite large. I have a pretty large family, and I'd never actually seen this particular cousin before. So that word, particular,

This particular cousin just means this specific cousin, this cousin in particular. Okay, so obviously this guy's got lots of cousins, but now he wants to say this cousin specifically, so he'd never actually seen this particular cousin before. All right, so this particular cousin on this particular day, this particular episode of Luke's podcast was particularly interesting for me in particular.

All right, moving on. I was surprised that his family unexpectedly invited me over. So unexpectedly is pretty clear, I suppose, right? But it's a nice adverb to do something unexpectedly. When was the last time you used that word? Do something that you don't expect. Do something unexpectedly.

Okay, so they unexpectedly did something. They did something unexpectedly. In this case, his family unexpectedly invited me over. So, invite me, I think you understand. It's like, would you like to come to our house for dinner? But invite me over, why have we got the word over in there? Using the word over implies...

visiting someone's home. Okay. And we often use that. We say, come over, invite someone over, stay over. Over means over here at my place. So that's just very common when you're talking about coming or visiting someone's home. Invite someone over, come over and stay over. Yes. The invitation had an address that I didn't know and the GPS was unfamiliar with it too.

So GPS, I think it's probably international, right? GPS, the sort of electronic map device that everyone uses in their car. GPS, global positioning system. In the UK, we also call it sat-nav. Sat-nav. Did you know that one? Satellite navigation. Sat-nav. GPS, sat-nav. It was in one of those areas where Google Maps doesn't work properly because of poor phone reception.

So phone reception refers to how much coverage you have, how much connection you have on your phone. We call it phone reception or signal or network or coverage. For example, if you've only got one bar on your phone and you're trying to do something, like maybe you're trying to look something up on the internet online,

and you've only got one bar, then your phone works very slowly and you can say, "I've got such terrible reception here." Have you got any reception? "I've got no network." Or, "The signal here is terrible, isn't it?" Okay? Or if you're on the phone to someone, it's like, "I can't hear you. No, I've got really bad signal. I've got really, I've got really bad, I've got no network here." Okay? So, reception, signal or network. Right?

I marked the location on the map, tried to get a sense of where I was headed and set off in my car. If you are headed in a particular direction, it means you're going in that direction, right? So where are we headed? We're headed for London, meaning we're going to London. We're headed for the pub, meaning we're going to the pub. So if you're headed or heading as well somewhere, it means you're going in that direction.

So I tried to get a sense of where I was headed and set off in my car. To set off means to start your journey. Okay, start your journey. Set off in your car, set off on your bike, set off on foot.

Okay, remember, it's always on foot. It's never by walking, but on foot. Set off on your journey, set off in your car, set off on your bike, set off on foot, right? Set off meaning start your trip. As I was driving, I started to notice how far I'd travelled into the countryside, away from civilisation. The countryside, I mean, it's a very common word, but as a teacher, I often notice that my learners

Don't use this word or don't seem to remember it. So you've got the city and then you've maybe got the suburbs, which is that area just around the city. And then where it's all green and you've got lots of fields and trees and stuff, that's the countryside. Okay. In this case, he was driving and driving and he realised how far he'd travelled into the countryside away from civilisation. I saw trees, farms and fields passing by.

Passing by, meaning passing next to him, passing on the side as he looked out of the window. Passing by. Where the hell am I going? I thought to myself. I just wanted to highlight the use of the hell in that question. Where the hell am I going? And, you know, you can do that to add a sort of emphasis or anger or surprise or sort of confusion to your question.

Where the hell am I going? Just add the phrase the hell after the question word. Where the hell am I going? What the hell are you doing? What the hell are you talking about? What the hell is going on? Right? And there's also the more rude version, which is the F word. Where the f am I going? What the f are you talking about? Right? Everyone knows that. But also you've got what the hell. Where the hell are we going? What the hell are you doing? Who the hell are you?

What the hell are you talking about? For example. All right. There's another one too. There's on earth. Where on earth am I going? What on earth are you talking about? What on earth is happening? Who on earth is this guy anyway? Right. So on earth after the word where, where, where the hell am I going? What on earth am I doing? Those are slightly more or slightly less rude versions of saying the F word in that situation instead.

