Learning English

Can you spot a big lie?

Do you know when someone is not telling the truth? Are you sure? Well, they might blush, maybe behave strangely... or say something weird, right? Wrong. Some liars are very confident and they can trick others for years. Liars can be very charming and know exactly what to say to get others to believe them. Here are some of the lies many of us believed.

To do

Here's an article about four famous lies. There are similarities between each example. Read the article the first time quite quickly and decide which one of these three sentences is not true about all four of the famous liars. The answer is at the bottom of the article.

1. They were all very confident when lying.

2. There were official investigations when they were caught.

3. They went to jail.

Read the text and complete the activity

Part 1
The American stockbroker Bernard Madoff promised to deliver gains nobody else in the market could. His clients believed him, forgetting that if something is too good to be true, it's either not really that good or simply not true. Madoff was in fact a swindler. He used money from new investors to pay old ones and kept the illusion going. This is what is known as a 'pyramid scheme'. In 2009, Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in jail for a fraud that robbed investors of £40bn. He toldhis victims he had no excuse for his behaviour.

Part 2
Body language isn't always a good way to tell if someone is telling a whopper. US President Bill Clinton looked straight at the TV camera when he denied he had an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. It was 1998 and his behaviour was under investigation during a sexual harassment lawsuit. It was filed by a former Arkansas government employee that Clinton had worked with, Paula Jones.  Reports came out that he'd had an affair with another employee, Lewinsky. In the end, the president had to admit that he misled people. Bill Clinton had to give a public show of regret. He was impeached by the House of Representatives but spared by the Senate.  

Part 3
Regret didn't come easily to American cyclist Lance Armstrong. After years of denials he admitted in a 2013 interview with US talk show host Oprah Winfrey that he took performance-enhancing drugs during his seven Tour de France victories. The athlete confessed that because he kept getting away with it he didn't even fear being caught by anti-doping officials anymore. Armstrong lost his titles and was banned from the sport for life. 

Part 4
Some liars relax too much after they think they have successfully fooled everybody. This was John Darwin's biggest mistake. The Briton faked his own death in a canoe accident to allow his wife to get his life insurance money. Darwin walked into a police station after five years 'dead' claiming he didn't remember where he had been. The police were suspicious after a picture of the couple with a estate agent in Panama appeared in the press. With a lot of money in their pockets they planned to move to the Latin American country. 'Canoe man', as the newspapers called him, and his wife were sentenced to more than six years in jail.

Well, maybe it is not easy to spot a liar after all. You have to keep your wits about you to prevent these people pulling the wool over your eyes.

Which of these is not true?

3. They went to jail.

That's not true. Only Bernard Madoff went to jail. Lance Armstrong was banned and Bill Clinton was impeached but neither went to jail.

To do

Here are more questions for you to check how much of the article you can understand and how well you've learnt reporting verbs. Read the article again and go for it!

Big lies you've believed

Has anyone ever told you a big lie? Did you believe them? How did you find out the person was not telling the truth? Do you have tips on how to recognise when someone is not telling the truth?

Thank you for emailing your comments to us. We enjoyed reading them. This task is now closed.

Here are some of the comments that we received:

Hương Hoàng 

Have you ever been lied by the person you trusted most? For me this was an unforgettable story that made me keep my wits about others.

I am a student and due to the expensive expenses in the big city, I have to share my accommodation with my friend. At first, we haven't known about each other, just met by chance and studied at the same university, I believed that we can handed all the problems well by resigning ourselves. But things never go as you think. We didn't have much argument but others incurred. More and more items disappeared. I had no doubt about her until I found my computer was stolen when I was far away. I insisted on her that she was a thief but she blamed that his boyfriend took it. I felt sorry and sad. She should have apologized for instead of denying. I broke this relation and felt shock because this is the first and worse experience I ever had since I was far away from my parents.

I know life is difficult and there are more challenges and I have to cope with people who are pulling the wool over your eyes.

Trinh Viet Linh, Vietnam

I believe that many people among us have at least one time in life given changes to some beggar with a true compassion. It seems sensible to mention, but you are absolutely able to be misled in this case.

One day, I was on the way home when I saw a dismal man begging at the street corner with a serious large burn on one leg that looks gangrening. He was sitting on the ground with a piece of cardboard said that his leg would be cut due to gangrene of the wound if it was not treated timely and that he could not afford the money of the treatment and, of course, with a hat that was turned upside down in front of him to collect the donate. Many pedestrians donated him. I did too.

I quickly found that we were all swindled when a pedestrian recognized the man who was in fact a swindler and posted the truth on the Internet. The man faked his burn and had begged with the same scenario all around Hanoi. He had misled many people until  disappeared when his trick was out.

