734. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells [Part 1] Learn English with Stories

hello video viewers how are you doing today so here's another video from me to you and in this one i'm going to tell you a story i'm going to be reading extracts from this book uh the war of the worlds this one actually has two books in it but i'm just going to be reading from extracts of the war of the worlds a classic science fiction story written by h.g wells okay there will be text on the screen so you can read with me and i'm going to start recording the audio for my podcast in just a second okay so you will be able to listen to this as a normal episode of the audio podcast so i think it's probably time do i need to say anything else to you i don't think so um i mean i'm gonna say the mo the main part of this will be me reading the story to you and it's a cracking story it is it's a fan it's one of my favorite books of all time and so yeah reading stories is a great way to to work on your english and reading and listening at the same time is obviously a very good idea so the main focus will be on just telling the story to you and trying to make it interesting and entertaining and explaining a few things as we go to make sure you understand um but i'll do a little introduction at the beginning i've got some things to say about my aims for the episode and also about the writing style that you can find in this because this is quite an old book it's over 100 years old now so the language is a little bit different to the english that we use today but it's that's good that's really interesting it's good to get a broad range of english exposure okay time to start recording the audio then and then we'll begin and you'll see the text on the screen in a second okay here we go hello listeners welcome back to luke's english podcast i hope you're doing well today out there in podcast land so it's story time in this episode because i'm going to tell you a classic english science fiction story the story is called war of the worlds by h.g wells the classic storyteller who also wrote the invisible man and the time machine and you've probably heard of war of the worlds because it is definitely one of the most famous and most influential science fiction stories ever written now i know that science fiction is not everyone's cup of tea right but i do hope that you stick around and listen to this story because i think this is just particularly good writing and the story is very exciting immersive and memorable so it should be a really enjoyable way to pick up some more english i won't be reading the whole book of course but i will be reading some selected extracts and giving you a summary of the key details in the first part of the story okay so if you want you could you know pick up the story yourself pick up the book and read the rest anyway i'll be i'll be covering sort of main parts of the first section of the of the book let me tell you my aims for this episode because i'm you know i'm trying to be serious about this trying to do this properly to help you learn english so i've got some aims objectives for the episode so first of all first and foremost i'd like to entertain you with a really engaging story in english and stories are a great way to get more english into your head and if they are exciting and immersive stories then that's even better secondly i want to show you a slightly old-fashioned version of english which is really rich in descriptive language and more formal in style than today's english it's good to be exposed to diverse versions of the language old-fashioned english is much more like modern formal english right so especially formal writing that we write today is much more like old fashioned english was all the time so basically studying a bit of old-fashioned english is quite a good lesson in style it will help you to understand formal english writing a little bit better maybe and this can generally just strengthen your english in various ways and i'd like to help you notice some nice bits of vocabulary along the way and as we know having a broad range of vocabulary is essential in achieving truly advanced english and this story is very rich in descriptive language also i'd like to inspire you perhaps to read the rest of the book and reading is such an important thing to do for your english and maybe you're looking for interesting books to read in that case you could consider this one it's not too long i've got a copy of the book here with me you can hear the pages of the book there and um yeah so i don't know how many pages is the war of the worlds it's it's about 173 pages long it's it's pretty short really by most standards so i think it's doable you could consider reading this if you want to know the whole story so this is also available as a video episode on youtube and if you watch you can see me recording the podcast with the text on the screen next to my face i don't know what's going to be more horrific the contents of this story or just seeing my face up close i don't know which one is going to be more frightening for you anyway so you can watch the video it's on my youtube channel and then you can listen and read at the same time and you can see me telling the story if that helps you can also read the entire text i'm reading from on the page for this episode at teacherluke.co.uk right so let me give you the context of the story and give a few comments about the writing style this is going to be fairly brief and then we'll jump straight into the actual proper you know contents of the story here so war of the worlds has been adapted lots of times