Story History: Are you using these words correctly? They’re false friends in many languages. Learn the meaning of story and history and how we use these words differently in English.

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Story and History Video Transcript

Children like to listen to stories before they go to bed.
Cinderella and Aladdin are famous fairy stories.
But there are all kinds of stories; ghost stories, detective stories, love stories.
Some are true, and some are made up.

This is a scene right out of history. You don’t see trains like this any more.

History is about events in the past, facts about things that happened.
History is also a school subject.

And now for a hundred dollars, your next question is ‘Who wrote the Harry Potter series.
Oh, they’re great stories. I know this. It was J.K.Rowling.
You’re right for a hundred dollars. Congratulations!
And now for a thousand dollars, we have a history question.
When was the United States’ constitution adopted?
Oooh! I think it was 1776? No, I’m sorry. It was 1787.
Ah! I’m not very good at history. I can never remember dates.
I’m sorry, Vicki. What a shame!

History is supposed to be true.
But historian’s know that the people who write the history books often tell the stories their way.

Click here to watch some more videos on common false friends: sympathetic and nice, actually and currently, miss and lose, sensible and sensitive