Where the hell am I going? I thought to myself. I'd never ventured out so far in that direction before. To venture out means to leave a familiar place and go somewhere new, right? Kind of go on an adventure. An adventure, that's a noun, but the verb is to venture, to venture out, meaning go out, go away to a new place that you haven't been to before and go on a journey that involves maybe some risks, right? So...

To venture out into the countryside, to venture out into the desert, to venture out of the house. If the snow stops, I might venture out to get some supplies from the shop, for example. Okay. All right. Let's keep going. I drove for quite a long time trying to locate the address I had marked on the map.

The thing is, in this area, a lot of the roads don't have names. So, the thing is, this is a phrase that we use a lot, and normally it's used before giving a reason or maybe giving an excuse. Like, for example, where's your homework? You didn't do your homework. Where's your homework? Oh, well, sorry, teacher, but the thing is, my dog ate it.

Right? Just like that classic, terrible student excuse. Not that in all my years as a teacher, no one has ever given me that excuse, but it's the sort of cliched excuse, oh, I'm sorry, my dog ate my homework. If someone actually, if one of my students genuinely gave that excuse, oh, the thing is, my dog ate my homework, I would be genuinely impressed. I'm like, really? Wow, that's incredible. Is the dog okay?

Anyway, the thing is, last night I was out and then I lost my bag and then it's like, never mind, just sit down. Stop giving me this ridiculous excuse. So the thing is, it's used to give a reason or an excuse, right? In this case, he's explaining why he had problems. Like the thing is, in this area, lots of the roads don't have names.

Okay, so it's very common to use the thing is when you're giving excuses or reasons. For example, if someone says to you, would you like to go for a drink with me? And you need to say no. You might say, oh, I'd love to, but the thing is, I can't. Or I'd love to go for a drink with you, but the thing is, you know, I'm washing my hair tonight.

Right? Okay. Moving on. I just had to try to match the layout of the streets to the layout I could see on the map. So the layout is the design or the way in which things are laid out or arranged. So the layout of the streets, like where the houses are positioned, where the road is positioned, where the trees are and stuff, that's the layout of the streets. And the layout of the map, you know, the way that the map has been designed.

Okay, that's the layout. You also have things like the layout of a website, you know, like the way that the website is arranged, the way it looks. There's a picture here, there's text here, there's this, this, this. That's the layout of a website, for example.

So, approaching the house, I noticed how dull and dreary it looked. So, dull basically means boring. Another word would be drab. So, dull, boring, not interesting looking. Okay, dull and boring. And dreary, dreary, another adjective to describe the appearance of this house that didn't look very nice or interesting. Dreary means sort of depressing.

So you can imagine a house that is...

Yeah, sort of dark, depressing. It doesn't look like it's been cleaned or maintained very well. It's the classic scary house from a horror film, isn't it? There's always a house like this. It's kind of creepy, dull, dreary looking house with lots of overgrown trees and bushes and grass and stuff. Dark windows. The door opens. Grrrr.

you know, with a creek like that. The whole thing, basically, if you're in a movie, if you ever find yourself in a movie, not that that's ever going to happen, but if you do find yourself in a movie and there's a big, dreary, creepy looking house with lots of overgrown bushes, you're going to be in a movie.

Generally, it's a good idea to turn around 180 degrees, do a 180 and just go home and stop being in horror films. OK, right. So approaching the house, I noticed how dull and dreary it looked. It was completely covered in leaves, branches and overgrown trees. So branches, we know, are the parts of the tree that come off the main trunk of

You've got the main trunk of the tree, the trunk, and then from the trunk you get branches of the tree that come out and there are leaves and stuff on the branches. Overgrown trees. A tree that's overgrown is that it's grown too much and it's maybe covering the street or covering a building and it needs to be cut back. It needs to be pruned or trimmed. This can't be it, I said to myself.

But as soon as I walked onto the rocky driveway, my aunt and uncle came out to greet me. To greet someone just means to say hello to someone. Like, for example, if someone comes to your office, you would go down to reception to greet them. Luke, could you go and greet our guests in reception, please? You go and go and greet them. Hello, you must be our guests. Hello. Nice to nice to meet you. Hello. That's right. Come this way. How was your journey? Was it all right? Okay.

So they greeted him. They seemed exciting and welcoming. Hello, hello, come in, come in, they said, beckoning me inside. To beckon someone is to sort of wave with your hand to try and make someone come towards you. Come in, come in. So the hand gesture that you would use with your hand when you're saying come in, that's to beckon someone or to say, come here, come here.