in films most famously the 2005 steven spielberg film with tom cruise which you might have seen and another film version in the 1950s set in los angeles an audiobook musical version read by richard burton and an infamous dramatized radio series by orson welles this is the original alien invasion story this book was one of the very first stories to ever explore these themes and to describe these kinds of things in such a realistic way this is the one that has inspired so many others and in my opinion none of the other versions of this story or copies of this story can compare to this original version from 1897. the writing is very realistic and journalistic in style written from the first person perspective of a guy just experiencing the events as they happened and describing everything in great detail here's a note about the language and the writing style so the language is pretty old-fashioned you know it's from 1897 victorian times but it's really well written and it should be interesting for you and useful for your english to explore another slightly different version of this language exposure to to different types of english makes your english stronger i think and as we pass through this i will point out particular words or phrases as we go and perhaps compare this to normal modern plain english so it could be an interesting comparison uh sometimes i mean i've got to focus on telling you the story that's my main focus my main aim but every now and then i'll stop and just clarify or explain things or give comments on bits of english that we'll see comparing the styles of languages actually gives you more perspective on normal modern english and how formal written english today still retains some aspects of old fashioned language there's quite a lot of language you might find in legal documents or other very formal situations you know words like therein hereby forthwith and sing and things like that are quite common in this book as well as certain structures longer sentences and choices of words which mark this out in a particular style this is very descriptive literary language from over 100 years ago it's more complex than today's english more formal than today's english and very specific in its descriptions this will probably be a challenge for you but i'm here to help and i will explain things as we go also this is quite scary stuff i have to add actually that having re-read some of this story in preparation for this episode i hadn't realized just how terrifying the story is personally i really enjoy the thrills that you get from a story like this but if you are feeling a bit force sensitive today you might want to get a pillow or hide behind the sofa or something like that a couple of useful links and sources i should name before starting so here are a couple of links i have found useful in making this episode first of all project gutenberg so i have uh several paperback copies of this book myself um but i also found the book online at guttenberg.org that's g-u-t-e-n-b-e-r-g guttenberg.org this is a website which shares stories and books which are now in the public domain and the war of the worlds is in the public domain so you can actually get free online versions of this story and i got mine at gutenberg.org in fact there is a link to the html version of this book uh which you'll find in the description in fact all links and things links to parts two and three of this episode series you'll find those in the description too any useful stuff there they're going to be in the description including course hero study notes uh there's a website called coursehero.com which has useful summaries of the story and other useful information and i paraphrased and took some of the you know quoted some of the um summaries from coursehero.com as well okay so we're we are ready to start the story now okay so let me summarize the opening chapters in fact i'm going to read the i'm going to read the opening uh i'm going to read the opening paragraphs of the book to you now these paragraphs set the scene in which the events take place and note the somber tone and specific choice of language somber tone it's like dark and serious and the specific choice of language by the way i should mention that the main character of this story we don't know his name he's an unnamed narrator a narrator is someone who is telling the story but we know that he's a middle class educated man who writes philosophical papers and is interested in science that's all we know basically the story is written in the past tense as if he's looking back on those events and has written a full account of what happened so let's start then with the first few paragraphs of this story chapter one the eve of war the eve of war this is like you know just before the war okay um and here we go so no one would have believed in the last years of the 19th century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own that as men busy themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinized and studied perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water that's a great opening to a book don't you think that is one single sentence as well by the way one sentence one long sentence um no one would have believed in the last years of the 19th century that this world was being watched keenly meaning closely with great focus uh and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own that as men busyed themselves about their various concerns as men meaning people went around in a busy fashion um about their various you know issues concerns that they had to deal with they were scrutinized scrutinized meaning