710. The Umbrella Man by Roald Dahl (Short Story)

hello video viewers you're going to watch me record an episode of my podcast and i'll be sharing my screen so you'll be able to see the text on the screen while you are watching uh that way you can sort of read uh the stuff that i'm reading at the same time as me if that's what you'd like to do this will also be available as a normal episode of my audio podcast so you can listen to it when you're doing other things like you can listen to it while you're doing the housework or when you're traveling or simply while lying down in a dark room with your eyes closed or something it's completely up to you but basically video version here and audio version are on my podcast as normal okay right so let's get started i'm now going to share my screen and then do the jingles so just bear with me while i share my screen here okay there we go and i'm going to do the jingle so before you start reading that before you start right you know if you show text on a screen it's human nature that everyone just starts reading the text i'm reading the text despite the fact that i'm not actually saying that but anyway jingle and then we'll start here we go [Music] you're listening to luke's english podcast for more information visit teacherloop.com hello listeners how are you today i hope you're doing well in podcast land wherever you are and whatever you're doing at this moment in time so in this episode i'm going to read a short story to you which i hope will be an entertaining and pleasant way to learn english with my podcast i'll also give some comments on the story afterwards and i will highlight a few bits of vocabulary at the end but the main thing is i'd just like to let you listen to a good quality and entertaining short story in english i am currently videoing myself while recording this episode and the video will be available on my youtube channel and on my website and i'm sharing my screen in the video so you can read my notes and the text for this story with me if you like sort of like an on-screen transcript the notes and stuff will also be available on the page for this episode on my website uh so check them the show notes for the link for that right so the story i'm going to read today is called the umbrella man by roald dahl i think it was originally published in 1980 in his book more tales of the unexpected so do you know roald dahl i have read a role style story on this podcast before that was the hitchhiker in episode 545 it was a popular one so let's do it again roald dahl is one of the uk's favorite authors and of course he's popular around the world too you might already be aware of him and his work he was born in 1916 and died in 1990 and most of his writing was done in the 70s and 80s his most famous stories were written for children and we think of titles like charlie and the chocolate factory james and the giant peach the bfg matilda and plenty of others and my childhood was full of roald dahl stories that we read at school and read at home and stuff may be yours too but he also wrote a lot of short stories for adults or young adults particularly earlier in his career and this is one of those stories so i'd like to suggest that you purchase some of his work his books i've got uh two books of his short stories for adults i've actually got them right here so i've got two two books of his short stories the books are called uh roald dahl the complete short stories volumes one and two and i highly recommend them okay there you go you can hear the hear the pages of the books aren't they wonderful books aren't they wonderful things so um those books are available from all the usual bookshops okay roald dahl the complete short stories volumes one and two the umbrella man appears in the complete short stories volume two um so here are a few just quickly before we start the story a few notes on language and style in this story so the story was published over 30 years ago now and was probably written earlier than that i'm not sure when the story is set when it's supposed to happen but it feels a little bit old-fashioned for the most part the english is the sort of modern neutral english that you would come across today and so all of it is appropriate for you to learn and use but some of the dialogue is a bit dated i'll point out some of that old-fashioned language later by today's standards the characters sound quite posh and upper class and i'll try to reflect this in the way that i read it out i'll give more comments at the end on the story and also the language in the story i'm going to start in just a moment here are some comments on how to use this episode so you could first of all you could just listen follow what i'm saying enjoy the story and don't feel pressured to do anything else just listen and enjoy it i hope um secondly if you want to take it further and push your your learning more then you could get a copy of the story and use it as a learning resource if you want the text of the story you could buy the complete short stories volume 2 and read it there alternatively i found a pdf copy of the book online i just googled the umbrella man pdf and i found it this is a pdf copy of the book which has been posted by someone online so you could click the link to the pdf and read that and you'll find the link in the show notes and on the episode page i'll be reading from the pdf so that we can see it on the screen at the same time so you could read it while you listen to me so you can connect the written word to the spoken word or you could read it again later and take more time over it now for pronunciation you could shadow the story with me that means read aloud at the same time as you listen perhaps with the text in front of you you could record yourself reading the story and then listen back and compare it to my recording perhaps focusing on different aspects of pronunciation like