Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 647, Using a Smartphone.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 647.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpod.com.
Go there to download a learning guide, an 8-10 page guide.
We provide for all of our current episodes.
That gives you The complete transcript of this episode, as well as cultural notes, vocabulary definitions, sample sentences well, just about everything you want in a learning guide.
This dialogue is between Hitomi and Jason.
They're talking about using a smartphone.
Let's get started.
This is my new smartphone.
It has every feature under the sun.
Every feature?
It has a high-quality camera and video camera.
And it's a video phone.
It has a great GPS program, too.
The touchscreen and the keyboard are easy to use, and everything is so intuitive.
Even a child could use it.
Yeah, but a child couldn't afford the expensive price tag, right?
True enough, but it has a removable SIM card and is Bluetooth compatible.
I can even use it as an e-book reader and download apps for just about anything I want to do.
No child's toy could do all of those things.
Yes, that's true, but I have just one question.
What?
Can you make a telephone call on it?
A telephone call?
You mean a regular phone call?
Yes, I think so.
Hitomi begins by asking Jason, what are you unboxing today?
To unbox U-N-B-O-X is to take something that you bought out of the box that it came in to open something that is brand new.
This verb is relatively new, I think.
It became popular when people started filming the unboxing and putting the video on YouTube, so you could see what it was like to buy a new iPhone or to buy a new Android phone, whatever the thing that you were buying.
Well, Jason is unboxing his new smartphone.
The term smartphone one word is a cell phone, a mobile or cellular phone that can also do email, usually has an internet connection and often other things as well.
The Android is an example of a smartphone.
BlackBerry makes a number of smartphones.
The most popular smartphone, or at least the most well-known, is probably the iPhone by Apple.
All of these are smartphones.
Jason says that his smartphone has every feature under the sun.
A feature is a characteristic, something special about that product.
Our learning guides have several features—vocabulary, definitions, sample sentences—
All of those are things that are special, that are included.
Software, a new car, a television, just about anything can have different features, different characteristics.
This smartphone has every feature under the sun.
To say that it has every something under the sun means it has many different types of that thing.
In this case, it has many different features.
So, Jason thinks his smartphone has every feature under the sun.
All of those that you could possibly want.
Hitomi says, every feature?
Jason says it has a high-quality camera and video camera.
A camera is a device that you use, a machine that takes pictures, that takes photographs.
There are many different, however, uses of that word camera.
Take a look at the learning guide for some more of those.
One use is a video camera.
This is a camera that records video, obviously.
Jason says that his smartphone is also a video phone.
A video phone is a telephone that allows you to see the person that you are calling.
That is something that, for example, you can do I know, on the iPhone with other people who have iPhones.
That's a video phone.
Jason says his phone also has a great GPS program.
GPS stands for Global Positioning System.
It's a technology that allows you to use, typically, a satellite to know exactly where you are.
And you can look at a map and see where you are.
Many cars nowadays have a GPS system in them that will help you find your way to wherever you're going.
This is especially useful if you are in a place that you are not familiar with.
Jason says that the phone has a touch screen and keyboard that are easy to use.
A touch-screen is a flat panel of an electronic device that can tell that senses when you touch it and allows you to do different things.
Again.
Many of the Android phones and the iPhone allow you to use your finger to move something from one side of the screen to the other, for example, or to tap on the screen to place your finger quickly once or twice on the screen in order to perform some action.
A keyboard is what you use for typing, what you use for putting letters, numbers, punctuation.
It's what you use on your computer all the time.
I should also mention that touch is can be used in a number of different ways, and those can be found in our learning guide as well.
Jason says that the touch screen and keyboard are easy to use and everything is so intuitive.
When we say something is intuitive...
I-N-T-U-I-T-I-V-E, we mean it's very easy for you to understand.
You can make sense of it even though you may not have used it before.
Usually, when we say intuitive, we mean that it is similar to something else that we do know how to use.
Jason says it is so easy, it is so intuitive to use, even a child could use it.
Hitomi says, yeah, but a child couldn't afford the expensive price tag, right?
To afford means to have enough money.
The price tag, T-A-G, is how much something costs.
Often when you go into a store, you are looking at, for example, a new chair or some other object.
You look for the price tag.
You look for the little piece of paper that says how much it costs.
It can sometimes be used to mean, more generally, the price.
So what's the price tag on that new car?
You're not talking about the actual piece of paper which would probably be called the sticker price anyway, for a car.
You're talking about what the price is.
Hitomi says that a child would not have enough money, couldn't afford the expensive price tag of the smartphone.
Jason says, true enough.
We use this phrase, true enough, to show that you agree with what another person has said.
Often you are agreeing with some sort of perhaps critical or negative comment, although not always.
Jason says true enough, but...
It has a removable SIM card and is Bluetooth compatible.
A SIM, S-I-M card, is a subscriber identity module card.
Basically, it's the small card that has your electronic information that you put into a phone to use it.
Many phones have SIM cards you can remove and put in a different phone.
And sometimes people who travel to different countries are getting different SIM cards to use in their phone.
Bluetooth is a technology that allows two electronic devices to communicate, to send signals from one to the other.
Bluetooth is a technology that only works for small distances.
For example, I have a Bluetooth mouse and a Bluetooth keyboard for my computer.
There are no wires that connect the keyboard to the computer.
It is wireless, without wires, because it is a Bluetooth keyboard.
And we take the keyboard and we use the verb pair it with the computer.
Bluetooth devices are paired to each other.
They're connected to To be compatible means that it can use that thing.
So Bluetooth compatible is a phone that can be used with Bluetooth microphones or Bluetooth keyboards, etc.
Jason says I can even use my smartphone as an e-book reader and download apps for just about anything I want to do.
E-book stands for electronic book.
An e-book reader is a small portable electronic device that you can use to read text, to read Books magazines newspapers blogs, that sort of thing.
There are lots of e-book readers out there.
The Kindle by Amazon is a popular one.
Now the iPad by Apple also has an e-book reader on it.
An app, A-P-P, is an application.
It's a software program that you use, in this case on your smartphone, that allows you to do different things.
There are apps for many, many different functions.
There are ones that you can play games on.
There are apps that you can use as a map, or There are apps that allow you to translate from one language to another.
Apps that have the entire dictionary on them.
So lots of things you can do with apps.
Jason says, no child story could do all of those things.
Hitomi says, yes, that's true.
But I have just one question.
Jason says, what?
Hitomi says, can you make a telephone call on it?
Jason says, a telephone call?
You mean a regular phone call?
Yes, I think so.
He's not sure.
Of course, we think of cell phones first as being phones and second as being these other things.
But Jason is so excited about the things that his smartphone can do.
He doesn't even talk about the fact that it is also a regular phone.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
This is my new smartphone.
It has every feature under the sun.
Every feature?
It has a high-quality camera and video camera, and it's a video phone.
It has a great GPS program, too.
The touchscreen and the keyboard are easy to use, and everything is so intuitive.
Even a child could use it.
Yeah, but a child couldn't afford the expensive price tag, right?
True enough, but it has a removable SIM card and is Bluetooth compatible.
I can even use it as an e-book reader and download apps for just about anything I want to do.
No child's toy could do all of those things.
Yes, that's true, but I have just one question.
What?
Can you make a telephone call on it?
A telephone call?
You mean a regular phone call?
Yes, I think so.
We have scripts on almost every topic under the sun, brought to you by our own Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2010 by the Center for Educational Development.
