If you want to learn english the natural way, then this is the video for you.
In this video we'll use a method called comprehensible input, where you just watch and listen and learn new vocabulary.
Today i'm in a small english british town called henley on thames.
Why is it called Henley-on-Thames?
Well, it's because it's on the River Thames.
The River Thames is the biggest river in the UK.
By the way, the pronunciation is Thames.
It's not Thames or Thames or anything like that.
And actually that is a clear example of why you should learn English through listening and not through reading.
I would imagine that many of you having read that over there probably want to say Thames, right?
But no, it's not Thames, it's Thames.
It's Henley on Thames.
So let's take a look around.
Let's walk around Henley and let's see what we can find.
What you will find with Henley is that all the shops, all the different shops, have the name Henley in them.
So they'll all be called Henley something.
This one's called Henley Hearing Centre.
Across the road there, you can see the Henley Pet Shop.
So again, you can see all the shops are named with the name Henley in them.
Everything is called the Henley something.
See, Henley Cycles.
You can buy bicycles from Henley Cycles.
See, everything, every shop has the name Henley in it.
Henley this, Henley that.
It's Henley cycle.
Here we have Henley menswear.
Menswear, that means that this is a place where you can buy clothes for men.
These are men's clothes you can buy in here.
You can see it's Henley men's wear.
Henley nails and beauty.
See, everything is called Henley something.
Here we have the Henley convenience store.
So in a convenience store, this is just a small shop where you can buy basic things, useful things.
Maybe you can buy some snacks, maybe you can buy some batteries, anything that is useful.
So this is the Henley convenience store.
Here we have the Henley florist.
So a florist is obviously, as you can see, a place that sells flowers.
So if you want to buy some nice flowers, go to the florist.
The florist will sell you flowers.
And if you're in henley, come to the henley florist.
And even here we have henley food and wine henley food and wine.
This is called an off license.
Okay, so the local off license.
An off license is kind of like a convenience store.
You come here to get little things.
You can buy snack, some cigarettes or something like that.
That's what an off license is in the uk.
Here we have the henley henley yoga studio.
If you want to go and do yoga in henley Guys, come to the Henley Yoga Studio.
Here is a pub.
This is a pub and it's called the Anchor Inn.
This pub is called the Anchor Inn.
If you want to know what an anchor is, let me show you.
There. that is an anchor up there that's what we call an anchor so that's why it's called the anchor inn and the second thing is what is an inn what does that mean the inn well in the past an inn was basically like a little hotel where you could stay That's what an inn was, just kind of a small hotel.
If you think in the past people used to travel by horse, right?
They would travel long distances across the country by horse, and so that's why there are so many of these inns here, because people needed, quite often needed a place to stay the night, just somewhere to stay one night, maybe get a drink and relax and then continue on with their journey, and that's why we have all these inns everywhere, like this one behind me.
As with basically all towns in the UK, this one also has a church.
So I'm standing in the church right now.
This particular church is called St Mary's Church.
Like I said in previous videos, anywhere you go in the uk, basically any town that you go to, will probably have a church, and actually this church is quite nice.
It's quite a nice church, this one you know in the past.
In the past you could usually go inside any church that you wanted to go into, But people started robbing things from the church.
People started stealing things from the church.
And so unfortunately, they had to start locking their doors.
So I think it's probably quite unlikely that I'll be able to go inside today, but i'll give it a shot.
Maybe i'm wrong.
Maybe this church is open.
Behind me, what you can see is a stained glass window.
So these stained glass windows are what you can find on basically every church that you go to.
You can usually find one of these stained glass windows.
From the outside, you can see the pattern, you can see the pattern on the stained glass window, but from the inside it looks very different, because these stained glass windows are designed to catch the light from the outside and then inside they they light up and you can see all the different colors, really bright colors from the inside of the church.
But from the outside this stained glass window looks like a nice pattern, but but you can't see um the colors very well.
Those are the church bells behind me, because the time is one o'clock.
See, it's one o'clock now, so that's why the church bells are ringing.
That's why the bells are chiming right.
The church bells are chiming because it's one o'clock and they will chime on each hour.
On every hour, one o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock, the bells will chime at that time.
So behind me you can see the famous River Thames.
So the River Thames is probably the most famous river in the UK.
The River Thames flows.
It flows through London and that's why people know the River Thames.
That's why people are quite familiar with the River Thames and that's why this town is called Henley-on-Thames because of this thing right behind me.
Over there is the Henley Bridge, And the Henley Bridge crosses over the River Thames there.
So the Henley Bridge crosses over the River Thames.
There is a nice swan behind me.
This swan came over to me because I think the swan was expecting me to give it some food.
But I don't have any food for Mr Swan here.
So I think Mr. Swan was very disappointed.
He came over, he was like oh good, there's a guy standing by the river and he's probably gonna give me some food, because that's what most people who stand next to the river do.
But it came over and I didn't give Mr. Swan anything.
So I think Mr. Swan is a bit upset now.
You can see he's not looking at me.
