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Hello, welcome back to Luke's English podcast.
In this episode, I'm going to tell you a story and then use it to help you learn English.
I'm going to do this in three sections.
First, I'll just tell the story to you.
You can use that as a little listening exercise or listening test.
If you understand everything in the story, especially things like how the characters feel and exactly what happened.
It's a fairly short story, this one.
It's a very short story, really. It's about 300 words long.
It'll just take a couple of minutes for me to read the story to you.
Then, after that, I will explain what happened in the story in my own words.
Then, I'll go through the story again, line by line, and I'll explain vocabulary for you.
You can learn various little phrases, words, and other descriptive language from this story.
The story that we're looking at here is called the Birthday Party.
It was written by Catherine Brush, who was an American newspaper columnist
a short story writer and novelist.
This particular story was published in 1946.
But like all good writing, it still remains fresh today.
It feels like it could have been written yesterday, really.
Although it was written a few decades ago, it still feels really fresh and new.
I'm going to start in just a second.
But first of all, just one question for you to consider before you listen to this.
My question is about people watching.
Do you know what people watching is?
This is when you're in a public place, for example, in a restaurant.
And you kind of watch the other people around you and sort of,
I don't know, imagine what their lives are like, observing other people.
I mean, it's a bit nosy to do this, to look at other people and sort of spy on them.
But I think we all do this.
So do you ever people watch?
When you're in a public place, like a restaurant or in a queue for something.
So observing people, watching their behavior, watching their interactions with each other,
and then imagining what kinds of people they are, what their lives are like,
what their relationships are like.
It might also include eavesdropping, which means actually listening to other people's conversations,
but not necessarily.
So people watching, just watching people, watching strangers that you might see in public places.
Do you ever do this?
If you're out in public, do you ever discreetly watch the other people around you
and try to imagine what their lives are like?
For example, if you're in a restaurant, do you subtly, while you're eating your food,
do you subtly, without being noticed?
Have a look at the other people on the other tables,
try to imagine who they are, what's going on in their lives.
Have you ever observed something amusing or something that made you feel a little uncomfortable
or embarrassed?
Like maybe you got an insight into someone's personal relationship or family life,
and it actually made you feel even a little bit uncomfortable or embarrassed or awkward or even sad.
So do you ever people watch and have you ever noticed anything sort of interesting
when doing that? That's just something to think about before we start the story.
And in fact, let's now start the story.
All you need to do here is just listen first.
Just listen and try and follow the main events.
How do the characters feel?
Okay? I'll explain in my own words in a moment,
and then we'll go through all the vocabulary and stuff and see what we can learn.
Okay?
So here we go.
So this is The Birthday Party by Catherine Brush.
They were a couple in their late 30s and they looked unmistakably married.
They sat on the bonquette opposite us in a little narrow restaurant having dinner.
The man had a round self-satisfied face with glasses on it.
The woman was fadingly pretty in a big hat.
There was nothing conspicuous about them, nothing particularly noticeable.
Until the end of their meal, when it suddenly became obvious that this was an occasion.
In fact, it was the husband's birthday and the wife had planned a little surprise for him.
It arrived in the form of a small but glossy birthday cake with one pink candle burning in the centre.
The head waiter brought it in and placed it before the husband,
and meanwhile the violin and piano orchestra played happy birthday to you.
And the wife beamed with shy pride over her little surprise,
and such few people as they were in the restaurant tried to help out with a pattering of applause.
It became clear at once that help was needed because the husband was not pleased.
Instead he was hotly embarrassed and indignant at his wife for embarrassing him.
You looked at him and you saw this and you thought, oh now don't be like that.
But he was like that. And as soon as the little cake had been deposited on the table,
and the orchestra had finished the birthday piece, and the general attention had shifted from the man and the woman,
I saw him say something to her under his breath, some punishing thing, quick and curt and unkind.
I couldn't bear to look at the woman then, so I stared at my plate and waited for quite a long time.
Not long enough though, she was still crying when I finally glanced over there again.
Crying quietly and heartbrokenly and hopelessly, all to herself under the gay big brim of her best hat.
That's the story. I think that's a very good writing. I think that's really, really well written
little story, a perfect little portrait of these two people and a little interaction,
which seems to tell you so much about what's going on between them. It's sad. It's almost heartbreaking
really. Really good writing though. But what happened? Okay, so the story begins, it's in a restaurant.