With your hand, that gesture is called beckoning, to beckon someone. Walking into the house, I asked where my cousin was. Answering immediately, one of them said, oh, he just went to run a few errands. To run a few errands, it means just to do a few small jobs, right? So maybe go to the shops, post some letters, take something to the cleaners, you know, fill up the car with fuel, just to run a few errands, to do a few little jobs.

I waited in their kitchen and we spent a couple of hours talking about my mother and my family. My aunt made a delicious homemade pot roast. This is where I said it before. Meat and vegetables in a big pot in the oven, cooked for quite a long time. Yum, yum, yum. That's a pot roast.

We don't know what was in this particular pot roast, but he said that he finished it off in minutes. My aunt made a delicious homemade pot roast that I finished off in minutes. Finished. He finished it. I think we understand there was nothing left at the end, but finished off. What's the function of saying off there? I finished it off. It just emphasises that it was completely finished. So finish and finish off.

right? If you finished it off, it means you completely finished it. I mean, to be honest, if something is finished, it's completely finished. I mean, something is either finished or not finished, right? So I don't know how really you could say that something is completely finished, but it's really just emphasising it, okay? That's the function of that phrasal verb. It's

Just emphasising that it was completely finished. So it's quite nice because you can imagine that the bowl or the plate that he was eating from is completely empty at the end. And the pot, totally empty. He finished it off.

I suppose this is one of the creepy elements, because later on, when you realise that we don't know who these people were, or what their intentions were, or what their agenda was, you start to think, what did he eat? What was that that he ate? We don't know. But he trusted these people, and maybe he shouldn't have. So he finished the entire pot roast off, but I wonder what was in it. Hmm. Um...

After dinner, we played an enduring game of Uno. Do you know the game Uno? It's a kind of card game that you play with kids where you kind of deal out cards and then you have to pick up cards. If you can't play the right number, you've got to pick up cards. It's sort of just a fun, not very challenging game that you play with children. This is Uno. So they played an enduring game of Uno. Enduring means that it lasted a long time.

an enduring game of Uno, a game that lasted a long time. Other things you could say would be enduring appeal, right? For example, the enduring appeal of the Beatles. You know, the Beatles, this is the example I always love to use, but the Beatles, you know, they split up in 1970, but they're still popular and they still got new music coming out even now. And it just shows that they have an enduring appeal.

You know, people like them and they continue to like them. So their appeal has lasted for a long time. Other things, another example might be an enduring memory. An enduring memory is a memory that sticks with you for a long time. Okay.

When we finished the game of Uno, it was almost dark and there was still no sign of my cousin. Just means that there was no indication of him. He didn't come home and there was no sense that he was going to come home soon. Just zero, nothing, no indication, no sign of my cousin at all. My aunt and uncle assured me that he'd be back anytime soon. So they assured him.

So basically means they made him sure. They made him convinced, right? So to assure someone is to give confidence to someone, to make someone sure or to convince someone. Okay. They assured me that he'd be back anytime soon. Don't worry. He'll be back anytime soon. I'm sure he'll just be a few moments. They assured him. We've got similar other words like ensure, E-N-S-U-R-E.

is to make certain that something will happen. So we assure someone that something will happen and we ensure that something happens. For example, I just want to ensure that the lesson starts at the right time, meaning I want to make certain that the lesson starts at the right time. That's ensure with an E.

I want to assure you. That's with A-S-S-U-R-E. That's to make someone feel sure. And also we've got the word insure as well. To insure. I'm going to insure my car. To insure my house.

And that is to protect that thing against loss. And that's to take insurance, right? So that's where you pay an insurance company. And if the car gets damaged, then the insurance company will pay for the damage. So I've insured my car. Okay? In this case, my aunt and uncle assured me that he'd be back any time soon. Don't worry, he'll definitely be back any time soon. Ensure. I wanted to ensure that I was on time for work.

My aunt and uncle assured me that he'd be back soon. It was almost dark outside. I knew it would be a nightmare to find my way out of this dreadful place after sunset. So a dreadful place is an awful, terrible, horrible, bad place. OK, now dreadful doesn't mean scary. It doesn't mean frightening.