how i'm pronouncing different words or even things like where the stresses are in sentences or where the pauses are and stuff like that for vocabulary you could find any words or phrases that you don't know and check them using an online dictionary like for example collinsdictionary.com and oxford cambridge longman and macmillan dictionaries are also available and i often use them as a teacher too or as i said just relax and listen to the story without worrying about doing anything else so let's start the story let's get started i will summarize this at the end in plain english so you can be sure you understand the so you can be sure you understood the main events but now let's get started and i'm going to click on the pdf here to open it up on my computer hold on a minute i want that's it there we go so it's the right size okay are you ready are you steady let's go are you sitting comfortably that seems to be the thing that you're supposed to say at the beginning of the beginning of the story are you sitting comfortably if you are then we'll begin so the umbrella man by roald dahl right so i'm going to tell you about a funny thing that happened to my mother and me yesterday evening i am 12 years old and i'm a girl my mother is 34 but i'm nearly as tall as her already yesterday afternoon my mother took me up to london to see the dentist he found one hole it was in a back tooth and he filled it without hurting me too much after that we went to a cafe i had a banana split and my mother had a cup of coffee by the time we got up to leave it was about six o'clock when we came out of the cafe it had started to rain we must get a taxi my mother said we were wearing ordinary hats and coats and it was raining quite hard why don't we go back into the cafe and wait for it to stop i said i wanted another one of those banana splits they were gorgeous it isn't going to stop my mother said we must get home we stood on the pavement in the rain looking for a taxi lots of them came by but they all had passengers inside them i wish we had a car with a chauffeur my mother said just then a man came up to us he was a small man and he was pretty old probably 70 or more he raised his hat politely and said to my mother excuse me i do hope you will excuse me he had a fine white moustache and bushy white eyebrows and a wrinkly pink face he was sheltering under an umbrella which he held high over his head yes my mother said very cool and distant i wonder if i could ask a small favor of you he said it is only a very small favor i saw my mother looking at him suspiciously she is a suspicious person my mother she is especially suspicious of two things strange men and boiled eggs when she cuts off the top of a boiled egg she pokes around inside it with her spoon as though expecting to find a mouse or something with strange men she has a golden rule which says the nicer the man seems to be the more suspicious you must become this little old man was particularly nice he was polite he was well spoken he was well dressed he was a real gentleman the reason i knew he was a gentleman was because of his shoes you can always spot a gentleman by the shoes he wears was another of my mother's favorite sayings this man had beautiful brown shoes the truth of the matter is the little man was saying i've got myself into a bit of a scrape i need some help not much i assure you it's it's almost nothing in fact but i do need it you see madam old people like me often become terribly forgetful my mother's chin was up and she was staring down at him along the full length of her nose it was a fearsome thing this frosty nosed stare of my mother's most people go to pieces completely when she gives it to them i once saw my own headmistress at school begin to stammer and simper like an idiot when my mother gave her a really foul frosty noser but the little old man on the pavement with his umbrella over his head didn't bat an eyelid he gave a gentle smile and said i beg you to believe madam that i am not in the habit of stopping ladies in the street and telling them my troubles i should hope not my mother said i felt quite embarrassed by my mother's sharpness i wanted to say to her oh mummy for heaven's sake he's a very old man and sweet and polite and he's in some sort of trouble so don't be so beastly to him but i didn't say anything the little man shifted his umbrella from one hand to the other i've never forgotten it before he said you've never forgotten what my mother asked sternly my wallet he said i must have left it in my other jacket isn't that the silliest thing to do are you asking me to give you money my mother said oh good gracious me not he cried heaven forbid i should ever do that then what are you asking my mother said do hurry up we're getting soaked to the skin here i know you are he said and that is why i'm offering you this umbrella of mine to protect you and to keep forever if well if only if only what my mother said if only you would give me in return a pound for my taxi fare just to get home my mother was still suspicious if you had no money in the first place she said then how did you get here i walked he answered every day i go for a lovely long walk and then i summon a taxi to get me home i do it every day of the year why don't you walk home now my mother asked oh i wish i could he said i do wish i could but i don't think i could manage it on these silly old legs of mine i've gone too far already my mother stood there chewing her lower lip she was beginning to melt a bit i could see that and the idea of getting an umbrella to shelter under must have tempted her a good deal it's a lovely umbrella the little man said so i've noticed my mother said it's silk he said i can see that then why don't you take it madam he said it cost me over 20 pounds i promise you but now it's of no importance so long as i can get home and rest these old legs of mine i saw my mother's hand