I don’t believe in ghosts or anything like that but sometimes you get caught up in talk about the paranormal (things that appear real but don’t have a real explanation). Here is some vocabulary to talk about it. It might come in handy for Halloween next month.
poltergeist – a ghost that can’t be seen but makes noise. This is a German word used in English.
I heard chains rattling from the living room. There must be a poltergeist.
Ouija board (pron. “WIIja bord” – some believe this is a harmless toy; others believe it is witchcraft and linked to demons taking control of people.
I heard they talked to spirits using a Oujia board.
sighting – a time someone sees something. This collocates with ‘ghost ~’, ‘UFO ~’ and ‘Bigfoot ~’.
Bonnybridge, Scotland has Britain’s largest number of UFO sightings.
In the following article, the word ‘chilling‘ means ‘scary’, ‘ghoulish‘ means ‘like a ghost or monster’ and ‘apparition‘ means ‘ghostly figure’.
Here follows a brilliant example of a daft ghost story from British tabloid newspaper, the Mirror, which also has a great bit of simple past tense for storytelling at the end in the woman’s story.
Chilling sightings of ‘Black Eyed Child’ ghost spark paranormal hunt