Okay. Even though it's got the word dread in it, dread, now the noun dread does mean fear or fright, right? To be filled with dread means that you're terribly scared, right? But if something is dreadful, it just means it's bad. For example, what did you think of the film? I thought it was dreadful. One of the worst films I've seen for ages.

For example, all right. What did you think of the pot roast? Oh, no, I couldn't eat it. It was dreadful. Okay. So dreadful just means bad. So the guy decides that he needs to leave because he knew it would be a nightmare to find his way out of this terrible place, this dreadful, awful place. Okay. All right.

As my GPS just wasn't working, I asked my aunt and uncle the most efficient way to get to the highway. Now, the efficient way, it doesn't mean just the best way to get to the highway. It means, in this case, the quickest way. So, in English, if something is efficient, it means it does something quickly, without using a lot of time. Quickly, obviously. Without using a lot of energy or effort or money, obviously.

Okay? The most efficient way of getting to the highway, just in this case, means the quickest way. Okay? You can also say an efficient car. An efficient car is one that travels a long way on a smaller amount of fuel. Right? That's an efficient car. Like, you know, typically, you know, German or Japanese cars tend to be pretty efficient.

Right. Famously, like a Volkswagen Golf is a very efficient car. But then because they do lots of miles to the gallon, as we say, whereas, you know, those classic American cars, those big American muscle cars, they look really cool, but they are not efficient at all because you need to fill up the car with fuel. You drive for about 10 minutes and you've got to fill it up again because they're so inefficient. Yeah. OK, moving on.

They gave me a puzzled look. So a puzzled look just means a confused look puzzle. A puzzle is a thing you have to solve, like a crossword puzzle or a word puzzle. A puzzled look is a look that, you know, is confused. A confused look. Okay. To give someone a look as well is quite a nice phrase. You know, he gave me a dirty look. Like when, if you say something that someone doesn't like,

It might give you a dirty look. I'm trying to do a dirty look. I don't know. She gave me a friendly look. Hello. You know, in this case, a puzzled look.

I told them I couldn't stay because I had to work the next day and couldn't afford to miss another day. So I couldn't afford to or I can't afford to. OK, it's always can or could not, in this case, afford to do something. Means not have enough time or enough money to do it. OK, normally, for example, do you want to come to Disneyland? I can't afford to come to Disneyland anymore.

Not until the end of the month when I get paid. Because it's very expensive, isn't it, Disneyland? You've got to pay for the ticket to get there, the ticket to get in, and then you've got to, you know, you've got to pay for all the food and all the other stuff. It's very expensive. I can't afford it. Right? Meaning I don't have enough money to do it. In this case, he said, I had to work the next day and couldn't afford to miss another day. In this case, couldn't afford to, in the sense that he doesn't have enough chances left to

If he's late another day or he misses another day, he's probably going to get fired by his boss. So in terms of chances with his boss, he doesn't have enough chances left. So he really couldn't afford to miss another day. Okay, so couldn't afford to because you don't have enough money, can't afford to because you don't have enough time, can't afford to because you've run out of opportunities, you know.

I shrugged it off and told them not to worry. To shrug something off. Now, to shrug, S-H-R-U-G, S-H-R-U-G, right, shrug, is to kind of move your shoulders up as if you don't really care. It's all right. You know, when you kind of move your shoulders up and down to show that you don't really care or it doesn't matter, you don't mind. Now, to shrug something off is...

is, is basically a way to say that you consider it to be unimportant or to say that it's not important or act like something is not important. Someone has said something and you just shrug it off. Like for example, someone has criticized you and you shrug it off. Like Luke, your podcast episodes are quite long, aren't they? Quite long, aren't they? Those podcast episodes, who can listen to, who can listen to a podcast for that long? Like, it's all right. People seem to like it.

You know, just shrug it off. Shrug off the criticism in this case.

In this case, they said to him, "Oh no, you must stay. You'll get lost." And he shrugged it off and just told them not to worry. "Ah, it's all right. Don't worry. I've got a pretty good sense of direction." Your sense of direction is your ability to know where you are and where you're going. If you've got a good sense of direction, you generally don't get lost. But if you've got a bad sense of direction, you get lost easily.

Looking aggravated, they strongly advised me to stay the night for my own sake. So aggravated just means annoyed or bothered, irritated or peeved. They're like, no, you shouldn't leave. No, no, no, no, no, no, you must stay. They were kind of annoyed or bothered or irritated. They strongly advised me to stay the night for my own sake.