studied and examined very carefully and watched closely and studied perhaps almost as narrowly or specifically as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water so if you are a scientist looking at microorganisms on a slide in a drop of water through a microscope in the same way these intelligences have been watching us which is quite interesting comparing us to microorganisms which kind of gives us a sense of just how more advanced and more powerful these other intelligences are let's continue with infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs serene in their assurance of their empire over mata it is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same so complacency when you're complacent it means that you are confident and self-assured you're relaxed because you're certain that everything is all right that you're doing really well okay and the idea is that uh people humans are complacent in their position in the natural order of things that we are the dominant species on earth we don't have many predators that are a daily concern and this has made us complacent that we are we've just very self-assured that we are um you know that we are um the masters of our environment and with infinite complacency men went to and fro meaning went here and there back and forth over this globe about their little affairs their business affairs serene in their assurance of their empire over mata serene is calm and peaceful we were so calm and peaceful in our assurance in our certainty of our empire over mata that we were the we were the ones in control of everything of stuff mata it is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same infusoria i suppose means like the little microorganisms in the drop of water under the microscope okay no one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable it is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days at most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon mars perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise so apparently before the events of this story people were you know people maybe thought there might be some life on mars but probably inferior to us and they would probably welcome a visit from us because we would be there to help them and you know they would bow down to us as our as their colonial masters kind of thing yet across the gulf of space minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic regarded this earth with envious eyes and slowly and surely drew their plans against us and early in the 20th century came the great disillusionment that's a good opening opening um extract from a from a book don't you think across the gulf of space golf meaning the space the the the emptiness of space minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish so in the sense that our minds are greater than the animals and in the same way their minds are greater than ours so we become like animals to them um and these their intellects are vast meaning massive huge and cool so unemotional and unsympathetic as well they don't care about us regarded this earth watched this earth with envious eyes they were jealous it does explain later in this pat in this uh chapter that basically the martians um they live on mars right and you know mars is further from the sun than the earth it's the next planet away from the sun and their planet is getting cooler and cooler all the time so we these days we've got global warming but in the story the martians are afraid of global cooling and it's making their habit their planet uninhabitable i'll explain this in a minute and so they are looking at earth because they would like to colonize the earth in order to survive as a species and early in the 20th century came the great disillusionment the great disillusionment meaning a great change in human consciousness when we realized we were no longer or we weren't actually the top of the food chain so let me summarize the story up until chapter four i'm going to start reading from the book again at chapter four so that opening chapter describes how um species i think it's a species uh a species of intelligent creatures on mars has had been observing us for many years before the events of this story the opening chapter goes on to explain that the martians were planning to invade earth because their home planet was steadily getting cooler year after year due to the fact that it's further from the sun than the earth they faced extinction on their own planet and so they set their sights on their nearest neighbor earth with its warmer atmosphere and closer position to the sun and with their superior mathematical knowledge and technology they decided they would colonize earth in order to survive they spent years observing us and planning the invasion and by the way here's a note sort of language note i'm using present tenses from now on to describe this story and this is a normal way to retell the plot of a book film or play right and since i am sort of recounting uh the plot of this book i'm using present tenses okay this is because the events of the story are permanent because they never change they are written into the book that way so we can use present tenses to summarize the story of a book or film in english and it's probably the same in your language too all right so let's keep going now the the narrator of this story has a friend his his name is uh ogilvy and ogilvy is a respected astronomer a scientist who observes the the stars he has a telescope and uses it to observe the night sky including the surface of mars our nearest neighbor so ogilvy is our friend and he's an astronomer six