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👉Check out some of the original art by EH Shepard:

Pooh goes visiting

Pooh has some trouble

All Rabbit's friends and relations

👉The story begins at 1:34 and the tiny lessons begin at 16:14

👉You can find the transcript after the Credits!

👉Visit our website to download the Podcast User's Manual and find out more! https://alittleenglish.com/

A Little English is written, produced, recorded, edited, mixed, mastered and scored by Edward Cooper Howland.

All stories are either in the public domain, or written by me.

Copyright 2024 Edward Cooper Howland

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TRANSCRIPT:

INTRO 0:00

Hi. My name is Cooper Howland, and this is…A Little English. Every episode, I read a short story. After the story, there are three tiny lessons.

If you’re really serious about studying using this podcast, please go to my website, www.alittleenglish.com. You can get the Podcast User’s Manual, with lots of ideas for self-study. If you just want to listen, then relax and enjoy.

So, let’s get into this story. Today we are reading Chapter Two of Winnie-the-Pooh, and I have once again invited Tabatha to play Christopher Robin. I think that this is probably the most famous Pooh story. Or, at least, it’s the one that I remember the most clearly from my childhood. The good news is, it doesn’t have that story-within-a-story thing that the last one had. It’s just a story about Pooh going to visit his friend, and…well…you’ll see.

STORY 1:34

Edward Bear, known to his friends as Winnie-the-Pooh, or Pooh for short, was walking through the forest one day, humming proudly to himself. He had made up a little hum that very morning, as he was doing his Stoutness Exercises in front of the glass: Tra-la-la, tra-la-la, as he stretched up as high as he could go, and then Tra-la-la, tra-la⁠—oh, help!⁠—la, as he tried to reach his toes. After breakfast he had said it over and over to himself until he had learnt it off by heart, and now he was humming it right through, properly. It went like this:

Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,

Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,

Rum-tum-tiddle-um-tum.

Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,

Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,

Rum-tum-tum-tiddle-um.

Well, he was humming this hum to himself, and walking along gaily, wondering what everybody else was doing, and what it felt like, being somebody else, when suddenly he came to a sandy bank, and in the bank was a large hole.

“Aha!” said Pooh. (Rum-tum-tiddle-um-tum.) “If I know anything about anything, that hole means Rabbit,” he said, “and Rabbit means Company,” he said, “and Company means Food and Listening-to-Me-Humming and suchlike. Rum-tum-tum-tiddle-um.”

So he bent down, put his head into the hole, and called out:

“Is anybody at home?”

There was a sudden...