feeling for the clasp of her purse she saw me watching her i was giving her one of my own frosty nosed looks this time and she knew exactly what i was telling her now listen mummy i was telling her you simply mustn't take advantage of a tired old man in this way it's a rotten thing to do my mother paused and looked back at me then she said to the little man i don't think it's quite right that i should take an umbrella from you worth 20 pounds i think i'd better just give you the taxi fare and be done with it no no no he cried it's out of the question i wouldn't dream of it not in a million years i would never accept money from you like that take the umbrella dear lady and keep the rain off your shoulders my mother gave a triumphant sideways look there you are she was telling me you're wrong he wants me to have it she fished into her purse and took out a pound note she held it out to the little man he took it and handed her the umbrella he pocketed the pound raised his hat gave a quick bow from the waist and said thank you madam thank you and then he was gone come under here and keep dry darling my mother said aren't we lucky i've never had a silk umbrella before i couldn't afford it why were you so horrid to him in the beginning i asked i wanted to satisfy myself that he wasn't a trickster she said and i did he was a gentleman i'm very pleased i was able to help him yes mommy i said a real gentleman she went on wealthy too otherwise he wouldn't have had a silk umbrella i shouldn't be surprised if he isn't a titled gentleman sir harry goldsworthy or something like that yes mummy this will be a very good lesson to you she went on never rush things always take your time when you're summing someone up then you'll never make mistakes there he goes i said look where over there he's crossing the street goodness mummy what a hurry he's in we watched the little man as he dodged nimbly in and out of the traffic when he reached the other side of the street he turned left walking very fast he doesn't look very tired to me does he to you mummy my mother didn't answer he doesn't look as though he's trying to get a taxi either i said my mother was standing very still and stiff staring across the street at the little man we could see him clearly he was in a terrific hurry he was bustling along the pavement sidestepping the other pedestrians and swinging his arms like a soldier on the march he's up to something my mother said stoney faced but what i don't know my mother snapped but i'm going to find out come with me she took my arm and we crossed the street together then we turned left can you see him my mother asked yes there he is he's turning right down the next street we came to the corner and turned right the little man was about 20 yards ahead of us he was scuttling along like a rabbit and we had to walk very fast to keep up with him the rain was pelting down harder than ever now and i could see it dripping from the brim of his hat on his shoulders but we were snug and dry under our lovely big silk umbrella what is he up to my mother said what if he turns around and sees us i asked i don't care if he does my mother said he lied to us he said he was too tired to walk any further and he's practically running us off our feet he's a bare-faced liar he's a crook you mean he's not a title gentleman i asked be quiet she said at the next crossing the little man turned right again then he turned left and then right i'm not giving up now my mother said he's disappeared i cried where's he gone he went in that door my mother said i saw him into that house great heavens it's a pub it was a pub in big letters right across the front of it it said the red lion you're not going in are you mummy no she said we'll watch from outside there was a big plate glass window along the front of the pub and although it was a bit steamy on the inside we could see through it very well if we went close we stood huddled together outside the pub window i was clutching my mother's arm the big raindrops were making a loud noise on our umbrella there he is i said over there the room we were looking into was full of people and cigarette smoke and our little man was in the middle of it all he was now without his hat and coat and he was edging his way through the crowd towards the bar when he reached it he placed both hands on the bar itself and spoke to the barman i saw his lips moving as he gave his order the barman turned away from him for a few seconds and came back with a smallish tumbler filled to the brim with light brown liquid the little man placed a pound note on the counter that's my pound my mother hissed by golly he's got a nerve what's in the glass i asked whiskey my mother said neat whiskey the barman didn't give him any change from the pound that must be a treble whiskey my mummy said what's a treble three times the normal measure she answered the little man picked up the glass and put it to his lips he tilted it gently then he tilted it higher and higher and very soon all the whiskey had disappeared down his throat in one long pour that's a jolly expensive drink i said it's ridiculous my mummy said fancy paying a pound for something to swallow in one go it cost him more than a pound i said it cost him a 20 pound silk umbrella so it did my mother said he must be mad the little man was standing by the bar with the empty glass in his hand he was smiling now and a sort of golden glow of pleasure was spreading over his round pink face i saw his tongue come out to lick the white moustache as though searching for one last drop of that precious whiskey slowly he turned away from the bar and edged his way back through the crowd to where his hat and coat were hanging he put on his hat he put on his coat then in a manner so superbly cool and casual that you hardly noticed anything at all he lifted from a coat rack one of the many wet umbrellas hanging there and off he went did