years before the main events of the story ogilvy invites the narrator to an observatory a place where you can observe the sky to study mars after another astronomer reported a dramatic explosion of gas on the surface of the planet which seems to be directed towards earth the narrator observes a similar explosion as he watches through the telescope right so scientists have observed explosions on mars and ogilvy s says to the narrator come over to the observatory and have a look at mars and so he looks through the telescope and while he's looking he sees some of these explosions now um ogilvy doubts the existence of life on mars and speculates the phenomenon may be related to meteorites or volcanoes many other people witness the phenomenon which repeats itself at midnight over a total of 10 days so midnight every night for 10 days explosions on the surface of mars nobody at the time is concerned or worried about the explosions on mars six years later some people see a falling star right but a falling star is essentially a piece of rock an asteroid which burns through the earth's atmosphere and maybe lands to earth as a meteorite so some people see a falling star a meteorite which flies through the night sky with a bright green flash and lands nearby near the nearby where the narrator lives on horsel common horse all common is a large area of grass meadows and trees sort of just south west of london again nobody assumes there is anything weird going on ogilvy the astronomer is interested in the meteorite and finds it on the common he goes down to investigate and he finds it as it has landed it has formed a large crater of sand so it's impacted on the ground pushing all the sand uh you know to to the sides creating a sort of sand pit so the object is lying at the bottom of a kind of large sand pit in the middle of an open area of grassland surrounded by buildings and trees the meteorite that ogilvy finds is quite odd it's in a cylindrical shape like a long can of coke sort of a cylinder cylinder kind of shape like a long can of coke or maybe a um a can of beer or something odd sort of cylindrical shape but ogilvy thinks that it's made of rock because it's covered in a kind of crusty layer it's also extremely hot and he can't get near it but he notices that there are weird sounds coming from inside it he assumes these are noises caused by the object cooling but as he continues to observe it he realizes that something funny is going on the crusty layer is slowly falling off like ash as the object cools revealing a kind of metallic surface underneath and even weirder than that the end of the cylinder appears to be turning very slowly as if it is unscrewing very slowly ogilvy suddenly assumes that the cylinder has people inside it and decides to get help and off he goes to try and get help but nobody believes him eventually he finds a journalist who is willing to check the cylinder henderson his name is a crowd of people begins to gather as word spreads about men from space stuck inside a cylinder on the common people don't quite realize what's going on but they are incredibly curious normal life continues with people stopping by to have a look at the object in the sand pit before continuing their normal routines so the narrator of the story goes down to horsel common to check out what's going on a larger crowd has gathered there he manages to squeeze through the crowd which is getting more and more excited and adjective and agitated a small group of scientists including the narrator's friend ogilvy are in the pit attempting to work out what is happening the narrator observes what is going on and comments on how most people are not really educated about this kind of thing and they haven't worked out what's going on but he assumes that the cylinder must be extraterrestrial it must be you know from somewhere not on earth from outer space he observes the end of the cylinder moving and as it turns it's revealing a kind of shining metal thread uh metal thread i'll give you an example of that on a screw you get you get metal thread trying to show you an example here on the video there you go this is this is a metal thread you see this is this is a kind of screw so as as the end of the cylinder is is slowly unscrewing it's revealing uh this kind of metal thread like it's a screw wow technology all right um the next chapter describes what happens when the end of the cylinder finally drops off revealing what is inside so i'm now going to read chapters four and five with comments and explanations as i go so picture the scene on the middle of a grassy common with trees and buildings in the distance not far from london the object has landed in the sand creating a kind of pit people are crowding around the ob the the end is unscrewing from this thing no one really knows what's going on the narrator approaches the pit containing the cylinder uh crowns of people are all around the pit trying to see what's happening they're pushing each other a bit and things are quite tense you know when a large crowd forms people start pushing and shoving and it's often quite stressful ogilvy and some of the other scientists and henderson the journalist are in the pit the sun is starting to go down as well in the distance right so chapter four the cylinder opens the crowd about the pit had increased and stood out black against the lemon yellow of the sky a couple of hundred people perhaps there were raised voices and some sort of struggle appeared to be going on about the pit strange imaginings passed through my mind as i drew nearer i heard stent's voice keep back keep back a boy came running towards