The Open Book

22/12/2018

I have taken the liberty of rewritting this wonderful story in language that I think you will understand. The vocabulary level is 89% below the Oxford 3000. You should be able to guess the meaning of the other 11% from context.
Enjoy and Merry Christmas!

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Google+ StumbleUpon Pinterest Shares O. Henry was an American short story writter. He lived in New York from 1862-1910. As many of you know, Original English stories are very difficult for language learners, especially stories written over 100 years ago! I have re-written t...

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www.etsy.com/ca/shop/ChrisAllenJewelry

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10/09/2018

The Young Prince and the Merchant's Daughter
written by V Curlette
Part Four-Conclusion

Rebecca and her father travelled throughout the new kingdom meeting new people every day.
When they needed supplies, Rebecca would try to ask the shopkeepers for the items she needed. Sometimes the shopkeepers would understand her, sometimes they wouldn’t. This didn’t bother her. She enjoyed playing the game. She would gesture and act out what she wanted to say and the shopkeepers would have a lot of fun guessing. She would always keep her eyes open for books at her level. At first she acquired children’s books with lots of pictures. After awhile she was reading books for young adults. Then she started reading short stories in magazines. (They didn’t have graded readers in those days).

The merchant and his daughter travelled all the way through the neighbouring kingdom this way. Slowly, but surely the merchant’s daughter learned more and more of the neighbouring kingdom’s language.
After 3 months of travelling, it was time for the merchant and his daughter to come home. They visited the same shops and the same inns that they had stopped at on their way back home. The innkeepers and shopkeepers were very impressed with the merchant’s daughter’s language skills. She didn’t have to gesture anymore because she had learned the vocabulary that she needed. She also didn’t have to act out her thoughts because she had learned the structures that she needed. She didn’t know what the structures were, she just used what she heard.
They went to the blacksmith’s shop to say goodbye. He was overjoyed to see Rebecca and her father. The father shook the blacksmith’s hand warmly saying, “It’s so nice to see you again.” The blacksmith looked surprised for nobody expected the old merchant to learn the language. He did, of course, because language doesn’t discriminate with age the way many people falsely think.
Rebecca, always one to let her emotions rule her behaviour, flung her arms around the blacksmith’s shoulders, giving him a truly heartfelt hug and planted an enormous kiss on his lips.
The blacksmith, who had secretly been in love with Rebecca from the moment he first laid eyes on her, blushed profusely, his cheeks actually glowing red. The merchant, who had always secretly wished for his daughter to marry well, at least one station above his own, shrugged and thought, quite wisely, that love really is the best match-maker, not class or status or wealth.
Emboldened by Rebecca’s kiss, the blacksmith went down on one knee and held out his hand to her. “Will you marry me, my little friend?”
“Yes I will, but you must read your little poetry book to me every night,” exclaimed Rebecca.
“I will, Rebecca, I will!” the blacksmith shouted for joy.
The merchant laughed, as tears of joy ran down his cheeks. The three of them danced a little happy dance and lived happily ever after. From that day on, Rebecca read diligently in her new language and became the official trade diplomat for the two kingdoms.

You probably thought that the young prince was going to make another entrance into this story, didn’t you? Well, he didn’t because he’s still up in his ivory tower trying to perfect the language. He still hasn’t said one original sentence in the new language but he is excellent at doing grammar exercises. Some people whisper that he is actually an obsessed man. He simply cannot stop doing grammar exercises. His original goal, to learn the new language, has long been forgotten. Instead, he memorizes entire dictionaries, has learned the complete list of verbs that take the gerundive and those that take the infinitive. His biggest accomplishment to date has been to recite 500 irregular verbs standing on his head while juggling four coloured balls. His father, the king, is not impressed. The only trade the king has done is to order shipments of grammar books from the neighbouring kingdom.

The moral of the story is to live the language you are learning. Try to communicate with speakers of the new language, listen and read and then read and listen some more. Grammar is good for learning grammar.

09/09/2018

The Young Prince and the Merchant's Daughter
Written by V Curlette
Part three:
After the meal, the merchant’s daughter went up to the innkeeper. She picked up the printed menu and pointed to the words. The innkeeper said the words to her and she tried to repeat them.
Before the merchant and his daughter left the restaurant, she indicated to the innkeeper that she would like a menu to take with her. He gladly gave one to her. She read it many, many times, imagining the food that the words corresponded to.
The next day, the merchant and his daughter needed to go to the blacksmith. Their horses had walked so far the day before that the horses needed new shoes. The blacksmith had no problem understanding what the two travellers needed because customers with horses only needed one thing.
“So your horses need shoes, do they?” the blacksmith said in a very friendly voice. Of course, the merchant’s daughter didn’t ‘know’ what the blacksmith had said, but she supposed, correctly, what he had said. This conversation was so obvious that only a fool would stop to reference a dictionary or a travellers phrase book, (the merchant’s daughter didn’t have these books anyway). She nodded her head and smiled brightly, supposing that a nod meant yes in most cultures and if not a smile surely did! She pointed at her horse’s shoes.
“Your horse needs new shoes,” repeated the blacksmith.
“shoes”, repeated the merchant’s daughter.
“That’s a fine horse you’ve got,” said the Blacksmith.
“fine horse, “ repeated the merchant’s daughter.
And so while the horses got new shoes, the blacksmith and the merchant’s daughter continued to have an exchange of words. She didn’t really know enough of his language to call it a conversation, but it was a pleasant exchange. Before she left, the merchant’s daughter saw a little book on the blacksmith’s workbench. She pointed to it.
“Ah, this little book?” he asked.
She was successful with the nod and had learned “yes” at the inn so she nodded and said, “Yes, little book”
“This is a small book of poetry that my grandfather gave me for my tenth birthday. I have held it close to my heart ever since.”
That was just too much. She didn’t understand a thing he said. But, you see, the blacksmith was not a clever English teacher, and didn’t know that new learners need ‘comprehensible input’.
Rebecca knew he had said something about the little book, although what it was, she had no idea. She reached out for it and the blacksmith passed it to her. She opened the little book and instantly recognized that it was poetry. She also realised that she couldn’t understand anything. Rebecca knew that this book was too advanced for her right now, but she was determined to learn enough of this new language to be able to read the blacksmith’s little poetry book when she and her father stopped here on their way home, six months from now.

