Neil: Hello, welcome to ‘How to…’ with me, Neil Edgeller. In this
programme we’ll take a look at how to tell friends, or people you know quite well, about funny or unexpected things which have happened to you. Perhaps you saw someone famous, or bumped into someone you haven’t seen for years. How do you introduce the topic to your friends? How do you tell the story, and how do you finish it? Listen and find out more in this week’s How to…
Neil: It’s a Monday morning at BBC Learning English and everyone’s talking about the weekend. And some very funny things happened. Funny here means unusual. First of all, listen to Jackie. What happened to her?
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A really funny thing happened to me the other day when I was out with a friend. We were in a restaurant in London and suddenly I saw that she was just staring at something on the other side of the room with her mouth wide open and it turned out that Michael Jackson was sitting there and it was really unexpected, just a really odd experience to see this really famous person.
Neil: Jackie went to a restaurant with a friend and Michael Jackson was in the same room, which is, of course, a very strange and unusual situation. How did she start telling the story? She says, “A really funny thing happened to me the other day.”
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A really funny thing happened to me the other day when I was out with a friend.
Neil: This is a good way of introducing funny or unusual events to a friend or colleague you know quite well. It’s for informal situations. After she introduces it, she can then tell the story. At the end, she comments on the story.
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…it was really unexpected, just a really odd experience to see this really famous person.
Neil: She says, “…it was really unexpected, just a really odd experience…” Odd is another word meaning strange or unusual. It’s typical with this type of story to end with a comment which tells us how you felt. Here’s the whole thing again.
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A really funny thing happened to me the other day when I was out with a friend. We were in a restaurant in London and suddenly I saw that she was just staring at something on the other side of the room with her mouth wide open and it turned out that Michael Jackson was sitting there and it was really unexpected, just a really odd experience to see this really famous person.
Neil: Next I spoke to William. Something very funny happened to him over the weekend too.
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Something very, very strange and unexpected happened. I was going to the park with my little niece. When we got there, there were about… I don’t know, about two hundred or more clowns, and they were all on bikes or unicycles or whatever and I had my little niece with me and she went absolutely crazy. She doesn’t like clowns.
Neil: He took his niece to his local park and there were about two hundred clowns riding bikes and unicycles. A unicycle’s a bicycle with only one wheel. How does he introduce the story? He says, “Something very strange and unexpected happened.”
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Something very, very strange and unexpected happened.
Neil: And after that he tells the story. And, just like Jackie, he finishes with a comment which tells us how it ended and what the feeling was.
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I had my little niece with me and she went absolutely crazy. She doesn’t like clowns.
Neil: His niece went crazy because she doesn’t like clowns. Now listen to it all again.
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Something very, very strange and unexpected happened. I was going to the park with my little niece. When we got there, there were about… I don’t know, about two hundred or more clowns, and they were all on bikes or unicycles or whatever and I had my little niece with me and she went absolutely crazy. She doesn’t like clowns.
Neil: Lastly, here’s Catherine. Something funny’s just happened to her as well.
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You’ll never guess what’s just happened to me. Listen to this, right. I’ve just gone to get a sandwich and on my way back this woman came up to me and she said, “I can’t believe it’s you! Can I have your autograph?” Can you believe it?
Neil: She left the office to buy a sandwich and outside the BBC building, someone asked her for an autograph. They thought she was a famous person. Listen to how she introduces this story. She says, “You’ll never guess what’s just happened to me. Listen to this, right”.
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You’ll never guess what’s just happened to me. Listen to this, right.
Neil: After that, she tells the story and then ends with a comment, this time, “Can you believe it?” This shows that she’s really surprised about what happened.
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Can you believe it?
Neil: Now here’s Catherine again.
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You’ll never guess what’s just happened to me. Listen to this, right. I’ve just gone to get a sandwich and on my way back this woman came up to me and she said, “I can’t believe it’s you! Can I have your autograph?” Can you believe it?
Neil: To recap. If you want to tell a friend about something funny or surprising that’s happened to you, you can introduce it like this:
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A really funny thing happened to me the other day.
You’ll never guess what’s just happened to me.
Something very, very strange and unexpected happened.
Neil: You then tell the story and end by adding a comment:
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It was really unexpected, just a really odd experience.
She went absolutely crazy.
Can you believe it?
Neil: That’s all for this How to…Next time you have dinner with Michael Jackson, you’ll know how to tell your friends.