me it's a move-in he said to me as he passed a screw-in and a screwing out i don't like it i'm a going home i am i went on to the crowd there were really i should think two or three hundred people elbowing and jostling one another the one or two ladies there being by no means the least active so there's people jostling like sort of jostling for position pushing and shoving and including a couple of ladies in there who are also doing a fair amount of shoving and pushing and elbowing he's fallen into the pit cried someone keep back said several the crowd swayed a little and i elbowed my way through everyone seemed greatly excited i heard a peculiar humming sound from the pit a humming sound would be a kind of [Laughter] that sort of thing i say said ogilvy keep these idiots back we don't know what's in the confounded thing you know so i say is a bit like kind of saying uh oh for goodness sake or oh god or something like that it's an exclamation i say very old-fashioned keep these idiots back we don't know what's in the confounded thing the confounded thing that's like in what's in the damn thing or in the bloody thing for the most part the language is really quite similar to the way we speak these days but just occasional words and some structures are different i saw a young man a shop assistant in woking i believe he was standing on the cylinder and trying to scramble out of the hole again the crowd had pushed him in the end of the cylinder was being screwed out from within nearly two feet of shining screw projected that's about 60 centimeters someone blundered against me they bumped into me and i narrowly missed being pitched on top of the screw i turned and as i did so the screw must have come out for the lid of the cylinder fell upon the gravel with a ringing concussion so he turned because someone pushed him and the screw must have fallen out while he wasn't looking because it as it landed it kind of went boom made a ringing concussion sound i stuck my elbow into the person behind me and turned my head towards the thing again for a moment that circular cavity seemed perfectly black i had the sunset in my eyes i think everyone expected to see a man emerge possibly something a little unlike us terrestrial men but in all essentials a man i know i did but looking i presently saw something stirring within the shadow grayish billowy movements one after another and then two luminous discs like eyes then something resembling a little grey snake about the thickness of a walking stick coiled up out of the writhing middle and wriggled in the air towards me and then another okay he looked into the darkness into the shadows and saw something stirring something moving around like maybe the beginnings of movement um something stirring within the shadow grayish billowy movements grayish kind of grayish in color kind of gray billowy this is a good one so to billow is a verb and so two examples smoke billows if there's a lot of smoke pouring out that kind of movement the way the smoke moves out in ever increasing circumference is it it billows also if you have a big sheet like a bed sheet and you've hung it out in the garden and it's being blown by the wind the sheet will billow like that as well so grayish billowy movements unclear one above another and then two luminous discs like eyes luminous means sort of glowing in the dark slightly then something resembling a little grey snake about the thickness of a walking stick coiled up so to coil uh snakes coil in a circle so this coiled up means it kind of uncoiled itself out of the writhing middle and wriggled in the air towards me a sudden chill came over me there was a loud shriek from a woman beside behind a shriek is a kind of a scream a shocked and frightened scream i half turned keeping my eyes fixed upon the cylinder still from which other tentacles were now projecting and began pushing my way back from the edge of the pit i saw astonishment giving place to horror on the faces of the people about me i heard inarticulate exclamations on all sides exclamations like shouts and you know words spoken in shock inarticulate so people not really able to express themselves just noises of shock and and terror there was a general movement backwards i saw the shop man struggling still on the edge of the pit i found myself alone and saw the people on the other side of the pit running off stent among them i looked again at the cylinder and ungovernable terror gripped me i stood petrified and staring ungovernable terror ungovernable meaning uncontrollable terror gripped me held held him i stood petrified and staring petrified means frozen unable to move and staring is looking intensely a grayish rounded bulk the size perhaps of a bear was rising slowly and painfully out of the cylinder as it bulged up and caught the light it glistened like wet leather a grayish a big grayish rounded bulk a bulk is a sort of a large round kind of heavy shape the size perhaps of a bear was rising slowly and painfully out of the cylinder as it bulged up to bulges to kind of expand and swell as it bulged up as it came up out of the cylinder and caught the light it glistened like wet leather so to glisten so if something is wet and the light catches it it kind of glistens it's a bit like glitter sort of shines shimmers like like a like a wet road in the middle of the night in the moonlight in this case this odd thing glistened like wet leather in the light two large dark colored eyes were regarding me steadfastly the mass that framed them the head of the thing was rounded and had one might say a face there was a mouth under the eyes the lipless brim of which