The blacksmith understood that Rebecca wanted something to read. He made a gesture for her to wait a moment and he went into his house. When he came out he was holding a book high in the air, waving it around like a trophy. He placed the book in Rebecca’s hand. “For you my new little friend,” said the blacksmith smiling with pride.
Rebecca opened the book and in an instant realised that it was a children’s book, filled with new words, phrases, sentences and pictures to help her understand. She even recognised one of the words from her lunch at the inn, “eggs”.
“Thank you”, Rebecca replied gratefully, for she had taken the time to learn the most important word of any language. (The second most important word in any language, by the way, is, ‘please’.)

07/09/2018

Part Two: to be continued....

The Young Prince and the Merchant’s Daughter
Written by V Curlette

In the village below the castle lived a small family. The father was a merchant who had become quite successful. He wanted to expand his business to the villages in the neighbouring kingdom. He decided that his daughter could travel with him to share the workload. Neither the merchant nor his daughter spoke a word of the neighbouring kingdom’s language.

This small family didn’t have enough money to buy grammar books or enough money to hire grammar teachers. They actually didn’t even think about buying books or hiring teachers. In fact they didn’t even think about how they would learn the new language. It simply never crossed their minds. The merchant’s daughter was very outgoing and loved to meet new people. She didn’t worry about not knowing the language. She trusted in herself to find a way to communicate with the new people they would meet.

The father and his daughter set out on their journey with their two best horses. After a few hours, they realised that they had lost their way. They continued along the road, knowing that they were travelling into a new land and of course they wouldn’t recognize anything because it was all new. It was supposed to be new. It was an adventure. Soon they came across a small village.

“Let’s stop at the Inn and get some food”, the father suggested. “We could also ask if we’re following the right road.
“Yes, I agree that we need some food”, replied the merchant’s daughter, “but do we really need a ‘right’ road? Don’t you think that any road will do? We don’t have a plan as such. We’re simply going to meet new customers. All we have to do is remember how to get home.”
The merchant, always surprised at his daughter’s bravery, agreed and so they stopped at the village inn for lunch. The merchant’s daughter, (who by the way needs a name for this story, let’s call her Rebecca), tried to order food for them. She didn’t know one word of their language. The innkeeper simply shrugged his shoulders, not knowing what to bring the merchant and his daughter.

The merchant’s daughter, never one to be discouraged, followed the waiter to the next table and listened to the customers ordering their food. The waiter, a jolly chap, thought this was very funny. Her father, quite used to his daughter’s rather daring behaviour, sat smiling at his table. After listening to the customers’ orders, Rebecca watched what kind of food the waiter brought the customers.

She stopped him and pointed to one dish. The waiter told her the name of the dish and she repeated it. She followed the waiter around the inn for an hour until she was able to tell the waiter what she and her father wanted to eat. She was an extremely friendly and likeable girl, so the waiters didn’t seem to mind this strange behaviour. She made it into a game and soon the entire inn was having fun repeating the words for the different dishes being served. After some time she finally decided that she could order. The merchant and his daughter had a perfectly wonderful meal.

06/09/2018

Part one: to be continued....

The Young Prince and the Merchant’s Daughter
Written by V Curlette

Once upon a time there was a clever young prince who lived in a wonderful castle in a far away land. His father, the king, wanted the young prince to learn the language of the neighbouring land so that he could do trade with them. The king bought the young prince all the best grammar books and brought in the most talented grammar teachers from all over his kingdom.
Every day the young prince studied his grammar books, learned all the irregular verbs by heart and he memorized lists and lists of difficult vocabulary.
He could say things like, “drink-drank-drunk, speak-spoke-spoken and big words like hippopotamus and ambidextrous.” Everyone was so proud of his progress.
The young prince studied all the grammar rules and learned them so well that he was often better at grammar than his teachers. He knew that the third conditional needed a past perfect in the condition clause and the result clause needed a perfect infinitive. He also knew all the verbs that were followed by a gerundive and all about participle clauses. He never made a mistake in any of his exercises.
In his classes, the teachers corrected him every time he made a mistake and made him repeat difficult phrases. They corrected his pronunciation every time he spoke. Although this made him feel a bit embarrassed and often caused him some anxiety, he never complained and told himself that he needed to study harder and for longer hour. The young prince was as stoic as a monk on a silent retreat.
After six months the grammar teachers decided that the young prince had become the kingdom’s leading grammar expert in his own and the new language. The king ask him when he would be able to visit the neighbouring kingdom to begin to discuss the trade agreement.
“Well father”, the young prince replied, “I believe I shall be ready in another year. I still have a few things to perfect.” And so, the young prince retreated back to his ivory tower and continued his diligent studies.
We’ll leave the young prince to his studies for awhile and move on to the story about the merchant’s daughter.