English Curious

Listen/Download :     Alberto took one look at his new neighbours and knew that his life was going to get more difficult. He watched them arrive in their big, noisy car and watched them get out. There they were, two of them, as big and as noisy as their car – and smelly and stupid as well. 'Terrible!' he thought. 'How am I going to put up with them?' He went to tell Mimi. Mimi was the friend he lived with. 'Have you seen the new neighbours?' he asked her. 'No,' she said. 'Who are they?' 'Two of them. The ones we don’t like. Big and noisy and stupid and smelly. Just like they always are.' 'Oh no,' said Mimi. 'How awful! Still, I suppose we can just ignore them.' 'I suppose you're right,' agreed Alberto. 'We'll just have to ignore them.' For a few days, then, Alberto and Mimi tried to ignore their new neighbours. When the neighbours went out for a walk, Alberto and Mimi didn...

Listen/Download :     I have a friend who is afraid of spiders. This isn't very unusual; a lot of people are afraid of spiders. I don't really like spiders much myself. I don't mind them if I see them outside in the garden, as long as they're not too big. But if one comes in the house, especially if it's one of those really big spiders with furry legs and little red eyes, then I go 'Yeeucch' and I try to get rid of it. Usually I'll use a brush to get rid of the spider, but if I feel brave then I'll put a glass over the top of it, slide a piece of paper under the glass and then take it outside. This is quite normal, I think. But my friend isn't afraid of spiders in any normal way. She isn't just afraid of spiders, she is totally, completely and utterly terrified of them. When my friend sees a spider, she doesn't just go 'Uurgghh!' or run away or ask someone else to get rid of the horrible creepy-crawly. No, she screams ...

The word 'didn't' is a contraction of the words 'did not'. When using it in a sentence with the words 'mean to' you are informing someone that you did something you regret or are sorry for. This could have been a physical, mental or verbal action. Examples: "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings." "I didn't mean to call you so late." "I didn't mean to lie about what happened." "I didn't mean to embarrass you." "I didn't mean to stay out so late." "I did not mean to say those things." "I did not mean to leave you out." "I did not mean to make you confused." "I did not mean to think you were involved." "I did not mean to cause trouble."

Listen/Download :     There was once a merchant who employed many carpenters and masons to build a temple in his garden. Regularly, they would start work in the morning; and take a break for the mid-day meals, and return to resume work till evening. One day, a group of monkey arrived at the site of the building and watched the workers leaving for their mid-day meals. One of the carpenters was sawing a huge log of wood. Since, it was only half-done; he placed a wedge in between to prevent the log from closing up. He then went off along with the other workers for his meal. When all the workers were gone, the monkeys came down from the trees and started jumping around the site, and playing with the instruments. There was one monkey, who got curious about the wedge placed between the log. He sat down on the log, and having placed himself in between the half-split log, caught hold of the wedge and started pulling at it. All of a sudden, the wedge came out. ...

When stating 'I was about to' you are informing someone that you were going to do something, but another event prevented you from doing it. It is similar to 'I am about to' but the difference is that you will not do it any longer. Since you will not do it any longer, it becomes a past event. That is why we use 'was' instead of 'am' Here is an example conversionsation to help you understand. A: Hi Mike. I need to ask you a favor. B: Hey Bob. What do you need? A: Can you drive me to the convenient store? My car is in the shop and we really need to get milk. B: Sure. I can do that. A: Were you in the middle of something? I don't want to bother you. B: I was about to watch a movie, but that can wait. In this case, he cannot say, "I am about to watch a movie" because he will not be watching it because he has to drive his friend. You use "I was about to" when you will not be doing something immediately because of so...

Listen/Download :     They even dressed us the same. My mother said that it was easier for her just to buy two of everything. Sometimes it was the same clothes but in different colours – a red top for me and a yellow one for my sister, for example. When they did that, we swapped the clothes so that they still couldn’t tell us apart. Not even our parents could tell us apart. Our schoolteachers never could. And then there were our names. It was crazy – they called us Edie and Evie! Even our names were almost identical. Two peas in a pod, they called us. Two drops of water. Sometimes we could hardly tell ourselves from each other. At least, when we were small. But as we grew up things began to change. Everybody thinks identical twins are, well, identical. But if you’re a twin, you’ll know that it’s not true. Physically, yes, we were almost identical. I say almost, because there was the birthmark. My sister has a very small brown spot on her left shoulder. I don’...

'I gotta' is grammatically incorrect. It is more of a spoken form. If you want to say this with proper grammar, the equivalent would be, 'I have got to' or 'I've got to'. In the spoken form, 'got to' is shortened to 'gotta' and the word 'have' is dropped. Examples "I gotta manage my money." "I gotta obey the laws." "I gotta move to a bigger house." "I gotta impress my boss." "I gotta brush my teeth." By adding the word 'have' you can change what you are saying to express something that needs to be done in the near future. Examples "I have got to be on time to work." "I've gotta try harder at school." "I've gotta tell my wife I'll be late." "I've gotta learn more about the laws." "I've gotta clean my house today."