Okay, the writer says that she saw this couple. They were probably in their late 30s,
and they were definitely married. She could tell just by looking at them. And they were sitting on
the, they were sitting just on the other side of the restaurant, just opposite them at a table having dinner.
She described the two of them. She said that the man had a round face, glasses,
and he had a sort of self-satisfied look on his face. The woman was fadingly pretty.
Like she used to be pretty or she's sort of her beauty is fading or maybe getting less,
you know, as she gets older maybe. And they just look like an ordinary couple really. They weren't
bringing too much attention to themselves, except for the fact that the woman was wearing a nice
big hat with a wide brim. And the the narrator of the story realises that this is not just an ordinary
dinner, but in fact it's a special occasion. In fact, it's the husband's birthday, and the wife
has planned a special little surprise for him. And she seems to be kind of a bit shy about it,
and quite proud of the fact that she's organised this little special thing for his birthday.
And what is the special thing? It's a little birthday cake, a cute little birthday cake,
a red glossy cake with a single pink candle in the middle of it. And she's obviously asked
the head waiter of the restaurant to bring the cake over and the orchestra, just like a couple
of instruments playing in the corner of the restaurant. They start playing Happy Birthday.
The staff come over and they're probably singing Happy Birthday, and the cake is brought down.
The wife seems very sort of proud of this moment. And the people in the restaurants all give a little
clap. They all applaud. And it seems like a very sweet moment, but what the narrator notices is that
when all the people have gone away and when no one's looking at them, she notices that the husband
is not happy with this at all. Now, why? Why would you not be happy with that situation? It's not
really clear. I don't know either, really, because I'd be delighted if my wife had organised a
sweet little thing like that in a nice little restaurant, but this man is not happy about it.
In fact, he's very embarrassed, which seems to tell you something about him. Like he's probably
got quite a high opinion of himself. He probably takes himself very seriously. And the idea that
like a little cake and people in the restaurant singing Happy Birthday to him and everyone looking at
him is actually very something that he's ashamed of and something that made him feel very embarrassed.
And he's unhappy and in fact, he's angry about it. And he tried, you know, they're trying not to
show this to everyone in the restaurant, but he's really unhappy with her. And when no one's looking,
except for the the narrator of the story who notices this, the husband said something to his wife.
And it's really something very nasty. He says it quietly, so other people can't hear it, but he
says a nasty comment to her, which is really sad. And she's obviously very, very upset.
And she's heartbroken. The writer of the story can't really bear to watch, so she looks at her
plate and stuff for quite a long time. But when she does have a little look again, she sees that
the woman is still crying. And, you know, under the under the brim of her lovely happy big hat,
she's still crying. So this, it's a really sad little story and a story about
observing a relationship, observing a marriage, which perhaps is not that happy, not the happiest
marriage, or at least, I don't know, it's a sensitive situation, or at least the woman, you know,
she's obviously crying because her husband's unhappy, but also probably, I imagine in a situation
like that, when you've planned something and it goes so wrong, it probably makes not only makes you
feel happy in that unhappy in that moment, but I imagine she's feeling very sad and depressed,
and it makes you wonder about the state of their marriage and whether this woman is, you know,
trapped in a sort of a loveless marriage, despite the fact that she's trying her best, you know,
she's making efforts. And it's also quite heartbreaking because it makes you realize that, you know,
a broken heart or unhappiness, loneliness, sometimes these things can be hidden, you know, they're not
obvious. They can be hidden behind appearances, which could otherwise be very glamorous or very
sort of smart. In this case, a lovely hat and a nice special occasion in a nice restaurant,
but behind this facade, there's a sort of a deep loneliness and the sense that people in marriages
can actually be very lonely. It can be one of the loneliest things, not always, of course,
often marriages are beautiful and happy situation, but, you know, in some cases, it can be actually
a very sad situation. And loneliness is something that is often most deeply felt when you're in
the company of other people, especially when you feel trapped in that situation, and when you're having
to hide your feelings because other people can see you. And this story, like perfectly captures all
of those things in an efficient way, only in about 300 words. So it's really, really well written.
