Lingoda Group Class Notes 65

• Topic: Telling an anecdote
  
• Related skill: Communication
  
• Date: 23 December 2024
  
• Teacher: Tanycia

What I've learned

Idioms

to make a long story short

• Meaning: to get to the point – to leave out any unnecessary details
  
• Example: Anyway, to make a long story short, I missed my flight and had to pay €400 to get home!

Vocabularies & Phrases

V&P	Definiation	Note
to check (something) out	If you check out something or someone, you find out information about them to make sure that everything is correct or satisfactory	I really want to check out that new Italian restaurant.
adventure	an unusual, exciting, and possibly dangerous activity, such as a trip or experience, or the excitement produced by such an activity	We went way out into the countryside - it felt like a proper adventure!
Things started to go downhill	事情开始走下坡路	Things started to go downhill as soon as we arrived in the hotel.
shortcut	a route that leads from one place to another and is quicker and more direct than the usual route	Are you sure this is a shortcut?

Grammar

Giving background information with the past continuous

As you know, the past continuous describes something that was happening over a period of time. That’s why it often used to set the scene for an anecdote.

Here’s how this sounds:

• A few weeks ago, I was cycling to work one morning,when this car pulled out in front of me…
• One summer before university, when I was working ina restaurant, there was this customer…
• Something funny happened to me once – it was back when I wasliving in France…

In anecdotes, the past continuous has two functions.

To give the listener general background information – e.g. where you were living at the time, and what was going on

• It was back in 2003. I was finishing my degree andlooking for a job.
• So this happened last summer while I was stayingwith my sister for a few weeks.
• Everyone was talking about the presentation andworking really hard.

To describe two past actions together: what was happening (past continuous) when something else happened (past simple).

• The sun was shining and everyone wasenjoying themselves when, all of sudden, weheard a bang.
• My sister’s husband was working in the garden whenthe neighbour started screaming.
• After all those weeks, the team was justgetting ready to present when the fire alarmwent off.

Review

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Same teacher possibility: 50%

Resources

• Learning material