Unfortunately I had a problem with my audio this week and had to use my computer microphone. So the quality is not very good. It will be normal again next week. Sorry!
Also, I said “EasyStoriesInEnglish.com/Frog” when it should be “EasyStoriesInEnglish.com/Frog2“.
You can listen to a levelled-up pre-intermediate version of this story at EasyStoriesInEnglish.com/Frog3.
Transcript
Welcome to Easy Stories in English, the podcast that will take your English from OK to Good, and from Good to Great.
I am Ariel Goodbody, your host for this show. Today’s story is for beginners. The name of the story is The Little Frog with the Big Mouth. You can find a transcript of the episode at EasyStoriesInEnglish.com/Frog2. That’s EasyStoriesInEnglish.com/Frog2. This contains the full story, as well as my conversation before it.
In last week’s episode, I talked about some ideas I had. They were ideas for the podcast. So I want to do maybe some extra things with the podcast. I talked about maybe doing YouTube videos, maybe writing books or online courses. And I put a poll so you can vote and say which thing you would like. The poll is still open. It will be open for another week. So go to EasyStoriesInEnglish.com/Frog2 to find the link and vote in the poll.
If you have your own ideas—maybe there is something you want me to do with the podcast—you can email me at . A lot of you have already voted, so thank you very much, and I look forward to hearing all of your thoughts!
Today’s story I really love. It is a very simple story but I really enjoy it. It has quite a funny ending. I heard it at a conference last summer. So I was at the Agen workshop in the south of France. It is a conference for people who teach languages using storytelling. So of course, for me it was fantastic. And somebody told this story, The Little Frog with the Big Mouth, in Hungarian. So none of us spoke Hungarian, but using pictures the teacher was able to tell the story and we all understood it, and it was so fun, and we were all sitting on the edge of our seats, waiting for the end, and when the end came we laughed so, so much.
So I had a very fun time at the Agen Conference, but it was so hot because it was the summer in thes outh of France. There were two days where it was 42 degrees. Eugh! And despite that, I’m going back this year because the conference was so fantastic. I’m going again.
Recently, I have been playing a lot of videogames. I don’t know if any of you like videogames. I… I don’t know. I like videogames but I go through phases. So maybe I will have six months where I play nothing and then a few months where I really intensely play videogames. So I bought a Playstation 4 last year, but then I didn’t use it very much. But recently I have been playing a lot of videogames.
Videogames are expensive, though. So I only buy games that are on sale. The problem is now, I have about six or seven games to play and some of them are very long games and I get stressed out because I want to play them all but I can’t play them all at the same time! Anyway, at the moment I am playing Life is Strange: Before the Storm, which is a story-based game, and it’s OK. I’m also playing Final Fantasy XIV, which is an online game, because my friend plays it and she really loves it so I want to play it so that we can play together.
Generally, I like RPGs, role-playing games—so role-playing games are usually medieval magic like, uh, The Witcher or Lord of the Rings, where you play a character you created—and I also like story-based games like Life is Strange. I really don’t like shooter games, so like, war games. One, I am very bad at them, but two, I just think they are boring. I want more fantasy.
So, do any of you like playing videogames? I would love to hear. Maybe you play some of the same games as me. Go to EasyStoriesInEnglish.com/Frog2 and leave a comment and tell me what videogames you like. Or maybe you hate videogames. You can tell me that, too. I would love to hear your comment.
OK, I’ll just explain some words that are in today’s story.
A frog is a small, green animal. They make a sound like ribbit ribbit. They live in wet places, like rivers and trees. In the Amazon rainforest, there are many types of frogs. Some are poisonous, so you don’t want to touch them. Frogs eat flies and other insects. They have very long tongues, and they use them to catch flies.
Smile is when you move the sides of your mouth up. You want to show that you are happy. If you like someone, you smile at them. It is like a laugh, but smaller. In some countries, people smile a lot more than in other countries. Sometimes Thailand is called “the land of smiles”.
Taste is how food feels in your mouth. Basically, it is whether it is good food or not. For example, I think McDonald’s tastes good, but some people think it tastes bad. I think dark chocolate tastes better than milk chocolate, but you might think the opposite.
The ground is like the floor, but outside. The ground is brown, but there might be grass on it, and then it will be green. Plants like trees and flowers drink water from under the ground.
A worm is a small, pink insect. Worms are long, a bit like a snake. But they don’t have any eyes or a mouth. Worms live underground, and you find them a lot in gardens. Birds love to eat worms. They pull them out of the ground and eat them. Most people think worms are horrible.
Hop is a small jump. So rabbits and frogs hop instead of jumping, because they are very small.
Hay is a type of dried grass. Hay is used on farms to feed animals. For example, horses eat hay. Hay is yellow and hard, and you pack it in big squares.