Right. If you do something for your own sake, it means for your own interest, as if to say, oh, if you leave, you might get lost. It'll be bad for you. You could have a you know, you could get lost. You could get into trouble just for your own sake. Not for us. Not for us. Not for us. We don't mind. But just for you, you see, for your own sake, for your interest.

Their body language was weird too because they became more serious and insistent. If you are insistent, it means you're demanding or adamant or not taking no for an answer. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. You must stay. No, absolutely. Absolutely not. No, no, no. You're staying. You're staying. No, that's that. No, I won't have any more of it. Thank you. No, you are staying. And that's the end of it. To be insistent. And they're like, no, no, really, really, really. No, no, no, no. You're staying. Get the blankets.

My uncle stood shaking his head and my aunt began to move about the place, moving from here to here to here, picking up a set of keys to unlock what I assume was a spare bedroom. He assumed it. To assume is to think that something is true without actually checking or getting proof. So he wasn't sure. He hadn't checked what the room was, but he just assumed that

that it was a spare bedroom. Oh, it must be a spare bedroom. This is probably where they want me to sleep. He's only assuming that. Which again is quite nicely written because it suggests to us that, oh, maybe that room was something else. What was that room? Oh my God, it's a torture chamber.

I don't know. A spare bedroom, a spare bedroom, an extra bedroom that's not being used. Okay. So we talk about a spare bedroom. Other things, a spare pen. If you turn up to your English lesson and you don't have a pen, then you could say, excuse me, does anyone have a spare pen? Do you have a spare pen I could borrow? Okay. Okay.

At this point, I was getting annoyed and irritable. So annoyed, aggravated, frustrated, irritated and irritable. Irritable just means that you are in a state where you can become irritated. So if someone is irritable, it means they can easily become irritated. Irritated, annoyed, aggravated,

Irritable means that you can easily become irritated. They're very similar, really. To be irritable and to be irritated, very similar. Like, for example, oh, don't talk to him in the morning. He gets very irritable if he hasn't had any coffee. I would leave him alone until he's had his coffee. He gets very irritated if he hasn't had his coffee. They're more or less the same thing, irritable and irritated. I sighed.

Fine, I'll stay the night then. To stay the night obviously means to stay and sleep somewhere. Both of them seem strangely ecstatic. If you are ecstatic, it means you're extremely happy, very, very pleased. Oh, good, he's staying the night. Bit weird. As soon as they went out of the room to get bed sheets and pillows, I ran out of the door, got in my car and hastily pulled away. So we've got the word hasty, or in this case, the adverb hastily.

Hasty means in a hurry, without thinking carefully. So you just do something quickly without really thinking carefully. In this case, escaped in his car, right? Quickly, without really stopping to think. He did it hastily.

He pulled away. So to pull away, this phrasal verb means to leave in a car. So the car is parked, you get in, you start the engine, you turn the wheel and you pull away or pull off is another one. Okay. And the opposite of that is to pull over, to pull over. That means you're driving in the car and you get to your destination. You turn to the side of the road and stop. You pull over.

It's also what police would ask you to do. If you're driving along, I don't know what it is you're doing, you're driving too fast or you're completely drunk behind the wheel of the car, hopefully not, and the police, and they say, pull over the car, please. Right? Pull over. Have you played Grand Theft Auto? Then I'm sure you've heard the police shouting at you to pull over. Pull over the car. Don't do anything stupid, buddy.

You get those sorts of things when you're playing Grand Theft Auto. But anyway, pull over just means stop the car by the side of the road. And then the opposite would be to pull off or to pull away. I know it was rude, but I suddenly felt the urge to get out of there quickly. If you feel the urge to do something, it means you feel strong motivation to

to do something, suddenly feel that you have to do something. I felt the urge to get out of there. I felt compelled to get out of there. I felt that I had to get out of there. I felt the urge. An urge is like a push inside yourself or a strong compulsion or feeling that you need to do something. I felt the urge to go to the toilet, for example. In this case, I felt the urge to just get out of there, to escape quickly.

It seemed to take me ages, but I finally found my way back to the main highway and drove back through the night, wondering why my cousin had never turned up. To turn up means to arrive. Okay? To turn up. Very common phrasal verb. Just means to arrive. Okay? For example, I've been waiting for you. I waited for you all morning and you just didn't turn up. What happened? Okay? Or like, he finally turned up half an hour late.