you see that my mother shrieked did you see what he did shh i whispered he's coming out we lowered our umbrella to hide our faces and looked out from under it out he came but he never looked in our direction he opened his new umbrella over his head and scurried off down the road the way he'd come so that's his little game my mother said neat i said super we followed him back to the main street where we had first met him and we watched him as he proceeded with no trouble at all to exchange his new umbrella for another pound note this time it was with a tall thin fellow who didn't even have a coat or hat and as soon as the transaction was completed our little man trotted off down the street and was lost in the crowd but this time he went in the opposite direction you see how clever he is my mother said he never goes to the same pub twice he could go on doing this all night i said yes my mother said of course but i'll bet he prays like mad for rainy days okay and that is the end of the story huh right well i hope you enjoyed that did you enjoy it i hope so did you manage to understand everything i expect you did i don't think it's an overly complex story and it's told it's sort of written in a fairly clear and simple way maybe a few bits of vocab in there that you aren't familiar with but as i said before you could check those in a good online dictionary if you can just access the text of this and look at them again later so let me just give you a summary of the story just to make sure that you've got it okay so here's a summary from a website called roldalefans.com and it neatly summarizes the story in plain english in a couple of paragraphs this should help you to make sure you got the main plot as i said if you have specific bits of vocabulary that you'd like to check you can do that on your own using one of those dictionaries we might go through a few little details in a minute but first let me read out this summary so i said we might go through a few other details in a minute we will we'll go through some of the sort of old-fashioned or posh sounding language that i noticed in there because i'm thinking about you and your english and i want you to you know be sure that you're learning the right kind of modern normal english that people use today so i think it's worth sort of picking out bits of language in there which sound to me a bit old-fashioned or a bit kind of posh if you're not if you're wondering what posh means essentially we're talking about upper class or you know like obviously the royal family the queen that's the poshest family in the country um and generally speaking most people are not that posh and um posh people have a certain way of speaking and it sounds a bit old-fashioned there's nothing wrong with being posh per se but i think it's worth highlighting which things sound a bit old-fashioned or a bit bit posh and which things um are just sort of normal standard english okay anyway let me read out this summary from roald dahl fans dot com just to make sure you've got the the story i just need to change the size of the screen here slightly okay so here's a plot description of that story just to make sure that you got it so the narrator of this story is a 12 year old girl who's gone to london with her mother to visit the dentist the girl has a tooth filled and then she and her mother go to a cafe afterwards when it's time to go home they discover that it's pouring rain and they have no umbrella they decide to get a taxi while they're waiting sorry while they're watching for a cab an old gentleman sheltering under an umbrella approaches them he asks for a favor the girl's mother is very distrustful of strange men the old man explains that he's forgotten his wallet and would like to sell them his umbrella in return for taxi fare back to his home in return for the taxi fare back to his home he explains that it's a very nice silk umbrella worth 20 pounds but his legs are weak and he simply must take a taxi home the mother likes the sound of the deal although i should say at the beginning she's very skeptical of this man and very distrustful of of of people asking for things in the street which i guess is normal like you know if you live in a city you'll know that you often get approached by people who basically want you to give them money and it's normal to have a sort of slightly distrustful um position on those things i guess not everyone a lot of people just will happily give their money to people in the street but i think it's quite common for people to be a little bit distrustful of people approaching you in the street if you live in a city and the mother is certainly no exception um and but she's also kind of judgmental she judges people by their appearance a little bit and she says you know the best way to judge um something like the best way to judge the trustworthiness of a man is by looking at his shoes was that it let me just find that part of the text again where we talk about the shoes beautiful brown shoes that's right she said you can always spot a gentleman by the shoes he wears that was another of my mother's favorite sayings and this man had beautiful brown shoes so this is a woman who maybe understandably judges people by their appearance and she's definitely got a sense of like um well she certainly seems to respect upper-class people more than everyone else maybe that was just normal for the time anyway let's carry on so ultimately the mother likes the sound of the deal but the little girl worries that they're taking advantage of the old man the mother offers to simply give him the cab fare but he insists that they take the umbrella the transaction is made and everyone is happy and it's quite interesting to me um this point as the mother is proudly explaining the importance of correctly judging people the daughter notices that the old man has quickly crossed the street and is hurrying away so the