B1 · 5 minutes · Short stories

Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen

Every Thanksgiving Day for years, a rich old gentleman has bought a meal for a poor man in a New York park. A story by O. Henry, adapted for learners.

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What you’ll practise

Hear comparisons and the past perfect.

Words to know

tradition: Something people have done in the same way for a long time.
gentleman: A polite or well-born man.
breath: The air that goes into and out of your body.

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

“Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen” by O. Henry, adapted for VOA Learning English American Stories. Public domain.

View the source · Licence terms

Five sentences selected from the opening and cut into clips. Explanations and vocabulary are original.

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