Learn English with “A Monster Calls”: Vocabulary, Grammar and Pronunciation

“The monster showed up just after midnight. As they do.”

What an opening line. In this episode we go through the first pages of A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, listening to the audiobook read by Liam Neeson. He also voices the monster in the film adaptation.

One important note before we start: Liam Neeson is Irish, so his accent isn’t the Southern Standard British English I usually teach. You’ll hear him pronounce the r after vowels (that’s called a rhotic accent). That’s great listening practice. English is spoken with so many accents, and you need to understand them all.

Grammar from the first page

“As they do”

The monster showed up just after midnight. As they do. This short phrase means as monsters typically do. It’s a dry, humorous comment, and it tells you a lot about the tone of the book in just three words.

The past perfect: “He’d had a nightmare”

Conor is awake when the monster comes. He’d had a nightmare. That’s the past perfect (had + past participle), used for something that happened before another past moment. Notice the contraction: he’d had. In speech, the first had almost disappears.

Later we get a past perfect question: Had it followed him out of his dreams?

Italics mean stress

Then this:

Not a nightmare. The nightmare.

In the book, a and the are in italics, and that tells the reader to stress them. Normally the is weak (/ðə/). When it’s stressed for emphasis, it becomes /ðiː/, which rhymes with see. This is contrastive stress: not just any nightmare, but the one, the nightmare he always has.

“The” before vowel sounds

We also use /ðiː/ before a vowel sound: the apple, the end. But the wind uses the weak /ðə/, because w is a semivowel, and it behaves like a consonant here.

Pronunciation focus

• Go away: listen for a little /w/ sound linking the two words: go-w-away. English adds this linking sound between vowels so speech flows.
• Ended: past tense -ed after d or t is pronounced /ɪd/, as an extra syllable: end-id.
• Could have: in natural speech it’s weak and contracted: could’ve, almost coulda. It never sounds like “could of”, even if it looks that way!
• Know / no: these are homophones, words with the same sound but a different spelling and meaning. He needed to know.
• Voice: has the diphthong /ɔɪ/, the same sound as in boy.

“Fortnightly or so phone call”

A fortnight is two weeks, a very British word. So a fortnightly or so phone call is a call roughly every two weeks. And in phone call, a compound noun, we stress the first word: PHONE call.

Vocabulary

• Groggy: feeling weak and unable to think clearly, especially after waking up or because you’re ill or tired. I felt groggy after the flight.
• Blink: to close and open your eyes very quickly. Conor blinked.
• Frown: to bring your eyebrows together because you’re annoyed, worried or thinking hard.
• Slip from someone’s grasp: when something escapes your control or your memory. In the story, the dream is slipping from him.
• Straining: trying very hard to do something. Conor is straining against the silence, listening as hard as he can.
• A rustle of bedding: rustle is the soft sound of things like leaves or paper moving; bedding is your sheets, blankets and pillows.
• Not one he recognised: we use one to avoid repeating a noun. Here, a voice, but not a voice he knew.
• You’re too old for monsters: too + adjective + for + noun, meaning past the age where something is suitable.

Can’t put your finger on it

This is a C2 expression. If you can’t put your finger on something, you can’t explain exactly what’s wrong, different or unusual about it. The Longman dictionary has a perfect example:

There was something about the man that worried Wycliffe, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

You’ll hear it a lot in everyday British English: Something’s different about you today. I can’t put my finger on it… new glasses?

Practice

A. Is the weak (/ðə/) or strong (/ðiː/)?

1. the orange
2. the window
3. Not a monster. The monster.

B. Complete with the past perfect.

1. When Conor woke up, he ___ (have) a nightmare.
2. ___ it ___ (follow) him out of his dreams?

C. Rewrite using put my finger on it: I know something’s wrong, but I can’t say exactly what.

How to practise with this story

Listen to the opening a few times, first just for the story, then with the text. Pause after each sentence and shadow it, copying Liam Neeson’s pauses and dramatic stress. Then try the same lines with a British accent: drop the r in midnight… monster, use a schwa. Comparing the two accents is one of the best ways to train your ear.

Subscribe for more lessons with audiobooks, films and video games, and let me know in the comments if you’ve read the book or seen the film.