Your tongue is the long pink think inside your mouth. You use your tongue to speak. For example, if I say th, I am putting my tongue between my teeth. Tongues are also important for eating and drinking. If you don’t like someone, you can stick your tongue out at them. Dogs often stick their tongues out when they breathe.
Continue is when you started doing something and you keep doing it. For example, I started this podcast in January last year, and I am still doing it. So I continue to make Easy Stories in English. Maybe you start reading in the morning, and then you take a break for lunch. After lunch, you can continue reading.
Complain is when you only talk about how things are bad. Usually it is children who complain. For example, children might say, ‘I don’t want to go to the supermarket! I don’t like that food! I want a horse like that girl!’ They complain all the time.
If you enjoy the podcast and want more, you can support us on Patreon. For just $2 a month you can get exercises with each episode, and for $5 you get an extra story every month. You can support us at Patreon.com/EasyStoriesInEnglish. That’s Patreon.com/EasyStoriesInEnglish.
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OK, so listen and enjoy!
The Little Frog with the Big Mouth
Once there was a little frog. He lived in the forest next to a river. He was very small, about the size of a tennis ball. But his mouth was very big. When he smiled, his smile went from one ear to the other. Everyone called him the Little Frog with the Big Mouth.
Every day, the Little Frog with the Big Mouth ate flies. In the morning, he woke up at seven o’clock and had five flies for breakfast. At one o’clock in the afternoon he had fifteen flies for lunch. Then he slept a bit, and at seven o’clock in the evening he had ten flies for dinner. There were lots of flies in the forest, and the Little Frog with the Big Mouth was good at catching them.
But flies do not taste very nice, and when you eat the same thing day after day, you start to get a bit bored.
One day, the Little Frog with the Big Mouth woke up and thought, “I don’t feel like eating flies today. I have eaten flies every day of my life. Enough! I want to eat something different.”
But the Little Frog with the Big Mouth had never eaten anything else before. He didn’t know what other food there was. So he went through the forest, hop, hop, hop, to find other food.
The little frog came out of the forest and found a farm.
“It looks like there is lots of food here,” thought the frog. He thought the house must be food, because it was pretty and red. “But I can’t eat that. It’s too big!”
The Little Frog with the Big Mouth hopped around the house until he found another animal. The animal was small and white, and had a red thing on its head. Actually, to the frog it looked quite big, because he was only very little.
‘Who are you?’ said the frog.
The white animal looked down. ‘Buccaw! I am a chicken.’
‘And what do you eat?’ said the frog. ‘I eat flies. Well, I have eaten flies every day, and I don’t want to eat them anymore.’
‘I eat worms!’ said the chicken.
‘Worms? What are worms?’ said the little frog.
The chicken smiled and put her head in the ground. A moment later, she came back up with a big, fat worm in her mouth. She ate it up and said, ‘Mmm, delicious!’
‘Eww!’ said the frog. ‘Worms might be nice for you, but they are not nice for frogs like me.’
So the Little Frog with the Big Mouth hopped around the farm until he found another animal. This animal was very big. It was brown, and had long black hair, and it looked very strong.
‘Hello!’ said the little frog. ‘Who are you?’
‘Neeeeeeigh! I am a horse.’
‘And what do you eat?’ said the frog.
‘I eat hay,’ said the horse.
‘What’s hay?’
The horse went into a box and ate some long yellow things. They looked very dry.
‘Eww!’ said the frog. ‘Hay might be nice for you, but it is not nice for frogs like me.’
So the Little Frog with the Big Mouth hopped around the farm until he found another animal. This animal was pink and very, very fat.
‘Hello! Who are you?’ asked the frog.
‘Oink oink. I am a pig.’
‘What do you eat?’
‘I eat lots of things,’ said the pig. ‘But my favourite food is shoes.’
‘What are shoes?’ asked the frog.
The pig picked up a big heavy black thing in his mouth. It said Doc Marten’s on the side. The pig ate it up very quickly.
‘Eww!’ said the frog. ‘Shoes might be nice for you, but they are not nice for me.’
So the Little Frog with the Big Mouth hopped away from the farm.
‘I don’t think I will ever find nice food!’ the little frog said to himself.
He hopped into some long grass. There he did not find an animal, but an animal found him. It was very long and had no arms and legs, but it did have a long pink tongue. It didn’t look very nice.
‘Who are you?’ said the frog.
‘Ssssssss. I am a snake.’
‘What do you eat?’ said the frog.
‘I eat little frogs with big mouths,’ said the snake.
‘Oh!’ said the little frog. He made his mouth very small, and said, ‘I’m a little frog with a little mouth. There are no little frogs with big mouths here. Bye!’
And the frog hopped home as fast as he could.
“You know what,” thought the frog, “maybe flies are not that bad.”
So he ate flies for dinner, and he continued to eat flies for the rest of his life, and never again did he complain about his food.
THE END
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