mother is quite pleased with herself and she's happy to give her daughter a lesson about correctly judging people um but her sort of prejudices or maybe her judgment of this man based on his social class it's actually the thing it's actually her weakness this is how the man fools her into thinking that it's a legitimate transaction that's going on and that he's not tricking her although it's quite clever on behalf of the old man that he is um he's found quite a clever way to get money out of people i mean i guess ultimately the victims are the the the owners of the these expensive umbrellas which he's stealing so yeah he's definitely a crook he's definitely a thief there's no doubt about it anyway it's just interesting the way he uses people's preconceptions and prejudices as a way of gaining their trust to then get the money he needs to buy his whiskey so let's carry on with this summary he doesn't look very tired to me she said the mother is displeased he's up to something meaning he's doing something bad he's doing he's he's up to no good if you're up to something it could mean just doing something like what did you get uh what are you up to you know your phone your friend hey you know what are you up to oh i'm just doing nothing i'm listening to luke's english podcast that's not doing nothing that's a deeply important and valuable worthwhile thing all right anyway it's just an example anyway what are you up to what are you doing but also hmm he's up to something could mean that he's doing something naughty or doing something that he shouldn't be doing right so there's two meanings of to be up to something just to do something and to do something that you shouldn't really be doing so he's up to something they decide to follow him and find out they quickly follow him as he rushes through the rainy streets eventually they find themselves at a pub called the red lion and watch through the window as the old man enters and uses the pound note to pay for a triple whiskey that's a jolly expensive drink said the little girl it cost him a 20 pound silk umbrella notice that it's a 20 pound umbrella not a 20 pounds umbrella this is something that i've said many times but it's a common mistake that i hear people say um it's a three star hotel not a three stars hotel it's a 12 year old girl not a 12 years old girl and it's a five pound note not a five pounds note that's because notice the main noun five pound becomes the adjective to describe the noun and we don't pluralize our adjectives in english so a three-star hotel a five-pound note a twelve-year-old girl a five-hour flight a three minute walk and so on okay it cost him a 20 pound silk umbrella they watch as the old man finishes his drink and goes to retrieve his coat and hat just before he leaves the pub he smoothly plucks a wet umbrella from the coat rack and takes it with him so that's his game the mother explained they see him head back to the main street and sell the umbrella to another unsuspecting person someone who doesn't suspect that there's something funny going on then he heads off in another direction for another pub he could be doing this all night the girl says yes of course says the mother but i i'll bet he prays like mad for rainy days quite a nice ending line for the story because obviously the plan only works when it's raining i wonder what this old man does when it's not raining maybe he's got some other trick up his sleeve um all right let's go back to my notes um i mean lots of lots of sort of obviously good descriptive language in there you notice probably different words and phrases for moving around to head somewhere to scurry to scuttle words like that lots of good stuff lots of nice descriptive language which you could you know investigate again um in your own time if you've got the story let me just continue reading my notes here so i like this story because it's enjoyable to listen to the way the man persuades even this very suspicious woman to give him some money i don't think tricking people for money is good or anything like that but i do find it interesting when people have fairly complex but effective techniques for fooling people i don't know if you've ever come across this sort of thing in your life have you ever witnessed anyone doing these sorts of tricks i think probably for the most part when we experience these sorts of things personally they just make us angry or upset for obvious reasons i mean speaking from experience the only times i've seen this sort of thing happen have been in the context of like pickpockets in the street and that's not good i mean often because those pickpockets are just well you know that it's not something you can respect them for it's just basic theft like you get people um i've seen people do things like working in groups and you'll get a group of people who crowd around you and distract your attention while maybe one other person who you haven't noticed is maybe going through your bag i mean that's just really annoying or other things like you get people with clipboards like a clipboard with paper on it and a set of questions or something and they come up to you and and they i think they they often pray on tourists because they say english english and they're looking for people who speak english and they've got some bogus quiz or something or some thing that they set up questions and they use the clipboard to distract you and maybe to cover up what's going on under the clipboard and you don't notice that someone else is maybe going into your pockets or something like that um yeah so that's just pickpocketing which is not cool but anyway in this story i like the i like the complex and carefully prepared technique that this guy has has perfected it seems um going back to the notes it's also interesting how the woman's attitudes about class and social status make her quite susceptible to this man's trick and i'm sure she