Learning English

What is the Queen up to?

What do you think is the Queen's intention?

A) to test the young lady to see if she is really a princess.
B) to make the young lady sleep badly so that she leaves the next day.
C) to squash the pea flat so she can make pea soup
D) Something else

To do

Watch the video and find out which option is correct. And listen out for five more uses of sleep.

รับชมวิดีโอพร้อมทำแบบฝีกหัด

To do

So, the correct answer was A) to test the young lady to see if she is really a princess. This proves to the Queen that she is a true princess, and the prince and princess get married the next day.

Now lets practise the different uses of sleep. Have a go at this quiz.

Over to you

We asked you to tell us a story using as many of the phrases with sleep as possible:

• loses sleep over (something)
• sleeps through it
• sleep
• sleeping like a baby
• get some sleep
• falls asleep
• didn't sleep a wink
• sleep on it 

Your stories

Mario, Italy

Last night, after watching a horror movie on TV, I went to bed but I was still a bit frightened. While I was sleeping like a baby, a big noise woke me up. I wasn’t sure whether I had dreamt about the noise or not. Since I was alone in the house I started to feel worried and I didn’t manage to sleep a wink anymore. The only way to relax that I know is to take my mp3 player and listen to a six-minute-english file. After a while I was listening I fell asleep but suddenly I heard that noise again. I decided to go downstairs but everything was right there. I got back to my bedroom and I realized that I had let myself be influenced by the horror movie and I had to sleep through it because I needed to get some sleep to face my working day. Thinking it wasn’t something to lose sleep over I finally managed to fall asleep. After this experience, maybe I should sleep on stopping watching horror movies.

BBC Learning English says: 
Excellent Mario. We love a good horror movie last thing before bed! But we also love to sleep too! Your use of sleep vocabulary here is great, but we recommend changing the last item from I should sleep on stopping watching horror movies. to I should sleep on whether to stop watching horror movies. This is because although what you have written is grammatically correct, it reads more smoothly in this new form. Well done and keep up the good work!

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Maan, UAE

We used to see a lot of tourists  during summer, in my village in Syria but not in winter because of the cold weather. It was a windy cold evening ,when I met tow  tourist women looking for a place to get some sleep that night because they had been driving long time and they didn’t sleep a wink, one of them was sick, so they cannot sleep through that weather in their caravan. There were no hotel in the village, so I invited them to stay over in  my grandmother house, she lived alone and I knew that she had an extra places to sleep. I explained the problem to my grandmother and she didn't mind, so i left them there and went home. I lost sleep over how they would understand each other, because my grandma didn't speak any foreign language. 

At the morning I went in a hurry to my grandmother house, I  surprised to see the three ladies get along well, they were enjoying a traditional breakfast ,laughing as if they were close friends since long time. "They are so kind, yesterday I made a cup of mint to  relive abdominal pain, they slept as a baby" my grandmother said." They invited me to travel with them. I'll sleep on it", my grandmother added as a joke. "But how did you understand each other"? I asked. "Using the language of humanity, peace and love" my grandmother replied.  

BBC Learning English says:
A very warm and positive story Maan. If this is about your real grandmother, she is clearly a very good person. You have used all of the sleep phrases well but be careful when you say 'they slept as a baby" my grandmother said.' This should say 'They slept like babies', first - the expression uses 'like' rather than 'as' and second - the pronoun is they so the expression should be plural. Well done.

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Kestutis

Hello, my name is Kestutis, and this is the first time when I write a topical story to BBC Learning English, though it didn't take long to sleep on it. 
The seasons of the year...They are all so different, having their own charm,beauty, personal features, colors and smells. The year's season can be considered as magicians affecting the mood of the human being. Just have a look to a late autumn period and you will see how many people start losing sleep over warmer clothes, feel under the whether, become less active, sleep longer...Late autumn brings a lot of rainy, sometimes stormy days and nights, thus some of us cannot even sleep through it or even don't sleep a wink. In contrary, other people, including me, like this wet and dark period of the year because they consider it as a good possibility to slow down, accumulate energy for the upcoming spring. Therefore, they fall asleep in no time and sleep like a baby the whole night, in a roundabout kind of way;-) I would just recommend to drivers, who fall into this category, not to get asleep while driving, in spite your car is big and sleep you comfortable because it's to early to go to sleep at this time:-) In summary, I wish you all to sleep like a baby and not to lose sleep over the rainy autumn or cold winter!

BBC Learning English says:
Quite a profound story, Kestutis. We also like Autumn here at BBC Learning English. The cold is the perfect opportunity to have cocoa every evening! Well done on your uses of sleep. You have written them into a story well. We would recommend a couple of changes: 1. how many people start losing sleep over warmer clothes - as it is, this sounds a little strange, as if people are worried about the clothes themselves. The addition of another word here can make your meaning clearer - how many people start losing sleep over NEEDING warmer clothes. 2. ...not to get asleep while driving... This needs to be amended to ...not to fall asleep while driving... Great work, and we hope to hear from you again.

End of Session 4

That's all for this time. We hope you enjoyed this story. In Session 5, Tim's in the Pronunciation Workshop - don't miss it!