Now let's go through the story again. And this time, I'm going to look at specific words and phrases,
right? This is where I'm going to teach you some vocabulary by using the story. So here we go again,
the birthday party by Catherine Brush vocabulary. And I've highlighted some vocab here for us to
look at. Okay. If you're listening to the audio version of this episode, you can find, you can find
this script for this. I'll put a link to it on the episode page. So you can actually check the text
and stuff like that. If you're looking at the video version, you'll be able to see the text on
the screen. Another thing actually to mention is pronunciation. So just earlier there in this
episode, I read through the story line by line. Now what you could do if you want to practice your
pronunciation, you could actually try to repeat those lines after me. Okay. Try to repeat the story
after me with exactly the same delivery. So just try and copy the way I do it and then maybe
practice it again on your own. Practice trying to deliver the story with the right pausing, the right
emphasis and so on. Okay. And another exercise you could do would be to try to retell the story
in your own words. Try to tell the story again but sort of spontaneously in your own words without
actually reading it from the text. So all of those things can be good ways to practice. But anyway,
let's have a look now at some vocabulary. So the first line, they were a couple in their late 30s
and they looked unmistakably married. So the first thing is just this phrase in their late 30s.
So you know, you can be in your in your 30s, which means you're either 30, you're between the
ages of 30 and 39. So you can be in your in your teens. That's when you're a teenager. You can be
in your 20s, in your 30s, in your 40s, in your 50s and so on. But also you can say you could be
in your early 30s or your mid 30s or your late 30s. Okay. In this case, the couple were in their
late 30s. Okay. And they looked unmistakably married. So it's fairly easy to understand they looked
married. It looked like they were married. So they looked married. But they looked unmistakably
married. Okay. They they were obviously married. You couldn't mistake them for anything else.
Right. So if something is unmistakable, it just means it's it's really not easily confused for
something else. Like when you see it, you immediately identify it as that thing. There's no
mistaking the fact that these people were married. They were unmistakably married. Right. So unmistakable
is the adjective unmistakably in this case is the adverb. So unmistakably married. You know,
we use, you know, you can use that for other things as well. If if something's obvious, for example,
you smell as you walk past the bakery, you you you can smell the unmistakable smell of fresh bread.
Right. That's using the word as an adjective unmistakable. Other things, instead of saying they
looked unmistakably married, it could be other things. Right. For example, they they looked unmistakably
English. Right. I don't know what would they look like if they looked unmistakably English,
just like typical English people, or they looked unmistakably French. Okay. Handwriting. Handwriting,
you know, stuff that's written by hand. Handwriting, you could say, for example, this is unmistakably
his handwriting. Okay. So unmistakably. In this case unmistakably married.
So a question about the writing or just the thought, why are they unmistakably married?
What does the writer mean here? I think she's probably alluding to subtle behavior. Right.
Which it's interesting that she chose this phrase because it does tell us something about this couple.
So what does she mean when she said they were unmistakably married? She's probably referring
to certain behavior. Now when a couple are new when they've just got together, right, when they're
in the early stages of a relationship, often you can tell that they're a brand new couple because
they sort of their body language tells you everything you need to know. Like they can't stop looking
at each other. They can't stop touching each other. They're still enjoying sort of exploring each
other, exploring each other's personal space. They get lost in a love bubble, you know. The rest
of the world disappears. But when a couple has been together for a long time, if they're married,
they're in their late 30s. They've been married for 10, 15 years or something like that.
Their body language might show this and maybe they... We also know that they were sitting on the
bench, right? So they're not sitting opposite each other. They're sitting next to each other.
And well, what kind of body language do you imagine could be seen here? Maybe they just weren't really...
there wasn't a lot of interaction going on. Maybe little moments of interaction show that they
were very close and they obviously spent a lot of time together, but maybe it was obvious that there
wasn't... Maybe there wasn't a lot of love between them, right? And you know, that sense of mystery
or attraction maybe wasn't there. Or maybe there was a sense of familiarity and closeness. I don't
know, but it's good writing because it does sort of... It does tell you so much. Next line, they sat
on the bonquette opposite us in a little narrow restaurant having dinner. So a bonquette is just a long...
like a long seat which could be fitted to the wall, for example, typical in restaurants. So a long
kind of bench that's probably attached to the wall in some way. That's the bonquette. They sat
opposite us in a little narrow restaurant having dinner. So narrow is just the... It's the opposite
of wide so that this tells us that the restaurant was quite long, but narrow. So you imagine a long
restaurant, but where the walls on either side are actually very close because the restaurant is
narrow, a bit like a corridor or something. And this is interesting because we get that sense of
intimate space, right? The writer and this married couple are actually probably quite close to
each other. Everyone's probably fairly close in this restaurant, which for me emphasizes the
kind of... The humiliation which happens later. The man's humiliation, but also the wife's sadness
is emphasized by the intimacy of this restaurant that they're sitting in this narrow place
with probably tables quite close together, right? Okay. So next, the man had a round self-satisfied
face with glasses on it. The woman was fadingly pretty in a big hat. So the man had a round face.