Or, look, these three students just didn't turn up today. Does anyone know what happened to them? To turn up, meaning to arrive. Okay. Climbing over my fence and entering the back door, I noticed the kitchen lights were on. A fence? Do you know what a fence is? Between two gardens, you've got like a wooden thing or maybe a metal thing that divides the two gardens. And that's a fence, right? You'd need to climb over it if you want to get into the back door of the house. That's a fence.

As soon as I took my first step through the door, I saw my mum sitting there looking impatient. A note about the spelling of the word mum, or in this case, mom. M-O-M is pretty standard in American English.

Right, I saw my mom sitting there. So that's normal in American English. Usually in British English, it's M-U-M. Although in some cases in the UK, some people do spell it M-O-M. For example, in Birmingham, you know, they would say mom as well and spell it with an M-O-M. But for the most part, generally speaking, in the UK, it's M-U-M for mum. And in American English, M-O-M for mom.

I saw my mum sitting there looking impatient. So she was looking impatient like she'd been waiting for a long time. Annoyed, frustrated, irritated, and in this case, impatient. Where have you been? Where have you been? She asked. I was at Aunt Deborah's, I told you. Then why did she call saying you never arrived? Dun, dun, dun. That's the kind of crucial moment of the story. This is where we realise that he went to the wrong house.

To this day, I still have no idea who I visited. So to this day, to this day. To this day just means since then and until now.

including now. Okay. Since then, until now, including now as well. So other examples, to this day, I've never seen Star Wars. I've never seen Star Wars to this day, meaning never in my life, including today. To this day, I still remember the moment that we met. Another example, the old castle is still standing to this day. Right. And in this case, to this day, I still have no idea who I visited yesterday.

Okay, so that was vocab there, a little vocab recap with phrases like to this day and to be impatient, on the fence, to turn up, to feel the urge to do something, to pull away or pull over, to be ecstatic, to be annoyed or irritable or irritated or aggravated, to stay the night, to assume something, a spare bedroom, a spare pen, a spare chair.

To do something for your own sake or for someone else's sake. To be insistent. To shrug something off. Your sense of direction. To be able to afford something. I can't afford to. I couldn't afford to. A puzzled look. To give someone a puzzled look. Efficient. Dreadful. No sign of someone.

And so on and so on and so forth, right? Now, again, if you want to find the entire text for this story and a vocabulary list as well, check the episode page for this episode on my website, okay? Just follow the link in the description. It'll take you straight there.

the link in the description for this episode in your show notes. You'll find a link there. Click that. It'll take you straight to the page for this episode on my website where you'll be able to read the entire text and also see a list of vocabulary that I've just explained. Okay. Now, I had planned...

to go through grammar from the story as well. Okay? And that includes the classic narrative verb tenses, looking at past simple, past perfect, and past continuous, and the ways in which those different tenses are used to describe

sequence events in the story in a fairly sophisticated way with the use of some conjunctions as well. Also gerunds and infinitives. So, for example, you may notice that sometimes you see an ing form of a verb and sometimes you have the infinitive form of the verb, like inviting and to invite.

Also, I wanted to give some comments about what's the difference between a gerund, like inviting, and a present participle, like inviting. How do you know if it's a gerund or if it's a present participle? Well, if it's a present participle, it's used as part of a continuous verb form, like be doing, to be waiting, I

I am waiting. She was waiting. I have been waiting. So if you need that, if you have that verb be along with the ing form, that ing form is a present participle. But if there's no auxiliary verb be, then, and it's an ing word, then it's probably a gerund. And gerunds are used where you actually need a noun in the sentence. Like, for example, as the subject of the sentence, for

Skateboarding is my favourite thing. For example, skateboarding is a gerund there. It's like the name of a sport, right? It's like a noun. Or we use gerunds in other locations where you need a noun. Like after certain verbs, okay? I enjoy skateboarding. After the verb enjoy, if you want to have another verb, I enjoy listening to your podcast. After the verb enjoy, you need a gerund because that's, you know,

You know, some verbs are followed by gerunds, some verbs are followed by infinitives. I enjoy skateboarding. I want to go skateboarding. Want is followed by an infinitive, of course. That gets a bit complicated because you start to realise, OK, this verb or even this whole expression is followed by a gerund, but this verb and these expressions are followed by an infinitive. For example, I am looking forward to is followed by a gerund. I'm looking forward to seeing you soon.

