Improve your English with Downton Abbey. Season 1 Episode 4

This episode sees the arrival of Tom Branson, one of the central characters in the story. What impression does he make on you?

1) Watch and correct the false statements:

1. Lord Grantham is surprised by Branson’s interest in history and politics.

2. The Duchess still does not believe that the entail is unbreakable.

3. The Duchess comes to see Matthew to threaten him with litigation if he doesn’t refuse the title.

4. Isobel Crawley isn’t quite sure of what Mosley’s illness is.

5. Most servants are going to the village fair.

6. Thomas invites Daisy to the fair because he is interested in her.

7. Mary isn’t satisfied with her life, but sees no way to change it.

8. Mary and Robert do not want the Duchess to meet Matthew when he comes to talk about the entail.

9. Mrs Hughes meets an ‘old flame’ at the fair and he says he’s still in love with her.

10. Mrs Hughes was married before.

11. Bates seems to fancy Anna.

12. Thomas is baffled by Bates’s threats.

13. Robert does not want to go against the law in the entail business, because he feels he has no right to go against the will of his ancestors who created his fortune.

14. It is Doctor Clarkson who is finally able to diagnose Mosley correctly.

15. Mrs Patmore is trying to tell Daisy about Thomas’s sexual orientation indirectly, but Daisy does not understand.

16. Mary feels abandoned and betrayed by both of her parents.

17. Mrs Hughes sees no chance of personal happiness as she is no longer young.

18. The family is shocked by Sybil’s wearing trousers.

2) What do these people mean by saying:

1. Mary: “We are stuck in a waiting-room”

2. Branson: “There are better ways of helping the poor than sending stiff collars to the Equator”

3. Matthew (replying to Mary’s “I mean nothing in all this”): “On the contrary. You mean a great deal”.

4. Sybil (about her grandmother): ‘One whiff of reform, and she hears a rattle of the guillotine”.

3) The missing words all have to do with emotions. Put them in the right spots.

Resent, soul (2), heart, mouth, past.

1. Thomas is a troubled ________! (Mrs Patmore to Daisy)

2. She’s been terribly down in the ________ lately. (said about Mary and later about Daisy)

3. When she dies, they’ll cut her open and find it engraved on her______. (Mary about Cora)

4. I am a lost _______ to you! (Mary to Cora)

5. She must ______ me so bitterly! (Matthew about Mary)

6. I didn’t mean recover exactly. Just get ______ it. (Anna about Cora).

Which of the phrases above would you use:

1. When something upsetting happened and you want to leave it behind.

2. When you believe that someone has done something so bad, they can’t be good any more.

3. When someone is extremely upset.

4. When someone is so deeply offended that he/she can’t stand the offender.

5. When someone feels uneasy or disturbed.

4. Discussion:

1. In this episode Matthew mentions opportunities that he had been blind to. What do you think the opportunities are?

2. Sybil managed to have her way with the new outfit, but will she manage to have her way with her other ideas?

3. What do you think Cora means by saying that Mary would need Matthew one day?