He's facing the other way because I didn't give him any food.
I'm sorry, Mr. Swan.
Guys, have you ever tried mulled wine before?
Mulled wine is so nice.
You have to try this kind of wine.
Mulled wine, it's like hot wine.
It's hot red wine.
It's so good.
That's why you have to.
This is something that you have to try.
You know this was built in the 1700s the 1700s, so more than 300 years ago this building was built.
And that's the thing with the uk.
It's like everywhere you go you find buildings that were built like 400 years ago, 300 years ago, some of them 700 years ago, and this is just normal in the uk.
So right now i'm just crossing the henley bridge.
You can see over there, this is the river thames behind me.
The river thames goes all the way to london.
So if you keep going in that direction over there, eventually you will reach london.
So if i follow this path all the way, eventually I'm going to reach London.
So now I'm just going to have a nice relaxing, peaceful walk alongside the River Thames.
You can see the River Thames is flowing in this direction.
The River Thames is flowing this way.
Behind me is Henley Bridge, which I have just crossed.
And I'm going to have a nice, relaxing, peaceful walk along the River Thames.
Now, actually, this town of Henley-on-Thames is quite a famous town.
Maybe not really famous, but let's say semi-famous.
It's kind of semi-famous.
And it's semi-famous here for one reason only and that is the Henley Regatta.
Every single year in around June or July there's a big rowing competition.
Rowers from all over the world will come here to gather and have a big competition of rowing.
Teams from America, from Australia, from New Zealand, from everywhere, will come here to take part in the Henley Regatta.
Sometimes this will be with universities.
So the Harvard University team from America may come here and have a boat race against Oxford University from the UK.
So if you come here during the Henley Regatta, if you come to this very spot, this very spot right here and this whole area behind me, it will be absolutely jammed with people.
During the Henley Regatta it is absolutely jammed with people.
All over here there will be crowds up and down this area.
Crowds everywhere for people who have come to watch the Henley Regatta.
Now when people come here to attend the Henley Regatta they come all dressed up.
You'll see people all dressed up in suits, in ties, with bow ties, sometimes nice trousers, and the women may wear nice summer dresses.
And quite often people like to wear these fancy hats, these really kind of fancy hats.
Everybody comes here all dressed up.
People dress up and try to look their best when they come here to attend the Henley Regatta.
The Henley Regatta is perceived by many to be quite a posh event.
Some people think that you need to be wealthy or rich or you need to be quite well-off to attend an event like that.
The Henley Regatta has this reputation for being an event for rich, posh, well-off people.
But of course, you don't need to be wealthy to attend the Henley Regatta, really.
All you need to do is make sure that you dress up well.
You really make an effort to dress up and look really nice when you come to the Henley Regatta.
As you can see, we finally have a little bit of sun behind me.
If it's January in the UK and you get some sun like this, you need to be happy.
You need to appreciate this because this is the most sun you're going to get in January in the UK.
In fact, I'm nearly ready to get my sunglasses out, put on my sun cream and go to the beach.
You know, the sun is here.
The sun is finally here.
We can see the sun's reflection on the river here.
You see right here, this is the reflection of the sun in the sky.
So it's quite nice.
It looks quite nice because we have the reflection of the sun there in the river.
Okay, I think I have walked far enough.
I think it's time to turn around and walk back in the direction of Henley and look around the town a little bit more.
The strange thing about Henley is that really it is a very small town.
The population of Henley-on-Thames is only about 13,000 people so it's quite a small town.
However, it doesn't feel like a small town and there's quite a lot of tourists who come to see Henley, mostly because of the famous Henley Regatta event that happens here once a year.
Guys, did you know that you can learn english just through watching videos like this with the comprehensible input method?
You can learn to understand english at an advanced level just through watching comprehensible input videos like this.
You see, in videos like this you learn lots of different vocabulary and you learn vocabulary with the correct pronunciation as well.
Learning English through listening usually results in better pronunciation after you have reached the higher levels.
Yes, you can learn English just by watching loads of videos like this.
It's true.
On englishsponge.com, you can go through each level.
So if you are an A2 upper beginner student, You can start there.
And on englishspongecom you can see how many hours of watching comprehensible input videos like this you need to reach the next level.
And you can watch and watch until you understand the B1 intermediate videos.
And then at that point you watch the intermediate videos until finally you reach the B2 level.
And by doing this, you can eventually understand all English.
So you can go for our English Sponge website.
Eventually reach the point where you can understand movies and understand everything.
But it's important that you go through each step.
That's how you can gradually begin to understand more and more English.
This will also make your speaking better, because you need to understand English before you can use it.
That's what this comprehensible input method is all about.
Anyway, let's finish taking a look around Henley.
Sign behind me says private property, no unauthorized mooring.
So mooring is when you put your boat like this.
So that boat there is moored.
That is a moored boat.
This sign is saying that you cannot moor your boat right here without authorization, without permission, right?
If you want to more your boat here, you need authorization, you need somebody to say to you you are allowed to to more your boat here.