What about, I can't wait. I can't wait to see you. So can't wait is followed by an infinitive. You see? So there's that, and there's some examples of that kind of thing in the story. And also participle phrases. This is where a present participle is used to create a phrase that

which informs the rest of the sentence. Like, approaching the house, I noticed how dull it looked. And there are loads of examples of that in this story. You could just write...

As I was approaching the house, I noticed how dull it looked. Or when I was approaching the house, I noticed how dull it looked. But it can be more efficient to say, approaching the house, I noticed how dull it looked. And there are loads of examples of that in this story as well, and various other bits of grammar. Now, I would go through that now, but you know what? I'm not going to go through that now because that would take too long, and I want to go through it in proper detail. But you know what?

I said before that this is the sort of thing I do in premium episodes. I think what I'll do is I'll wait and I'll probably make a premium episode where I go through the grammar from that story. So if you want to get that, if you want to get my comments and my teaching about all of the grammar that's in that story, focusing on participle phrases to make efficient sentences,

reasonably complex sentences, gerunds and infinitives to understand when we use gerunds and when we use infinitives after certain other bits of language, and also some things about narrative verb tenses. Well, of course, you'll need to sign up to Luke's English Podcast Premium. And how do you do that? You just go to teachaluke.co.uk slash premium.

And there you'll get the option to choose a type of membership. And you should choose LEP Premium. It's $4 a month and you get new premium episodes every month plus access to the entire back catalogue. And there's like over 150 episodes now where either I tell you stories and go through the language in the story and help you practice your pronunciation with the story. So there's a whole series of story time episodes there.

where I tell you stories about my own life most of the time, like stories from my childhood and things like that. There's also vocabulary review episodes where I go through previous episodes of my podcast and pick out bits of language, bits of vocabulary and explain them. There are episodes where I read articles and then explain the language and help you remember them.

There's even a 30-minute stand-up comedy show that I've videoed of myself on stage doing stand-up comedy. And you can get that as well. You can listen to that and see the video version of that too. So there's loads of stuff in the premium subscription. So if you want to sign up, teacherluke.co.uk slash premium.

and then choose LEP Premium. $4 a month plus tax, which is pretty reasonable. It's like the price of half a pint of beer. It's like buying me half a pint of beer a month. If you don't want to buy me beer, just buy me a nice cup of coffee, if you like. You can see it that way. And then you can add the premium episodes to a podcast app on your phone. That's the best way to do it.

And then you can get links for the PDFs and links for the video versions in the episode show notes. So over 150 bonus episodes, vocab, grammar and pronunciation lessons, stories, articles, episode reviews and more, new episodes every month, PDFs with every episode.

Listen in your favourite podcast app, except Spotify because it's not a normal podcast app, but all the other podcast apps, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Overcast and so on. And plus you get private video versions on YouTube. That's Luke's English Podcast Premium, teacherluke.co.uk slash premium. So what I will do next is do the grammar analysis.

from this story and publish that as a premium episode. Okay. Um, all right. Now I'll be, because I'm nice, what I'll do is I'll publish that as a premium episode, and then that'll be only available in the premium subscription for a limited time. And then after a little while, I don't know how long, a few months, maybe a couple of months,

I'll probably publish it on YouTube and as a free episode of my podcast as well. So you can get it there. But if you want early access, if you want to get that now, then sign up to LEP Premium and it will be P55.

That's going to be the number of the episode. P55 will be a grammar analysis for this story that I've told you today. Okay, thank you so much for listening to this latest episode of Luke's English Podcast. I hope you've enjoyed it. What do you think? Leave your comments in the comments section. What did you think of the story? Did you find it scary? Maybe you didn't find it scary at all.

But let us know. And did you know what was going to happen? Did you have any idea what was going to happen next? Has anything strange like that happened to you? Maybe you can share one of your true stories in the comments section too. All right, so I'll let you do that. Otherwise, I will speak to you again next time on Luke's English Podcast. But for now, it's time to say goodbye. Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. Bye.

Thanks for listening to Luke's English Podcast.

Whoa, easy there. Yeah.

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