Hannah: Hi Akif, how's it going?

Akif: Hey Hannah, I'm good. How are you doing?

Hannah: Yeah, good. I haven't seen you for ages. It's really nice outside. Do you want to grab a coffee?

Akif: Yeah, and do you want to sit in the courtyard?

Hannah: Yes, let's go to the courtyard.

Ted: Hey! Welcome back to Around the Water Cooler. I’m Ted, English expert here at Babbel. In today’s conversation, Akif tells his coworker Hannah about the “prank competition” he’s having with another person on his team. And what is “a prank”? Well, it’s a trick that is intended to be funny, but to not cause any harm or damage. So, now let’s listen to the rest of the conversation, and after that I’ll help you out by explaining some language that you can use to tell a story, or to follow along when listening to one! If you’d like to read along while you listen, you can find a link to the transcript in the episode description.

Hannah: So, tell me, what’s new?

Akif: Yeah, the work is fine. Recently, we have been pulling pranks in our team.

Hannah: Oh, what do you mean? What kind of pranks?

Akif: Oh, it's just something between me and Steve. We are pulling pranks on each other, but, we did set up some ground rules we don't destroy each other's property, we don't cause any major disruptions and also, we make sure that we don't cause any injuries, and also making sure that we don't cross the line.

Hannah: Hmm, interesting. I'm intrigued. So tell me about these pranks!

Akif: Yeah, it first started while I was getting water from the kitchen, Steve put tape under my mouse.

Hannah: What?!

Akif: And at first I was not sure what's happening. I kept on moving my mouse around. It didn't work. It was very frustrating. And after plugging and unplugging, checking a few things, I realized that something is off.

Hannah: Wow. That's genius. Then what?

Akif: Steve was talking to a customer in another room, and while he was doing that, I changed some keycaps on his keyboard.

Hannah: Ah, smart.

Akif: And the next morning he was pressing F instead of H.

Hannah: Steve must have been really annoyed. Did he do anything in return?

Akif: Yeah, he stayed quiet the whole day, but the next day…

Yeah, the next day, he replaced a photo of my daughter with Mr. Bean's photo.

Hannah: No way! I love Mr. Bean!

Akif: I... I tried to ask who did this and everyone was just pretending that it's the same photo of my daughter. And Steve says, “She looks cute as ever. Why are you complaining?”

Hannah: Wow, so, uh, did you, did you suspect that it was Steve?

Akif: Yeah, I mean, we have been pulling pranks on each other, and we are the ones who decided to do these. I'm very sure it's him.

Hannah: What next? How did this “prank war” end?

Akif: So, it was his birthday yesterday and uh, I wrapped every single item on his desk, individually, in a wrapping paper…

Hannah: No way.

Akif: … and gave him a good present.

Hannah: How did you manage to pull that off?

Akif: I arrived very early in the morning, 5 a.m.

Hannah: Oh my god. Such dedication. I love it.

Akif: Yeah. But I think we have decided to end it. Because he declared that I'm the winner of this. And, uh, but you never know.

Hannah: Very good. I'm very impressed. Well, it was so good to see you. And really nice to catch up.

Akif: Ah, well, same for me. It's always nice to meet you in the office.

Hannah: Let's not leave it so long next time.

Ted: Well, it sounds like Akif and Steve know how to keep themselves entertained at work! So, let’s take a closer look at some of the language these two used during their conversation. Every story, as I’m sure you know, has a beginning, a middle, and an end. So, to tell a story, you should be able to talk about all three. To talk about the beginning of his story, Akif used the phrase “It first started…”, a really common way to, well, start a story! And do you recognize the tense he used? Right. The past simple.

And what about the middle of a story? Well, to talk about the events of a story, you can follow Akif’s example and continue to use the past simple. We use the past simple to talk about things that happened one after another. For example, Akif says, “I kept on moving my mouse around. It didn’t work. It was very frustrating.” These three things happened one after the other. First he “kept on” moving his mouse around, then it “didn’t work”, and finally it “was” very frustrating.

Ok, so the past simple is the tense we use when we want to move our story forward, but there’s another one that you heard a couple of times that can be used to add a little more detail: the past progressive (I was doing). We often use the past progressive and the past simple together to talk about actions that happen in the middle of another action. To do this, we express the longer action with the past progressive, and the action that comes in the middle of the longer action with the past simple. For example, we heard Akif say, “While I was getting water from the kitchen, Steve put tape under my mouse.” So, he expresses the longer action with “was getting water”, and the action that happened in the middle of the longer action with “put tape”. There was one other example of this “past continuous + past simple construction” in the conversation. Did you catch it? If not, then you have something to pay attention to on your second listen!

As a listener, you’re also participating in the story, and asking questions is the perfect way to show you’re paying attention while moving the story forward. Two great questions that Hannah used are “Then what?” and “What next?”. They’re both used to signal to the storyteller that you’re interested in what they’re saying and that you want to hear more. Other than those two, you’ll notice that Hannah mostly asks questions using the past simple, like “Did he do anything in return?”, and “How did you manage to pull that off?”. Again, this helps the storyteller know what you want to hear, and can help guide them in telling the story.

And finally we’re on to the end of the story, and, actually, even though she isn’t our storyteller, Hannah did a great job of helping Akif finish up, by, you guessed it, asking a question. She asked him, “How did this “prank war” end?”. And? How did it end? Personally speaking, I don’t think it’s really finished yet. I’m sure Steve has at least one more surprise for Akif!

On another note, don’t forget about our special “Babbel for Two” offer, which allows you and a friend or family member to learn a new language together by spending less money on a second account! Check out the link in the episode description for more details. Babbel for Two: Start learning together today.

And that’s all for now. I hope you picked up a few useful skills for both telling stories and for following along. The next episode will be our last one for the season, so make sure you don’t miss out! See you again next week!