quivered and panted and dropped saliva the whole creature heaved and pulsated convulsively a lank tentacular appendage gripped the edge of the cylinder another swayed in the air so two large dark-coloured eyes were regarding me watching me steadfastly like without moving without blinking the mass that framed them the head of the thing was rounded and had one might say a face there was a mouth under the eyes the lipless brim of which quivered and panted so the mouth was there the brim of the mouth brim could mean like the the edge like the edge of a cup is the brim of a couple or the edge of a glass okay but the brim in this case the brim um of the mouth is like the edge of the mouth and it's the lipless brim so they don't have lips there's just a weird edge of them of this of its mouth and it quivered and panted so to quiver means to shake quickly shake like that sort of um if you're very cold you might quiver but the mouth of this horrible creature is quivering shaking and it's panting as well so pant is like what a um a dog does on a hot day if it's been running around it will pant it sticks its tongue out and like that so the thing is horrible it's quivering and panting and it's dropping saliva from its mouth the whole creature heaved and pulsated convulsively it heaved suggested that it sort of was maybe breathing with difficulty or moving heavily and it pulsated sort of hmm pulsate is sort of like maybe throbbed uh convulsively like without being able to stop itself it just sort of like maybe a bit like maybe um uh blowing up a balloon and as the balloon swells up and goes down up and down up and down it's pulsating convulsively oh my goodness those who've never seen a living martian can scarcely imagine the strange horror of its appearance the peculiar v-shaped mouth with its pointed upper lip the absence of brow ridges your brow is basically the area above your eyes your eyebrows your hair your forehead um no brow ridge so just flat from the head flat all the way over to the eyes the absence of a chin beneath the wedge-like lower lip the incessant quivering of its mouth that's like shaking and moving quickly the gorgon groups of tentacles the tumultuous breathing of the lungs in a strange atmosphere the evident heaviness and painfulness of movement due to the greater gravitational energy of the earth above all the extraordinarily intensity of the immense eyes were at once vital intense inhuman crippled and monstrous there was something fungoid in the oily brown skin something in the clumsy deliberation of the of tedious movements unspeakably nasty even at this first encounter this first glimpse i was overcome with disgust and dread wonderful descriptive language so let me just go through some of those things again i've talked about the absence of brow ridges uh quivering of its mouth the gorgon groups of tentacles so gorgon this comes from greek mythology um medusa the gorgon the gorgons were three sisters and they had uh snakes for hair and um if you look them in the eyes you would turn to stone they were that scary and cursed so gorgons were mythical creatures with snakes for heads so they have gorgon groups of tentacles so sort of evoking uh the story of medusa there the tumultuous breathing of the lungs in in the in the strange atmosphere so tumultuous meaning sort of like um uneven and desperate so breathing heavily um the evident heaviness evident meaning obvious the obvious heavy the obvious heaviness and painfulness of movement due to the greater gravitational energy of the earth and above all the extraordinary intensity of the immense eyes were at once vital intense inhuman crippled and monstrous there was something fungoid in the oily brown skin fungoid meaning like a fungus fungus that would include things like mushrooms and mold so the the uh the oily brown skin was somehow kind of like a fungus in texture something in the clumsy deliberation of the tedious movements unspeakably nasty even at this first encounter this first glimpse i was overcome with disgust and dread whoa a glimpse is a quick look he was overcome overpowered with a sense of disgust and dread and i feel like this is a bit like if you spend any length of time staring at a nasty looking insect or even just a picture of a nasty horrible looking insect imagine the most horrible insect or s or just spider and staring at it or staring at a picture of it it kind of makes your skin crawl almost sort of instinctively that's what he was feeling just even glimpsing at it at this thing made him completely disgusted and full of dread on an almost sort of genetic level suddenly the monster vanished it had toppled over the brim of the cylinder and fallen into the pit with a thud like the fall of a great mass of leather i heard it give a peculiar thick cry and forthwith another of these creatures appeared darkly in the deep shadow of the aperture so the monster disappeared because it toppled over it kind of fell over the brim of the cylinder and fell into the pit with a thud like the fall of a great mass of leather kind of fell on the ground as if it was someone had dropped a big pile of leather on the ground thunk i heard it give a peculiar thick cry and forthwith meaning immediately another of these creatures appeared darkly in the deep shadow of the aperture the aperture meaning the opening of the cylinder i turned and running madly made for the first group of trees perhaps a hundred yards away but i ran slantingly but i ran slantingly and stumbling for i could not avert my face from these things so he started to run away maybe about 100 yards but he was running sort of diagonally and he