In this episode: Vocabulary words about TV, tag questions (Part 2), a lesson about agreeing, the Joke of the Week, a listening quiz, and more.
Episode 149 of the Everybody ESL podcast has a list of vocabulary words about TV, a lesson about agreeing, Part 2 in our series about tag questions, the Joke of the Week, a listening quiz, and more. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions (or if you’d like to record an introduction for future episodes), send an email to EverybodyESL@gmail.com!
Episode 149 rundown: Vocabulary (words about television): 1:25, Grammar (Part 2 in the series about tag questions): 6:30, Small talk (how to agree with somebody): 12:40, the Joke of the Week: 14:50, Listening quiz: 16:40.
Vocabulary: television
The theme for this episode’s vocabulary is something that you probably know a lot about. The theme is television, or TV.
And the first word on our list of television-related words is series: s-e-r-i-e-s. Series. A series is a TV program that has more than one part or more than one episode. One interesting thing about the word series is that the plural of series is also series—spelled the same way and pronounced the same way. One television series or two television series. It’s the same word.
The next word is very similar: miniseries. Miniseries: m-i-n-i-s-e-r-i-e-s. Miniseries. Well, you can probably guess what miniseries means. A miniseries is a small or mini series. A miniseries is a TV series with only a few parts or only a few episodes.
How about this one? Remote. What is a remote? R-e-m-o-t-e. A remote, which is sometimes also called a remote control, is the device, the thing, that lets you control the TV. So, while you're sitting on your sofa, you can use your remote to operate your TV.
The next one is related to that. It is channel surf. Channel surf. C-h-a-n-n-e-l s-u-r-f. That’s two word: channel surf. To channel surf means to change the channels quickly while you watch TV, to travel from one channel to another quickly as you try to find something to watch. Do you know what surfing is? To ride on a surfboard on the waves. I guess the idea is when you are channel-surfing you are using your remote control like your surfboard, and you are moving quickly through the different TV channels. So in a way, it's like you’re surfing. Not really, but that's where the expression comes from.
And the next word is binge: b-i-n-g-e. Binge. To binge means to do a lot—or too much—of something at one time. Usually we talk about people bingeing on food or maybe alcohol. But lately people have started to use the word binge to mean “to watch a lot of one television program at one time, to watch many episodes, one episode right after another episode.” So people will sometimes talk about binge-watching or just bingeing.
The next word is stream: s-t-r-e-a-m. Now you might know the word stream as a small river or a narrow channel of moving water. Well, stream also has to do with TV. To stream a television show, or to stream a movie, means to watch the movie on the Internet or to watch the movie on some kind of streaming service, like Netflix.
How about this one? Twist: t-w-i-s-t. When it comes to TV shows or movies or other kinds of stories, a twist is a sudden, surprising change in the plot. If something surprising and unpredictable happens in your story, that is a twist, sometimes called a plot twist.
And the last term in our list of television-related vocabulary is pay-per-view. Pay-per-view. That is spelled p-a-y-hyphen-p-e-r-hyphen-v-i-e-w. Pay-per-view. This describes programs that you need to pay a fee to watch. So it’s like renting a movie, but you watch one specific TV show or one specific event by paying for it.
So that is our list of TV-related words: series, miniseries, remote, channel surf, binge, stream, twist, and pay-per-view.
Grammar: tag questions (Part Two)
Today's grammar topic is Part Two in our series about tag questions. If you missed Part One in the series, you might want to go back to episode 146. You might want to go back to Part One in episode 146 just as a review before you get into Part Two. In Part One of this series, I introduced the idea of tag questions, and we talked about how they are used and what they mean.
And now in Part Two, I’m going to start telling you how to form tag questions. They are a little bit more complicated than they look. The first thing you need to know about forming a tag question is that they change the verb from positive to negative or from negative to positive. That did sound complicated, didn’t it? Let me say that again in a slightly different way: If the main verb in the question is positive, then the tag part of the tag question—the part you put at the end—will be negative. If the main verb of the sentence is negative, then the tag part will be positive. They switch, from positive to negative or from negative to positive.
Let me give you some examples, and I think it will be a little bit easier to understand. If we start with this sentence—You have tried sushi before. You have tried sushi before—that's just a regular declarative, or non-question, statement. You have tried sushi before. Now what would it look like if I turned that into a tag question? It would look like this: You have tried sushi before, haven't you? You have tried sushi before, haven't you? Do you hear what happened? We started with have. You have tried. But in the tag part of the tag question, that became haven’t you. We started with have. We ended with haven't. So we went from positive to negative. You have tried sushi before, haven't you?