I mean just round, sort of circular. Self-satisfied is interesting. Now generally if you describe someone
as being self-satisfied, it's a negative phrase. So if someone is self-satisfied, it means they're
rather satisfied with themselves. Someone who thinks that someone who has a higher opinion of
themselves, someone who's rather satisfied with themselves. So you can imagine he's got a sort of a
rather a sort of a smug look on his face or an arrogant look on his face, a self-important,
self-satisfied look on his face. In any case, it's not very charming. The writer doesn't paint a very
charming, attractive picture of this man. Right? It seems smug and not that attractive,
whereas the woman was fadingly pretty in a big hat. So fading, fadingly pretty, fadingly is the
adverb, fading would be the adjective. And if something is fading, it means it's gradually becoming
less clear, less bright, less colourful. So her prettiness, her attractiveness was fading as she
was getting older, which is often a kind of a sad thing for many people. It doesn't have to be,
but it can be. And it also tells you something as well, doesn't it? There's just a certain sadness here.
Okay, fadingly pretty. So she's still pretty, but her prettiness is fading. Now that doesn't
have to to everyone. Some people are pretty when they're young and they stay pretty when they're
old. They grow old gracefully. But I don't know. Again, I'm speculating about this relationship,
but maybe there's something not quite right in the relationship and the sadness that she feels
is starting to show on her face and it's actually affecting her beauty in a way. So she was
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There was nothing conspicuous about them, nothing particularly noticeable. So those two lines,
they basically mean the same thing because conspicuous, if something is conspicuous, it means it's
noticeable. Easy to notice. I catching. Okay. I mean, the fact that she was wearing a big hat
is fairly noticeable, but maybe in those days in what I assume is like New York in a nice restaurant
in New York in the in the 1940s, a woman dressed nicely in wearing a big hat was probably not uncommon.
Right. But other than that, it seems that there wasn't anything particularly noticeable about
this this couple. There was nothing conspicuous. So conspicuous noticeable easy to notice. I catching.
Right. Those are all synonyms. Nothing particularly noticeable. So they were just a fairly ordinary
couple, I suppose, for this kind of restaurant. And that nothing obvious about them, nothing
noticeable until the end of their meal when it suddenly became obvious that this was an occasion.
So an occasion could be a special occasion, like a particular event, a birthday, an anniversary,
a reason to celebrate. So that was that's an occasion. So it became obvious that this was an occasion
that was actually a special moment. In fact, it was the husband's birthday and the wife had planned
a little surprise for him. So I just wanted to highlight the use of past perfect here. The wife
had planned a little surprise for him. So past past perfect had planned. Let's use because it
shows that the wife planned this before the other events of the story. Right. Okay. It just shows us
that the planning part happened before all the rest of the events. So past perfect is there to use
is used there to just to show us that the planning happened before. Now if we didn't, if the writer
hadn't used past perfect, if she'd said it was the husband's birthday and the wife planned a
little surprise for him. Now that could mean that she planned the surprise right there at the table.
Right. It was the husband's birthday and the wife planned a surprise. That could mean that she
planned it there. You see, but we want to show that the planning happened before those events in
the restaurant. So that's why past perfect is used. And so the surprise, it arrived in the form of
a small but glossy birthday cake with one pink candle burning in the centre. So it arrived,
in this case, the surprise arrived in the form of a cake. So in the form of here, this means that
this is how the surprise was actually, this is how the surprise happened. This is how the surprise
manifested. I mean, what was the surprise? How did the surprise take shape? It arrived in the
form of this birthday cake. So the birthday cake was the surprise, right? Quite a nice phrase,
like you know, you could use that in different situations. The gift came in the form of a beautifully
wrapped package, for example, their support, the support from my friends came in the form of
encouraging words. The solution to the problem arrived in the form of innovative new technology.
Help arrived in the form of my wife, who came to rescue me from an awkward conversation.
