← All listening lessons B1 · 5 minutes · Short stories
A Piece of Red Calico A man's wife asks him to buy cloth that matches a small sample. It turns out to be very difficult. A comic story by Frank R. Stockton, adapted for learners.
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What you’ll practise Understand reported speech and a sequence of past actions.
Words to know calico A cheap cotton cloth, often with a printed pattern. sample A small piece that shows what something is like. trouble Difficulty or extra work. Words at this lesson’s level (B1) At B1, you probably know about 100% of the words in this lesson.
The other words of this lesson are at B1 or below.
Word levels from the CEFR-J Wordlist 1.5 (Yukio Tono, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies); words not in it count as above B2. Your level is the one you chose in the level guide, otherwise the lesson’s.
Source “A Piece of Red Calico” by Frank R. Stockton, adapted for VOA Learning English American Stories. Public domain.
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Five sentences selected from the opening and cut into clips. Explanations and vocabulary are original.
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