wouldn't be the only one she judges people by their appearances and seems a bit snobbish she sort of looks down her nose at certain people but when she gets the impression that they are sort of upper class or something she then sort of respects them a lot more um and the the old man uses that to his advantage he gives the impression of being a gentleman and this is what allows him to take advantage of the woman we all have natural prejudices which can affect the way we judge people it seems this old man uses people's prejudices as part of his trick here are some comments about the way the characters are described and the english used so for me one of the strengths of this story is the way the characters are given depth it's a short story and it's you know only a couple of pages long but you still get some sense of depth from the characters the story is told in a relatively simple manner with short sentences and not a lot of extraneous detail but the small details that are given make the characters three-dimensional this is done by showing us little contradictions in the things they say or do or at least hinting at some little conflicts that they seem to have inside them some positive and negative traits particularly the mother i think probably the mother is the most sort of fleshed out character and we observe the mother from the point of view of her young daughter so the mother is strict particularly in the way she talks to her daughter she says things like be quiet which i guess is slightly old-fashioned i feel like these days parents are less strict with their kids and they certainly don't speak in that kind of very direct and strict way anymore maybe i'm maybe i'm wrong i mean i have seen i have seen parents in england be pretty direct with their kids shut up you know that kind of thing um but anyway she's strict um but she's also willing to give her daughter a banana split after her dental appointment i don't know if you know what a banana split is but it's basically like a banana sliced in half with lots of cream and probably maybe chocolate sauce on it or something like that that's a banana split it's kind of a very sweet tasty dessert with a banana split in half so she's she's willing to give her daughter a banana split after her dental appointment i guess she is kind and loving and wants to treat her daughter to something nice after the frightening ordeal of going to the dentist but is it a good idea to treat your child to such a sugary dessert after the dentist has filled a hole in her tooth that's what i mean about certain kind of contradiction which brings the characters to life a little bit more because you know people are contradictory we we we do things that seem to contradict values we have and stuff like that i find that interesting um i guess we all have to balance being strict giving treats and managing the dental health of our children but it's interesting that we wonder slightly about what kind of mother she is this seems to be in question or maybe this is just because the girl who's 12 years old is starting as she's growing up and as she said getting taller nearly as tall as her mother she's sort of like reevaluating how she sees her mother maybe that's normal that's a kind of a normal thing that um sort of adolescent kids do they start to see their parents in a slightly different light the parents have to struggle to maintain um the respect of their kids to an extent maybe i'm reading too much into it here but what do you think what do you think is going what do you think is going on between the mother and the daughter does she seem to be a good mother i suppose that's a subjective thing but i'd be interested to know what you think she's a bit stuck up and snobbish she looks down her nose at the man when she believes he's begging for money which i suppose he's understandable but then she can't hide her admiration for him when she believes that he is perhaps a titled gentleman what was it sir she's sir sir harry goldsworthy she starts to fantasize about what his name could be and how how upper class and how connected he might be maybe someone who comes from the upper classes in society titled a gentleman with a title like lord blah blah blah or the earl of yada yada or like sir harry goldsworthy her attitudes about people and their status are clearly revealed by her reactions to the man at different moments this is a good example of the principle of show don't tell which i think is a good method for telling stories show don't tell basically means that it's always better to show the reader or the listener or whatever the audience how to feel rather than telling them how to feel so it's about showing people how to feel and letting people draw their own conclusions rather than just directly telling them what they should be feeling or thinking for example roald dahl could have told us directly that the mother was a bit snobbish by saying something like this my mother was always a bit snobbish and looked down on people lower than her and yet admired the upper classes hailey so roald dahl could have just added some clear description where essentially he tells us what to think of his mum of of the girl's mum but it's more effective for him to show us her attitudes by describing her reactions to the man at different moments in the story this allows us um to work out for ourselves that the mother is a bit of a snob or maybe she's just trying hard to get the best life for her and her family am i being unfair when i say that she's a bit snobbish maybe um but i think that i mean honestly i think that that's kind of what roald dahl is suggesting but that's sort of understandable as you know um i mentioned class before i think class being a theme here i think the woman is she mentions that she can't afford an umbrella she dreams of having a car with a chauffeur she's probably middle class and a lot of this is about social