We usually do charity or donate without doubt. I do not advise you not doing so, but let keep your wits about you. 

Khalid, Yemen

I consider this event as the biggest fraud case happened in sight of my eyes. I was with my brother's friend guiding him in the city, because he was living in countryside. We were at a hospital to take the result of his medical tests which was required to get a visa. The important thing is the result was negative, so he was so happy. Just after we'd taken the result and gone out the hospital, we met a man who had a watch for sell. He claimed it was Swiss watch and he needed money to pay bills of his father treatment otherwise he would not sell it, we told him that we were not interested, so he asked us where he could sell it. When I was telling him where he could sell his watch, A man who was wearing suite and seemed important came to the three of us and said that he wanted the watch.

They didn't agree on a price, so the suitman offered giving us money for free if we made him agree, and he went to bring money. I told my friend we should leave them, because the suitman wanted to exploit the watchman, he refused, and the suitman didn't appear again.

As a result, he decided to sell his watch for my friend for lower price and my friend agreed he wanted to have happy day. My friend took the watch and asked two people who were looking dignified, and old men, they recommended buying the watch and said it was worth more than 1000 USD. 

Finally, he bought it for 700 USD, and we went home. In our way to home we asked a person who was working in a shop of Swiss watches about it, he said it's real price less than 100 USD.

We didn't believe that and he asked me didn't tell anybody about that especially his father, I promised I wouldn't tell anybody.

Nadia, France

A friend ever told me a big lie that I believed. I never find out on her. I knew my friend was a liar because she came out her lie on her own. She repeated her liar to other people who don't believe it.

I didn't have tips to recognise if someone is lying or not. Some people lie and we can read it on his, her face.

There are characteristics behaviours, coming out of the ordinary: a small smile, a gesture on the face.

There also are lies that anyone can't see and those are more difficult to recognise.

Taras, Ukraine

Unfortunately I was fooled once. The fact is that in our country exist job offers when you are offered a job with a higher salary. All you should do is just to call their telephone number. But the number is not simple. You call every minute and the call takes away fantastic money from you.  And you will lose all the money in the account  or later will come a huge bill if it is a landline phone.

These job offers they propose are to collect pens or envelopes. But if you think logically, the pens and envelopes are produced at the factory and there is not need in your part. But then I only finished university and started to search for a job without knowing these nuances.  I called from a fixed line I got a huge bill and I was forced to pay it.

My recommendations for job seekers is when you search for a job pay attention to advertisement. A serious company always puts requirements to candidates and don't write like this: "The job for all, regardless of age and level of education". Likely that this is fraud. So keep your wits about you and don't let them pull the wool over your eyes.

Mario, Italy

Over the years, I have been deceived so many times that I would be spoilt for choice on what to tell. Anyway, one of the worst lies was the invention of new miraculous methods to learn English language in a very short period of time. Who wouldn't want to believe that? But then I realized that learning a foreign language is a matter of years and daily hard work that, I am sure, sooner or later will pay off.

Claudio, Venosa, Italy

I agree, often it's no easy to find if someone is telling a lie. I remember a joke I did with some friends of mine. Annoyed because they ate my special chocolates, without wrapping, I told them that they were rat poison. I was a very good liar. I told them that I was joking only when we arrived in emergency room. I enjoyed very much. It was better than eating the chocolate.

Juan Carlos, Colombia

Yes off course one time, I met a person in my college. He told me a big lie. that lie was about his parents. he told me that he needed a bit money for pay the taxes of  parent's house. I gave a  loan but when I discovered that his parents are dead, I tried to warn all my friend but was too late He misled me and fooled some of them.

Unfortunately some swindlers are very smart and is too hard to recognise when they are telling lies but I try to look them in the eyes when they speak, if they can't look at me I start to suspect about them.

Rosangela, Brazil

The Trojan Horse

When Helen, wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta, was kidnapped, the Greeks decided to wage a war against Troy. The fighting lasted ten years and looked like Troy, protected by its high walls, was the winner. But the Greeks had a cunning idea: they built a huge wooden horse that hid soldiers in its hollow interior. Then communicated to the enemy that the horse was a peace offering. Thus, the Trojans accepted the gift and took him inside the walls. That night, as Troy was asleep, the Greeks left the horse and opened the gates to his army, which was decisive in defeating the Trojans. This may have been one of the greatest lies in history and one of the best war tricks is, of course, is true. I still do not know if the episode really happened or if it's just a legend.

End of Session 4

How was that? Nobody fools you now, do they? Join us in Session 5 for our new drama, The Importance of Being Earnest. In episode 1 we meet the charming Algernon and mysterious Earnest.