kept looking back there among some young pine trees and furs bushes i stopped panting and waited further developments so he ran under the cover of some trees and just sort of waited the common round the sand pits was dotted with people standing like myself in a half-fascinated terror staring at these creatures or rather at the heaped gravel at the edge of the pit in which they lay and then with a renewed horror i saw a round black object bobbing up and down on the edge of the pit it was the head of the shop man who had fallen in but showing as a little black object against the hot western sun now he got his shoulder and knee up and again he seemed to slip back until only his head was visible suddenly he vanished and i could have fancied a faint shriek had reached me i had a momentary impulse to go back and help him that my fears overruled everything was then quite invisible hidden by the deep pit and the heap of sand that the fall of the cylinder had made anyone coming along the road from chobham or woking would have been amazed at the site a dwindling multitude of perhaps 100 people or more standing in a great irregular circle in ditches behind bushes behind gates and hedges saying little to one another in short excited shouts and staring staring hard at a few heaps of sand a barrow of ginger beer stood a queer derelict black against the burning sky and in the sand pits was a row of deserted vehicles with their horses feeding out of nosebags or pouring at the ground wow what a powerful scene so everyone's seen the aliens very briefly and run away and run back and they're sort of paralyzed with fear staring from different vantage points at the pit but everything seems kind of peaceful weirdly enough and h.g wells paints this lovely picture this kind of weird bizarre kind of post-apocalyptic atmosphere a barrow of ginger beer so a bit ginger beer is a drink a barrow of ginger beer would be i guess a cart of ginger beer just like an object a queer derelict black against the burning sky queer meaning strange and a derelict is is like a building or a machine that nobody uses anymore it's been abandoned maybe it's damaged or something so this sort of cart with ginger beer in it stands like a queer derelict like a strange un um a strange abandoned machine black against the burning sky silhouetted and in the sand pits was a row of deserted vehicles with their horses feeding out of nosebags or pouring the ground um right here's a summary of chapter four okay everybody how are you doing you're right you're managing to stay focused i don't know if it's difficult to stay focused during this i know the story well now i've read it many times so i know like i know it sort of really really closely the first time you listened to this it might be a little bit confusing some of the language is a bit specific anyway i'm now going to give you a summary of chapter 4 what we've just read in plain english just to make sure that you are understanding everything so as the sun sets as the sun goes down the narrator returns to the pit where a few hundred people have gathered a boy warns the narrator that the end of the cylinder has unscrewed itself and the narrator forces his way to the front of the crowd to get a better view ogilvy warns the people to stay away and reminds them of its unknown contents one man is pushed into the pit by the jostling of the crowd the end of the cylinder comes off and falls into the pit the narrator and the crowd are horrified by the grotesque octopus-like appearance of an alien who slowly and painstakingly emerges from the cylinder painstakingly slowly carefully taking a lot of a lot of effort to get things right with a lot with some painful effort it emerges from the cylinder they seem heavy and struggling to breathe in the atmosphere the narrator and the crowd run away from the pit but many including the narrator stop to watch the aliens from a nearby tree line the sun sets leaving enough light to just see the silhouette of the shopkeeper as he tries and fails to get out of the pit alive and that's the end of part one this will be continued in part two what do you think of the story so far listeners come on it's pretty evocative stuff don't you think the descriptions of um moment by moment action the weird grotesque descriptions of these aliens these weird lumbering um aliens what's gonna happen next well you can keep listening or keep watching uh with part two which um if you're certainly the youtube version should be available now okay and the podcast audio version will be available very soon but if you are watching on youtube check the uh description you will probably find links down there uh for uh parts two of this and part three as well okay nice one thank you for listening thank you for watching don't forget to like and subscribe if you're on youtube and listen to luke's english podcast which you can get at teacherloop.co.uk and wherever you get your podcasts for more stories conversations and interesting content to help you learn english listen to my podcast okay that's the end of this part of the video uh we'll pick up the story again in part two but for now it's time to say goodbye bye bye bye bye bye right that's the end of the video nice one nothing more to add here but um stick around and watch part two the story gets more dramatic there's some brilliant moments to come but that's the end of this part for now you

Channel: Luke's English Podcast

Views: 59,704

Rating: 4.95509 out of 5

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

Id: 8gkut_C0R2Q

Length: 48min 40sec (2920 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 11 2021