Here's another sentence that does the same thing: He can swim, can’t he? He can swim, can’t he? Do you hear what happened there? We started with can, but in the tag part of the tag question, that became can't. It went from positive to negative. He can swim, can’t he?
And we see the same thing happening in this example: I'm going to pass the test, aren't I? I'm going to pass the test, aren’t I? We started with am. That's positive. We ended with aren't. That’s negative. We went from positive to negative. Now, you might have noticed something strange going on in that sentence. We started with am, but we did not end with amn’t. We didn't turn am into a negative by saying amn’t. Why not? We should have, right? Isn’t that the negative form of am? Am, amn’t? Well, no. Maybe it should be, but amn’t isn't a word in English. Instead of saying amn’t, for some reason we say aren't: a-r-e-n-apostrophe-t. I'm not sure why we say it that way. Why don’t we say amn’t? I don't know. We say is and isn't, are/aren't, were/weren't. But for some reason, we say am/aren't. So, the tag question sounds like this: I'm going to pass the test, aren’t I?
And just as verbs move from positive to negative in a tag question, they also move from negative to positive in a tag question. And here are some examples of that:
She doesn't speak French, does she? She doesn’t speak French, does she? So here we started with the negative—doesn’t speak. She doesn't speak French. And then in the tag part of the tag question, we have does she. So we went from the negative doesn't to the positive does. She doesn't speak French, does she?
Here’s another one that shows the same thing: They aren't leaving now, are they? They aren't leaving now, are they? There, we started with the negative aren’t, and we ended with the positive are in the tag part of the tag question. They aren't leaving now, are they?
And the last example of this is this sentence: You haven't already seen this movie, have you? You haven't already seen this movie, have you? There, we started with the negative haven't, and the tag part of the tag question had the positive have. So we moved from negative to positive.
Well, that's all I’m gonna tell you about tag questions today. We will have another part in this series in a future episode. So, what I want you to remember for this part—for Part Two—is that tag questions reverse the verb. If the verb was positive, then in the tag part of the tag question, the verb will be negative. If the verb started negative, then in the tag part of the tag question, it will be positive. It goes from positive to negative and from negative to positive. It’s pretty complicated. It seems like a very simple kind of construction, a very simple kind of question. But it turns out, it really isn't quite that simple. Well, we'll talk about this more in a future episode.
Small Talk: how to agree with somebody
For today’s small talk topic or social situation, I want to teach you three good ways to agree with somebody. Or I guess I should say, “three good things to say if you want to show that you agree with somebody.” Now, I think these three statements work well in any kind of situation. They work well when you don't feel very strongly about it. They work well when you do feel strongly about it. These are things you could say to a friend, and these are things you could say to a stranger.
If somebody says something that you agree with, you can say these three things. Of course, there are many different things you can say, but here are three good things for you to learn and remember.
The first one is “I know just what you mean.” I know just what you mean. In other words, “I know exactly what you mean. Yes, I understand it perfectly.” That's what you're saying when you say, “I know just what you mean.”
The next thing on my list of things you can say to show that you agree with somebody is “I feel the same way.” I feel the same way. I feel the same way. In other words, “I share your opinion. I have the same opinion as you.”
And the last thing on my list of agreeable things you can say is “You can say that again.” You can say that again. You can say that again. Now, notice something important here about this expression: when you use this expression, you need to stress the word that. You can say that again. If you say it that way, it will sound very natural.
Well, that was three good ways to agree with somebody.
The Joke of the Week
And now... it's time for the Joke of the Week. That's right! The Joke of the Week: a joke that will probably not be very funny, but I'm still going to keep telling these jokes because I think they're fun, and I think they can show us interesting or fun things about English. Here is this week’s joke:
What can you catch, but you can never throw? What can you catch, but you can never throw?
Do you have any ideas about this? Maybe some kind of a ball or some kind of heavy object? Well, I don't know. Those answers don't sound like they belong to a joke. So I'll just tell you the answer. What can you catch, but you can never throw? A cold! A cold! You can catch a cold, but you can't throw a cold.
Now, why is this a joke? Well, it's because the word catch means different things. Often when we think about catching something, we think about grabbing it out of the air and holding it with our hands. But, of course, when it comes to sicknesses like colds, we use the verb catch to mean “to get the cold, to become sick.” So when you "catch a cold," or even just "catch cold," that means you become sick with a cold.
So you can catch a cold, but you can’t throw a cold. That's the Joke of the Week. It was as hilarious as all of the other Jokes of the Week. Don't you agree?
Listening Quiz
Here are this episode's listening quiz sentences: