Welcome to a new episode of English Vocabulary Booster.
My name is Lara and I'm a SALSA-certified English teacher.
Learning new vocabulary usually takes a long time, but we'll do it in a way that's easy, quick and efficient.
In every episode, we'll learn how to use five new English words or expressions, so that you too can start speaking like a native.
So let's get learning! up you guys.
So thank you so much for joining me.
And let me take a second to thank all of you who have reached out to me in the past couple of months, either via email or via Facebook, to tell me that you listen to the podcast and that you like it, and that you like the method and you know are learning from it.
That makes me super happy.
So let's listen to today's story.
Today we're going to talk about jokes.
Hey, Luke, wanna play a prank on my sister?
She's right over there.
What?
Why?
Come on, it'll be fun.
Alright, have you got a plan?
Um, how about a prank call?
Um, okay, whatever.
You're making the call.
Alright, check this out.
You don't know me, but I know where you live, and I'm coming over right now.
What?
Who is this?
Got you!
Oh, man.
That was funny.
Look at her.
What is she?
Mary?
Mary!
It was me!
It was just a joke!
Oh, well, the joke's on you, Ricky.
I just called 911.
What?
Why would you do that?
Oh, no.
I don't want to go to jail.
I'm so young.
What are Mom and Dad going to say?
Luke, please, tell her it was just a joke.
Oh, my gosh, Ricky, I'm pulling your leg.
Of course I didn't call the police.
Oh.
Okay.
Oh, man.
That's definitely a joke gone wrong.
Hopefully, poor Ricky has learned the lesson.
All right.
Let's begin with expression number one.
Play a prank on someone.
Hey, Luke.
Want to play a prank on my sister?
Which of these two situations describes a prank?
Listen carefully.
Pulling a chair away from under someone when they're about to sit.
They're about... to sit and you pull the chair away.
Or telling someone a joke that makes them laugh.
Well, it would be pulling the chair away from under someone.
That is a prank or an example of a prank.
If you play a prank on someone, does that someone expect it or not?
No, that's the thing about the prank that someone the victim of the prank doesn't expect it, doesn't know what's happening.
Does a prank usually cause discomfort or happiness?
Well, it usually causes discomfort.
It makes the victim uncomfortable in a way.
So maybe because I fell because you just pulled the chair from under me.
Or maybe you just told me something bad has happened when he didn't and I get really worried.
Have you ever played a prank on someone or has someone ever played a prank on you?
So I am not too big on pranks actually.
I think I'm just not very good at it.
First of all, I don't like tricking people into – first of all, I don't like seeing people suffer and that's kind of the point of pranks.
And secondly, I just – I'm not very good at lying.
So they would find out pretty quickly.
Okay.
But I did have to play a prank pretty recently on April Fool's Day.
And so I work for this company and they are an online English school and they have a lot of customers that follow them on social media and I take care of the social media part for them.
And obviously, so they teach English, but they decided to prank or to play a prank on their customers and tell them that they were not going to teach English anymore.
They were going to teach Spanish.
And so I had to make a video saying, hey, like, hola, nosotros ahora vamos a aprender español.
And so I had to pretend like I was the Spanish teacher and not the English teacher anymore, because the company was changing.
It's focused.
And it was pretty funny.
And it wasn't like a terrible prank.
So it wasn't, I didn't feel too bad when I did it.
Expression number two, prank call.
How about a prank call?
What is the goal of a prank call?
Pass along some information or have a laugh.
If you prank call someone, it means that you want to have a laugh.
And now, who can you prank call?
Someone you know or someone you don't know?
Well, both.
There's a lot of people that prank call strangers.
And I don't know why, but they just, you know, they make a funny voice.
They pretend they're someone or something.
And they just laugh.
That's it.
Have you ever made or received a prank call?
And do you find them funny?
I don't find them funny.
Again, I don't like seeing people suffer or people being ridiculed.
So I'm not a big fan of prank calls.
But if it's like a funny thing among friends, then it's different.
For example, remember back in the day when the movie The Ring came out?
If you don't know, it's a horror movie.
It's pretty scary.
I hate horror movies, but for some reason, I went to the movies with my friends.
I was like 14 or something, so I was very young.
And we went to the movies.
We watched the whole thing.
And the whole thing about the ring is that, like in the movie, people would get a phone call from this creepy girl telling them you're going to die in seven days.
You're going to die.
And, you know, that's the whole thing about the movie.
And so I went back home and I got a phone call and it was one of my friends doing the voice.
So I realized that it was him, but it was still a pretty funny prank call.
Expression number three, got you, got you.
Who can say got you?
The person who's playing the prank or the victim of the prank.
It'll be the person who's playing the prank.
And when can you say got you?
When the victim realized they were being the victim of a prank or when they don't realize it.
So you play the prank.
The victim doesn't know that it's a prank.
So at the end of the prank, you can say, ha, got you.
Just to show them that it's a prank, just to tell them that it's a prank and that you know, you were kind of like smarter than them in a way.
Expression number four, the joke's on you.
Oh, well, the joke's on you, Ricky.
I just called 911.
Who can say the joke's on you?
The person playing the prank or the victim?
This time, it's the victim.
And when do they say it?
Before, after, or during the prank?
It's after the prank.
After they realize that it was a prank, they can say, the joke's on you.
We're going to see why now.
If the victim says, the joke's on you, did the prank have the outcome we expected?
No.
So the prank has kind of like a plan, right?
It's something that you plan beforehand.
And you think it's going to get you to a result.
For example, getting your sister angry or sad or scared.
But in this case, that didn't happen.
But even if it did happen, there was a bigger result, which was the sister called the police.
And so this is unexpected.
And it's causing now a problem to the person who played the prank, who wanted to originally cause the problem.
So really, that's what you say.
It's kind of like a revenge.
You know, you say, ha, the joke's on you.
You're going to have a problem.
You were playing a joke on me.
Well, now the joke's on you.
So hopefully you understood it.
It's kind of complicated as a concept.
Has someone ever done something bad to you that made you think the joke was on them?
So this was back when I was in high school and I wasn't very good.
I wasn't a very good student.
And I remember this one morning I went in and I left my stuff in the classroom and I walked out because the class hadn't started yet.
And I walk back in and I see my notebook is missing. the notebook with homework.
So I look around and I see another student who had taken my notebook and was copying my homework.
And in that moment I got really mad, not because he was copying my homework, but because he didn't ask.
And so I went up to him and I, you know, I told him I was like well, the joke's on you, because you were, you were trying to trick me.
But now you're the one with the problem because you're copying homework.
That's probably not right.
So that would have been a good example of when I said the joke's on you.
Expression number five, pull someone's leg.
I'm pulling your leg.
Of course I didn't call the police.
If you're pulling someone's leg, are you telling them the truth or not?
If you pull someone's leg, you are not telling them the truth.
And are you doing that to hurt them or are you doing that in a playful way?
You're doing that in a playful way.
You're telling them something that that's not true, but that you're doing that as a joke, not to hide something.
How do you feel when someone is pulling your leg?
Do you think it's funny or not?
I think it's funny.
Although sometimes like, there's people that do it too much and then you never know when to believe them or not.
But if it's like once in a while, I think it's really funny.
And that is it for today.
And remember, if you want to access the transcript, as well as lots of other resources, visit enboocom.
That is E-N-B-O-O-O dot com.
Have a great day.