class you know how she respects the p the upper classes looks down on the lower classes this is a sort of feature of the class system and the pecking order of the class system which arguably doesn't exist that much anymore in the uk but maybe it does anyway back in the olden days even even sort of you know 30 40 years ago it was a lot more obvious so the mother dreams of living a more wealthy and privileged life having a car and a chauffeur this shows us something about her position in society and that she's probably middle class or upper middle class and dreams of having more comfort and convenience in her life like upper class people have she's very untrustworthy and suspicious are these negative traits or is it wise to be cautious of others but als she's also willing to be quite adventurous chasing after the old man when she realizes that he's up to something all of these little conflicting things so efficiently described help to flesh out her character and make her a lot more human and relatable we kind of see how the daughter might feel being a bit wary of her mother's strictness but enjoying spending time with her having just been treated to a nice banana split and sharing the afternoon together also her disappointment with the way her mother treats the old man at first learning about how to deal with strangers in the streets and then the excitement of chasing after him all right so roald dahl always does this it somehow allows you to experience the excitement of being with certain other people it's one of the great sort of things about his his work a lot of his stories involve that there's there's one called danny champion of the world which i remember from my childhood i think my dad read it to me and my brother and danny champion of the world is all about a boy called danny and his his father and his father is very sort of um charismatic and excitable and they go off on a little adventure together and it's it gives you that sense of like the excitement of being with someone who you look up to and and someone who is an exciting person to be with then there's the little old man who just loves a drink of whiskey but apparently doesn't have any money of his own and yet he's cleverly come up with a genius little plan to get money from people in the street i suppose he won in the end and the mother was shown up to be a bit of a snob or something i keep saying that but maybe i'm being a bit mean to the mother is she a snob or is she just wary of certain types of person i don't know i'll let you decide i wonder if this little event affected the way the daughter saw the mother if it brought them closer or if the mother was embarrassed in the end it seems that the mother and daughter just shared a funny little experience together ultimately it's quite adorable the way the two of them interact and i get a warm feeling from them i like the neatness of the story the cleverness of the man's plan the mischievous elements and the moment when the old man drinks his whiskey it seems like he really enjoys it but what about you what do you think of the story leave your comments in the comments section um right let me go through some of that posh or old-fashioned sounding vocabulary again if there are specific words or phrases that you'd like to check i'll let you do that yourself using the book or the pdf and a good dictionary but i mentioned before about how some things sounded quite old-fashioned and posh and i'd like to point those things out things that sound posh or formal or at least old-fashioned and it seems that like posh people often sound a bit old-fashioned for some reason i wouldn't really use these phrases in my normal everyday life now obviously you can speak how you like i'm just pointing out things which i think sound a bit old-fashioned or posh so here's a list the first one was i assure you i assure you um when did he say that hmm i can't remember it but it would be something like um uh i you know i never do i never normally ask for money in the street i assure you um i would probably say honestly like i never normally ask money for people in this from people in the street honestly but i assure you sounds quite formal old people like me become terribly forgetful terribly meaning very or really i think that it sounds a bit more normal to say really old people like me become really forgetful terribly forgetful i mean it's nice language but it does sound a little bit old-fashioned next one i beg you to believe me madam i beg you i think we would probably say believe me please please believe me i beg you or even i beg of you to believe me sounds quite old-fashioned again and then this isn't it the silliest thing to do isn't it the silliest thing to do to forget your wallet um that sort of superlative with silly the silliest isn't it the silliest thing to do i think that we'd probably say something like isn't it such a stupid thing to do stupid rather than silly hmm next one the man said i summon a taxi to get me home i summon a taxi i think these days we would probably say i get a taxi or i call a taxi to get me home to summon a taxi sounds so kind of old-fashioned and formal like something out of a sherlock holmes story oh mummy this is one of the things that little girl said oh mummy this sounds really posh i think a lot of posh kids call their mum mummy i think most british kids call their mother mum so oh mum but oh mummy if you say oh mummy you sound really posh don't be so beastly to him beastly it's a fun word it means nasty horrible don't be so beastly to him mummy sounds really posh and old-fashioned i think these days it would be more common to say don't be so horrible to him and it's of no importance so long as i get home to be of no importance i think that sounds formal i think we'd probably say it's not important it's not important as long as i get home it seems in like a few decades ago or even further back it was