Okay, in this case, the surprise arrived in the form of a birthday cake, a small but glossy
birthday cake. So the birthday cake is small, but glossy. So glossy, this adjective just means
shiny and smooth. So that, for example, the light reflects off the top of it. So this means it's
one of those quite smart, quite fancy cakes that you see in sort of good quality cake shops.
So it's got a kind of cover of, I don't know what the cover would be, like a glazed cover on
the top of the cake, which means it's shiny, right? A glossy cake. So it's a fairly fancy cake,
even though it's small, and it's got one pink candle. I mean, the pink candle is a detail,
an interesting detail. Is this part of the reason why the husband seems to be embarrassed?
Is it because of the way the cake looks? It's a little bit ridiculous, or a little bit funny,
or even a little bit sad, just one single birthday, one single candle in the middle of this small
cake. I mean, the little pink candle might make him feel a bit ridiculous, especially if he is
full of himself and self-satisfied and smug and arrogant. He thinks he's very important person.
And then I'm an important person in society, and then this cake arrives, this little cake
with one pink candle. I mean, it's a lovely sweet gesture.
And we just want him to be touched by this, but in fact, no, that's not the way this guy works.
Instead, he's embarrassed by this. What we want is for him to, I mean, he could feel embarrassed,
like that's okay, but you'd want him to feel embarrassed and then to kind of blush,
you know, to go red in the face, and then maybe to kiss his wife and say thank you to her,
and tell her how much he loves her, you know, because she made the effort to get this cake for him,
but he doesn't do that. He doesn't. Instead, he's just angry and embarrassed by it, which is just
really sad. The head waiter brought it in and placed it before the husband, and meanwhile,
the violin and piano orchestra played happy birthday to you. So the head waiter, this is like the
the most important waiter in the restaurant, the person who's in charge of all the other
waiters. So this probably, this means that the wife probably asked the restaurant to make a special
effort here, which again shows us how much care she put into this, that she actually spoke to the
head waiter and everything, and it was the head waiter who brought the cake. So they're taking it,
you know, fairly seriously. He placed it before the husband, he placed it. So this is sort of thing,
a good waiter would do. Waters don't just put the plates on the table, they place it,
meaning they put it down very carefully, exactly in the right spot. So the waiter, the head waiter
came in and he placed the cake down in front of him, and meanwhile, the orchestra played happy
birthday, right? So meanwhile, just means at the same time, okay? You could replace the word
meanwhile with the phrase at the same time. So the head waiter brought the cake, and at the same
time, the orchestra played happy birthday. And the wife beamed with shy pride over her little
surprise. She beamed with pride. So to beamed, in this case, this means that her face glowed,
her face sort of glowed with pride. Right now, to beamed means that light comes out. For example,
a torch. If you've got a torch, which you use to, you know, to see it in the dark, you turn the
torch on, a flashlight, they call it in American English, a torch, that when the light comes out,
the end of the torch, it beams out. Similarly, the headlights of your car, the light beams out
of your headlights, a lighthouse, the light beams out. So in this case, her face beamed with pride,
right, with shy pride, okay? Pride, to feel proud, she's happy, she's satisfied with what she's
done. She's put a lot of effort into this. She's hoping this is going to go well. She's really
trying hard. And when the cake comes in, her face beamed with shy pride. I mentioned a torch and
a flashlight torch in British English and flashlight in American English. There is a, there's
only a couple of moments in this story where it's obviously American English. For example, the
spelling of the word center, the birthday cake with one pink candle burning in the center,
C-E-N-T-E-R in American English, C-E-N-T-R-E in British English. But it's otherwise it's,
this is just an example of how, for the most part, this story just shows how American English and
British English are just like identical, because there aren't really many other differences that I can
notice. So the wife beamed with shy pride over her little surprise, and such few people as they're
wearing the restaurant, meaning, you know, even the small number of people in the restaurant
tried to help out with a pattering of applause. So applause is, when people clap,
right at the end of a theatre play, or at the end of a music concert, people applaud, and there is
applause, right? A pattering of applause means like a little bit of applause, like just a few people
kind of clapping a little bit in the background, okay? Right, the sound of a few people clapping.
It became clear at once that help was needed, because the husband was not pleased. So it became
clear, meaning it became obvious, it became clear at once, at once, meaning immediately. So it
became obvious immediately, it became clear at once, that help was needed. It's interesting that
the writer has used was needed, which is passive voice, because needed by who? Right? She doesn't
actually say it directly, but we know that we're talking about the wife, that the wife needed help.
