Study this video as a lesson on LingQ
I turn into a teenage goo goo muck.
Yeah I Cruise through the city and I roam the streets.
Looking for something that is nice to eat.
You better duck when I show up.
The goo goo muck.
Hi everyone, and welcome to the English LingQ Podcast with me, Elle.
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Today we’re learning English from the smash hit Netflix show Wednesday.
So the show follows Wednesday of the Adams family, a very dark and
smart young lady as she starts a new school, the Nevermore Academy.
The school is filled with werewolves and sirens and other outcasts just
like her, so she should fit in, right?
Welcome to Ophelia Hall.
Not a hugger.
Got it.
Please excuse Wednesday.
She’s allergic to color.
Oh.
What happens to you?
I break out into hives and then the flesh peels off my bones.
If you haven’t seen or heard of the show, you’ve likely heard of
the spooky, kooky Addams family.
They’re made up of Dad Gomez, his wife Morticia, their kids
Wednesday, and her brother Pugsley.
There’s also a butler called Lurch and a hand…
just a hand called Thing.
There are other characters.
There’s an Uncle Fester and a a cousin It.
But those are the main, that’s the core family.
The Adams family has been adapted many times over the years.
There was a show in the sixties, a show in the seventies.
There was a movie franchise that I grew up watching in the nineties and
now this show Wednesday on Netflix.
So this family clearly resonates with audiences.
So in today’s video, I’m going to share some fun facts about
Wednesday and the Addams family.
But before I do that, let me show you how you can make English lessons
with episodes of Netflix’s Wednesday.
So first, make sure you have the LingQ browser extension.
It’s available on Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.
Then head on over to Netflix, choose Wednesday.
Make sure that your English closed captions are selected.
Then you click on the LingQ browser extension, hit
import, and there you have it.
Your lesson has been created.
Open it up and work through the words and phrases.
So I have my dictionary set to English, but there are so many different
languages as you can see here, that you can change your a dictionary too.
And then within each language there are tons of dictionaries
to choose from as well to add.
Then you can review as you go with the vocabulary activities.
This is how it looks on mobile.
And you can also review vocabulary on the mobile app.
Okay, so let’s get into these facts about Wednesday and the Addams family.
Fact number one, the Adams family comes from a New Yorker cartoon.
So The New Yorker is a very famous magazine.
This cartoon appeared in 1938.
The cartoonist is Charles Addams and the Addams family were created as, uh, to
be the kind of antithesis of the nuclear family, the regular family in the States.
This is kind of depressing if you think about it, because one of the
key features of the Addams family is the love that Gomez the father
and Morticia have for one another.
So I guess what Charles Adams, the guy who created the Addams family
,was saying is most marriages are not this loving and happy.
But one way the Adams family are very different to a regular
family is that they are very dark.
They’re obsessed with all things macabre.
So Charles Addams, the cartoonist who created the Addams family, he had
the family in normal situations in their living room listening to music,
but then something strange happens, like Thing, the hand comes scurrying
across and plays the record for Gomez.
The members of the family weren’t actually named in the cartoon.
And so when the cartoon was made into a TV show in the sixties, that’s when
the names Gomez Morticia Wednesday Pugsley, and the rest were created.
And speaking of names, that brings us to fact number two.
The name Wednesday is very unusual and it comes from a nursery rhyme.
Wednesday is certainly a unique name.
I am guessing it was the day of the week you were born.
I was born on Friday the 13th.
Her name comes from a line from my favorite nursery rhyme.
Wednesday’s child is full of woe.
It really is the perfect name for her.
The name of the rhyme is Monday’s Child and the full rhyme goes like this.
Monday’s child is fair of face.
Tuesday’s child is full of grace.
Wednesday’s child is full of woe.
Thursday’s child has far to go.
Friday’s child is loving and giving.
Saturday’s child works hard for his living.
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day is bonnie and blythe and good and gay.
So maybe you want to check on Google what day of the week you
are born and figure yours out.
Fun fact number three about the Adams family as they are of Spanish descent.
And actually, In Netflix’s Wednesday this is the first time that
Wednesday is a Latina character.
Now, there was some uproar over the casting, the Gomez casting of Luis Guzman.
He isn’t a typically handsome man, and I guess people of my generation
are used to the Gomez in the 1990s movies and the shows from before that
he was more conventionally handsome.
But if you look at the comics, Gomez is described or drawn as kind of short,
crooked teeth, not, not super attractive.
So actually this casting is perfect and Luis Guzman does
a very good job in this role.
Of course, the actress who plays Wednesday, Jenna Ortega, the amazing
Jenna Ortega, she does such a great job.
She is Latino, and she said this of the role “Wednesday is
technically a Latina character and that’s never been represented.
So for me, anytime that I have an opportunity to represent my
community, I want that to be seen.
Fun fact number four, the Adams family have supernatural powers.
They can survive electricity, poisoning, fire.
Morticia can make smoke.
Uncle Fester, of course, there’s the famous image of Uncle
Fester, putting a light bulb in his mouth and it lighting up.
So they’ve always been portrayed as a kind of a supernatural family.
And in Wednesday on Netflix, this is definitely enhanced.
So Wednesday, and I won’t ruin anything for you, discovers early on when she
joins Nevermore that she has psychic abilities, and of course the other kids
at Nevermore are supernatural creatures, sirens and werewolves and the like.
So this portrayal of the Adams family is definitely focusing in on that element.
And the last fun fact, I wanna talk about one of my favorite characters, Thing.
Thing is just a hand in the, uh, original show adaptation in the sixties
of the cartoon thing appeared in a box and in the nineties movie franchise,
he suddenly was free and very fast.
He, he’s like a, like a spider scurrying around
In this newer adaptation on Netflix, in Wednesday, he’s kind of scarred, he’s
got a bunch of cuts all over his hand and they’re stitched up, so we assume
that more of him out there somewhere.
It’s kind of like a Frankenstein’s monster situation.
Thing acts as a kind of sidekick to Wednesday in the Netflix version.
So there you have it.
Some fun trivia to get you excited to watch the show or
perhaps if you’ve already seen the show, to give you some context.
Let me know if you have seen it or if this prompts you to watch it.
I’d love to know what you thought.
I thought it was fun.
I enjoyed it.
It’s definitely more aimed a teenage audience.
Um, but that’s okay.
That’s, that’s fine.
Switch your brain off for a bit and just be entertained.
Thank you so much for watching and listening, and I will see you next time.
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