more common to use more formal language especially when talking to people in the street or strangers you know people you don't know it seemed that people would just use more formal language less so these days things have become a lot more informal um in general next i wanted to satisfy myself that he wasn't a trickster a trickster is someone who tries to trick people to get something like this old man in fact he turned out that he was a trickster anyway she said i wanted to satisfy myself that he wasn't a trickster i would probably say i wanted to be sure that he wasn't a tricks trickster i wanted to be sure rather than i wanted to satisfy myself goodness mommy what a hurry he's in or or this one good heavens it's a pub or by golly he's got a nerve so goodness or good heavens or by golly these sorts of explanat exclamations are a bit old-fashioned now and then we tend to say things like oh my god or wow these days wow mummy he's look he's he's in such a hurry oh my god it's a pub oh my gosh maybe some people seem to think oh my god it's like a really rude thing i guess it depends on you know your religious beliefs and stuff but i would say that for the most part people say oh my god and it's you know it's it's sort of fine it's not considered to be really really shocking or rude if you say oh my god certainly less shocking than using a swear word um okay and then that's a jolly expensive drink using jolly as an adverb um with other with adjectives you know uh we had a a jolly expensive drink it's jolly uh well what what other examples jolly expensive jolly had a jolly good time it's it's yeah it sounds posh and sounds old-fashioned as i keep saying i would probably say that's a really expensive drink now really is less colorful than jolly but i just wanted you to know that jolly sounds a bit old-fashioned now as a as an adverb i mean jolly is also an adjective to feel jolly but again that's one that we don't really use anymore in in the uk so after you've had maybe a couple of whiskeys you might feel jolly but um we don't really use that word anymore so much especially not like this when using as an adverb with an adjective jolly expensive a jolly good time jolly good show sounds quite posh and then super again also sounds posh or old-fashioned and we tend to say words like amazing or brilliant okay so there you go i thought that i would just point those things out just to make sure that you know what kind of english you've just heard there do you fancy another roald dahl story um i have as many of you know i have read a roald dahl story before on the podcast some of you might remember i read the hitchhiker in episode 545 you can check it out in the archive if you'd like to listen to it there's also a link to that on the page for this episode on my website so you could listen to episode 545 the hitchhiker by roald dahl i'm just opening the page just so we can have a little look at that there you go luke's english podcast hitchhiker by there you go all right fine cool um so finally before we finish let's listen to the author himself roald dahl introducing this story at the start of an episode of the tv show tales of the unexpected check this out this is great this is actually him himself in a nice armchair reading a little introduction to this story because this um his his series of short stories published in his books that were called tales of the unexpected and more tales of the unexpected um a lot of those stories are now in you know the complete short stories the books i've got but yeah there was a tv show called tales of the unexpected and i think in many of the episodes roald dahl would actually give a little introduction before you watch the dramatized version of the story there is a dramatized version of the umbrella man it seems to be different it's like an extended version with changes made in the story but i think ultimately the the core of it is the same it's about an old man with this clever plan that he uses to trick an old uh a woman into giving him some money but anyway let's listen to roald dahl's introduction to uh this story from tales of the unexpected here we go it is very seldom that a short story writer is able to make anything worthwhile out of an incident that actually happened but this story is one of the rare exceptions i myself met the umbrella man on a street in new york city and i followed him just as in this story and i was delighted and amazed by what i found i must confess to you that i tried the same experiment myself a few days later to see if it really worked and it did i only hope that on the next rainy day that comes along we won't have thousands of you going out and doing the same thing it would cause chaos in the land that's great so um apparently he witnessed it himself i i believe that roald dahl witnessed a real umbrella man on the streets of new york but i wonder if he really did try the trick himself and whether you are tempted to try it too but i'm not sure the whole world needs more tricksters does it anyway thank you very much for listening and for watching this video on youtube if that's what you've been doing if you are on youtube don't forget to uh smash or indeed just click the like button and subscribe to the channel and leave a comment and all those things because it helps the algorithm otherwise thank you very much for watching and listening to this episode of my podcast i'll speak to you again soon on the i'll speak to you again soon in some form but for now it's time to say goodbye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye

Channel: Luke's English Podcast

Views: 448,066

Rating: 4.9530325 out of 5

Keywords: learn, learning, english, lesson, lessons, luke, podcast, luke's, vocabulary, native, speaker, interviews, listening, pronunciation, british, accent, london

Id: Fxm1vTW5jdg

Length: 55min 42sec (3342 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 17 2021