And, you know, the writer is, the narrator obviously sees that the woman is helpless in this
situation. She's in trouble, but nobody can help her without making it worse. It became clear
that help was needed, by not mentioning it, by not saying it directly, it somehow makes it a bit
more powerful. It became clear at once that the wife needed help. It's a bit too direct, but saying
it became clear at once that help was needed, somehow it's a bit more discreet by not putting the
wife right into the middle of the sentence. You know, it makes it a little bit more impersonal.
Anyway, it became clear at once that help was needed by the wife, because the husband was not
pleased. Instead, he was hotly embarrassed. So we know embarrassed, but hotly embarrassed. Now,
that's not a very common collocation. We don't often say hotly embarrassed, but it's good use of
language, because it does tell us about how the husband felt, and he wasn't just embarrassed,
but he was angry and embarrassed. Right? And embarrassed and angry. You can imagine that his face was
bright red. We associate heat in emotion. We associate heat and being hot with anger and strong
emotions. So he was hotly embarrassed, suggests that he was really embarrassed and also angry.
And he was indignant. So indignant means angry, annoyed, frustrated, which is a pity that that
was his reaction. You looked at him and you saw this and you thought, oh, now don't be like that.
Don't be like that. Don't be that way. Okay? Don't be angry. Don't be like that.
But he was like that. And as soon as the little cake had been deposited on the table,
and the orchestra had finished the birthday piece and the general attention had shifted from
the man and the woman. So as soon as the birthday cake had been deposited, so deposited,
it's fairly, it just means put on the table. It's slightly formal, slightly impersonal language.
Right? Just deposited on the table. It sounds, I don't know, it just sounds slightly
transactional language. Like, you know, normally we'd say money is deposited into a bank account.
Right? So it's kind of slightly called transactional language. As soon as the cake had been deposited
on the table, we start to get a sort of sense of an emotional detachment or something. Maybe I'm
reading too much into it, but it was interesting the use of the word deposited. Just means put on
the table delivered. And the orchestra had finished the birthday piece and the general attention had
shifted from the man and the woman. So attention shifted. It had shifted. As soon as, right? As soon as
and then passed perfect, meaning as soon as when all these things had been completed, the man
said something. So once all that he waited for all those things to be done. Right? So once they
were done and finished, that's when he chose to say what he said. So the general attention had
shifted from the man and the woman. Shifted just means moved, right? Moved away. So everyone was
looking at the couple when the cake arrived, but then people's attention shifted away from them.
It moved away from them. And when all of those things had happened, I saw him say something to
her under his breath, some punishing thing, quick and curt and unkind. So I saw him say something to
her under his breath. So under to say something under your breath means to say something in a very
quiet voice in a whisper so that other people can't hear. Like if you say something under your breath,
if you're trying to whisper so other people can't hear you. Right? So to whisper, to say something
under your breath, some punishing thing, punishing. So a comment that was designed to punish her,
to make her feel bad, because in his mind, the thing that she'd done was not good. And so he
said something nasty to her as a sort of punishment, a punishing comment, a comment that's going to
make her feel bad. We don't know what it is, right? We don't know what he said to her. We can only
imagine what he said to her. Right? But I mean, it's probably something like, you know, how day
you embarrass me like this in public, you know, some stupid cake or something that's, you know,
going to really hurt some punishing thing quick and curt and unkind. So quick meaning just a few words,
curt, curt. This adjective means this adjective means brief, right? With a few only like a short
thing to say, but rudely brief, right? Rude because it's so short and unkind, unkind meaning
cruel. So it would be something like, how dare you or how stupid of you, something like that.
And then the writer continues, I couldn't bear to look at the woman then. So I stared at my
plate and waited for quite a long time. I couldn't bear to look, right? Can't bear, couldn't bear.
Now, if you can't bear to do something, it just means you can't stand doing it. You just can't,
it's too painful, too uncomfortable to do it. For example, looking at the couple because this
poor woman is so upset and the man is so angry and so unreasonable and mean. And it's just, she
couldn't bear to look. So we say, can't bear to do something. We say, can't stand doing something.
And we also can say, can't bring myself to do something. I just couldn't, I couldn't bear to
look. I couldn't bring myself to look. I can't stand seeing things like that.