That's what this sign is here for to stop people bringing their boats here without permission and mooring their boats here without having permission from the people who own this area.
So you see this sign here, the Royal County of Berkshire.
So as soon as you go past this line, then you are in the County of Berkshire.
Let's do it, I'm gonna walk past the sign.
And here we are, I'm now in the County of Berkshire.
Now I'm gonna go back past the line.
And now I'm in the county of Oxfordshire again.
But if we come over here to this sign, this sign says Oxfordshire.
And so if we go past this sign, we will now be in the county of Oxfordshire.
So there's Berkshire over there, and this is Oxfordshire.
So let's go back into Oxfordshire.
The thing about this area of Henley is that although the houses are pretty normal not particularly big, quite small houses the prices of the houses in this area are astronomically high.
The prices are really astronomically high in this area.
So even if you just want to buy a fairly small house here, it's going to cost you quite a lot of money because this is a very affluent area.
It's an affluent area and it's an area that attracts people who are quite well-off.
It attracts quite well-off people, people who have a lot of money to spare.
Just across the road here we have a theater.
Let's go and check it out, shall we?
I'm just going to cross the road here.
Look both ways before you cross the road and you can see it's a theater.
So let's take a look at what's on at the theater today.
We have something called Santana.
I don't know what that is.
We have here some live podcasts, podcasts live on stage at the Kenton Theater, which is this place.
So, you know, live podcasts we'll show here.
If we look at what's on, we'll look at what's on.
I can see a familiar face here, Al Murray.
This is a fairly famous comedian.
I've heard of Al Murray.
I've seen his videos on YouTube and you can see Al Murray performed here on the 7th of January and the 8th of January.
So you can see that henley is the kind of place quite often where you get celebrities who will come here and do things like this.
Here we have a show called the truth in politics show that is happening on the 28th of january, so quite soon.
I don't know who these people are, unfortunately i do not recognize these faces.
But again, like I said, Henley is the kind of place where you will get quite famous.
People will come here to perform and if you hang around Henley for long enough, if you live here in henley, you will probably bump into somebody famous, someone at least a bit famous at some point.
It's not like hollywood in los angeles in the in the us obviously, but if you do hang around henley for long enough, you will eventually bump into somebody whose face you recognize from TV or you recognize from a TV show somewhere.
It's not like you will find super, super famous people here, but you will find people that are somewhat famous in the uk, people who have been on tv or in movies.
Like if you, if you hang around here, you will bump into someone you recognize.
If you take a look at this road sign, you can see there is a set of two mini roundabouts.
Here's one mini roundabout and here's another mini roundabout.
There's a short stay car park to the left and there's a long stay car park on the second mini roundabout to the right.
Obviously, in the short stay car park you can only stay there.
You can only park there for a short time, whereas in the long stay car park you can stay there for a long time.
It's quite obvious, i guess you can see you can go to oxford if you follow the first exit on the second mini roundabout you can go straight to oxford up there.
It's starting to get a little bit busy here now because the time is 10 to 4.
It's currently 10 minutes to 4.
So it's kind of school kicking out time right now, which means all the parents have come to pick up their children from school.
So it's school kicking out time, and that's why there's quite a lot of traffic on the roads behind me right now, because all the parents have come here to pick up their children.
These are the kinds of houses you can find around here.
This is called a semi-detached house because, although it is detached on this side, it is actually attached on the other side.
You can see.
So this is a semi-detached house.
So this is called a semi-detached house because it is detached on one side, but on the other side it is connected.
It's connected to the other house next to it and, of course, this is also a semi-detached house because on the right side of the house or on this side, it is connected to This house, but on this side there is a gap.
It is detached here.
So it's a semi-detached house there.
So this supermarket is called Waitrose.
Waitrose is a more upmarket.
It's more upmarket, the supermarket, because the prices are higher.
The prices are higher in Waitrose compared to other supermarkets we have in the UK like Tesco's or Sainsbury's or Lidl or Aldi.
But I have to say the quality of the food is better here.
Even though it is a bit more upmarket, the prices are a bit higher.
The quality of the food is a little bit better here.
Personally, I only go to Waitrose once in a blue moon.
Really, I only go here once in a blue moon if I want to buy something nice.
Usually you will find me in Lidl or Audi or one of the cheaper, more affordable supermarkets.
This here is the henley cinema.
You can see the movies or the films, let's say the film.
You can see the films that are on on these signs behind me over there.
In fact, this is the cinema where i came to see the very first harry potter movie.
I came here in around 2001, when I was about 10 years old, to see the first Harry Potter movie with the very first showing.
So it was the first showing in this area of the first Harry Potter movie.
And I remember I came to this cinema to watch it. when I was about 10 years old.
Anyway guys, thank you very much for watching this video.
If you do like this kind of video where I walk around the town and teach you English with comprehensible input, check out this video here where I walk around the town of Newbury.
I hope you've enjoyed watching me walk around Henley today.
Thank you for watching this video and I will see you in the next one.
Bye bye.
