38
Short Stories, Long Shadows
The shortest, sharpest stories ever written
Thirty-eight tales that turn on their final line — O. Henry, Poe, Chekhov, Maupassant, Chopin, Doyle and more. Read closely, then mine each for words, grammar and conversation. Every story at two levels.
Explore the stories →
86
Short History, Long Echoes
History's most dramatic true stories
Eighty-six real events — Pompeii, Cleopatra, the Berlin Wall, the Suffragettes, Alcatraz, the Mary Celeste — each a full speaking lesson at two levels, with a grammar focus and the real podcast as listening.
Explore the history →
33
Behind the Screen
The real story inside great films
Interstellar, The Matrix, Oppenheimer, Gladiator and more — each a full speaking lesson that watches a famous film, then digs into the true science, history and ideas underneath it. A grammar focus and two levels, like the rest.
Go behind the screen →
16
Bet the Company · Business C1
Real business stories, still being argued about
Ørsted's all-in bet, Nokia's lost future, Kodak's invention in the drawer, the Lego rescue, Dieselgate, Wirecard, WeWork, the Hanjin shipping collapse and more — sixteen true cases, each a full C1 speaking class with one executive grammar focus: hedging, concession, accountability, forecasting.
Open the boardroom →
7
Big Conversations · B2
The big topics of ordinary life
Why we pay to be frightened, where the free time went, the boy who stayed awake for eleven days, the battle for your attention, whose language English is now, the bliss point, and twenty absurd questions answered with real physics — true stories that open into an hour of real conversation.
Start talking →
10
True Science Stories · B2
The discoveries the world tried to ignore
The doctor who drank his own experiment, the map that stopped cholera, the mould in the dirty dish, Photograph 51, Apollo 13, the last case of smallpox — ten true stories, each a full B2 speaking class with the grammar the story itself teaches.
Meet the stubborn ones →
6
Beyond Reasonable Doubt · Legal C1
The cases that made the rules we live under
A snail in a ginger beer bottle, an advert that became a binding promise, four men in a lifeboat, the right to remain silent, the accounting system the courts believed over 700 people, and a court built from nothing in 1945 — six real cases, each a full C1 speaking class with one point of legal register.
Open the case files →
