← All listening lessons B1 · 5 minutes · Short stories
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County In a mining camp in California, a man named Jim Smiley will bet on anything, even on his frog. A famous comic story by Mark Twain, adapted for learners.
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What you’ll practise Understand “would” for past habits and informal speech.
Words to know frown To look angry or unhappy. risk The chance that something bad will happen. bet To risk money on what will happen. Words at this lesson’s level (B1) At B1, you probably know about 92% of the words in this lesson.
Show 3 words that may be new These words are in the recording, so they also help with the answers.
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 “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” by Mark Twain, 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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