And the story continues not long enough, though. So she, because she looked at her plate
and waited for quite a long time, but not long enough, though. Notice the use of the word,
though at the end, I've mentioned this before, but though at the end, like that,
is like saying, but, right, but we normally put but in between two contrasting things. So I,
looked at my plate for a long time, but not long enough. But we can use, though, at the end,
right, I looked at my plate for a long time, not long enough, though. So it does the same job as
saying, but in the middle, but we just put it at the end. It's very common in spoken English.
So not long enough, though, because she was still crying when I finally glanced over there again.
So when I glanced, to glance is just to look quickly. So she was looking at her plate and she
had a quick look. So just glanced, looked quickly, because she was still crying when she glanced over
at them, crying quietly and heartbrokenly and hopelessly all to herself under the gay big brim of
her best hat. So this is really heartbreaking, like the really heartbreaking part.
Right, it does tell you the way in which she's crying that she's just feels so sad and lonely at
this point. And it's from a language point of view, there's adverbs here, right? How was she crying?
She was crying quietly. She was crying heartbrokenly. She was crying hopelessly. She was crying
all to herself and she was crying under the gay big brim of her best hat. So crying quietly,
I think we understand that, crying heartbrokenly because she felt heartbroken because of the
behaviour of the actions, the reaction of this husband, this horrible husband, crying hopelessly
where, yeah, I suppose even when she's tried really hard to do something cute and special on his
birthday, the way he reacted was just like so far away from what she hoped that that kind of
can break someone's hope, right? So she's crying with a deep sense of hopelessness all to herself.
So she was doing it all by herself, meaning on her own, but also crying to herself,
not crying to anyone else. So you've got crying all by herself, which means she was crying on her
own, but crying all to herself means that she was the only audience of her crying, like the
husband didn't even really care or wasn't even giving her attention to the fact that she was crying.
So she was just all on her own crying to herself. She was the only witness, the only audience to
crying, right? The husband apparently doesn't care and doing this under the gay big brim of her best hat.
So this is a particularly sad image because of the contrast between this lovely otherwise
exuberant hat and the actual feeling of the woman underneath it. It should have been a happy
carefree occasion, but she's just heartbroken. So that emphasizes the sadness, the contrast between
the two things. But the gay big brim of her hat. So the brim, the brim is the part, the bit that
goes around the edge of the hat, the widest part. That's the edge of the hat, the brim of the hat,
okay? If it's a baseball cap, the baseball cap has a brim at the front and you can slide it
around the back if you want, you can bend the brim of the hat. If it's a, you know, another type
of hat, the brim goes all the way around. In this case, it was a big brim and the gay big brim
of her hat. So I mean, this shows, I guess, the age of the story because we don't normally use the
word gay like that these days because it used to just mean happy, carefree, happy, these days,
obviously it means something else. But in those days, it just meant carefree and happy. So that's
why the word gay is being used here. Her happy, carefree, exuberant hat that she was wearing,
she was crying all by herself, all to herself, underneath the brim of this, of this, of this hat.
And that's the end of the story, okay? What do you think of that? I'd like to know your comments,
feel free to leave your comments in the comments section. What do you think of the situation?
So, you know, what do you think the husband said? Any idea what he might have said?
How do you think the woman felt in that moment? The wife? Have you ever witnessed something,
you know, when people watching? What did you think of the story?
Other things, remember, you could practice repeating that story after me. Just go back to the
beginning of the episode to the moment where I told the story line by line. You could just practice
reading through it again and again. And as I said before, you should try, perhaps, retelling the
story in your own words too. And another exercise you could do, another little speaking
challenge that you could do would be to remember a time when you saw some people doing something.
When you people watched and you saw something happen, could you describe that? Do you think you
could make that into a story? It would be a good exercise for your English practice, practice, practice,
practice, practice, practice, practice the five P's. Okay, that's the end of this episode.
If you like my story episodes, obviously I've done a few of these now, which you can find
in my episode archive, learn English with a short story. But I've got others as well. I've done
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And I do a similar thing to what I do in these learning English with a short story episodes.
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That's what you can find in those story time episodes in my premium subscription.
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Okay, great, have a lovely day afternoon, morning, evening, night, wherever you are in the world,
whatever you're doing. I hope that you are having a nice time out there in podcast land.
Thank you for listening to this episode. I will speak to you again soon in the next one.
But for now, it's just time to say goodbye. Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye.
Thanks for listening to Luke's English podcast. For more information, visit teacherlook.co.uk.
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