Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 314, Buying a Digital Audio MP3 Player.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 314.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, for this episode that will help you improve your English even faster.
You can also take a look at our ESL podcast store, which has some additional daily English and business courses you may be interested in.
This episode is called Buying a Digital Audio MP3 Player.
It's a conversation between a man who works at a store and a woman who's looking to buy, who's interested in buying an MP3 player.
Let's get started.
Can I help you?
I'm looking for an MP3 player, but I don't know a lot about them.
We have a large selection, as you can see.
Wow, I really don't know where to begin.
I just want something small and portable that I can use to listen to music that I rip from CDs.
I also want to be able to download songs off the Internet.
Most of the players you see here can do that.
One thing you have to watch out for is that some music websites are proprietary.
That means that you can only listen using certain types of players.
That's what I'm worried about.
Well, this one plays music in a lot of different file formats and is compatible with most of the major music download sites, both proprietary and open source.
It comes with an FM tuner, a built-in battery charger, and good quality headphones.
What about its storage capacity and charge time?
It has 30 gigabytes of memory and can hold about 7,500 songs.
You get about 15 hours of music playback on one charge, and it charges up in about 4 hours.
It has a nice screen, too, that's backlit.
Our dialogue begins with the clerk, the employee at the store, saying Sandy responds.
An MP3 player would be something you can use to listen to MP3 audio files.
The audio files on this podcast and most podcasts, for example, are MP3 files.
There are many different kinds of MP3 players.
The iPod is an MP3 player.
Microsoft's Zune is an MP3 player.
There are many others as well.
The clerk says...
We have a large selection of these players, as you can see.
A selection of something is a variety of things to choose from, usually at a store.
You may say, they have a good selection of televisions.
They have many different kinds of televisions.
Sandy says, wow.
The clerk says, What are you going to use your MP3 player for?
Sandy says I just want something small and portable.
Portable means small, not heavy, and easy to carry with you.
A laptop computer is portable.
It's easy for you to pick up and carry with you somewhere.
Sandy wants an MP3 player that's portable that she can use to listen to music that I rip from CDs.
The verb to rip R-I-P in this context means to copy music from your CD onto your computer or some other device.
That's to rip a CD.
The verb to rip has a couple of different meanings.
Take a look at our learning guide for some additional explanations.
Sandy goes on to say...
I also want to be able to download songs from the Internet.
To download means to take certain files and put them on your computer, taking them from the Internet.
You download this podcast, for example, onto your computer.
The clerk says most of the players you see here can do that.
One thing you have to watch out for, one thing you have to be careful about, is that some music websites are proprietary.
The files they have are proprietary.
The word proprietary means it belongs to a specific company or a specific person.
It is made or owned by a particular person or company.
For MP3 files or internet files in general, when they are proprietary, that usually means you can only use them on the machines that are approved by that company.
Podcasts are mostly MP3 files.
They are not proprietary.
But if you download music from, for example, the iTunes Music Store, those files are proprietary.
You can only play them on an iPod or a computer that has iTunes software.
Of course you can put them on a CD, but that's the general idea about proprietary formats.
The clerk explains that proprietary means you can only listen to those files using certain types of players.
Sandy says, that's what I'm worried about.
That is what I am concerned about.
The clerk says, well, this one plays music in a lot of different file formats.
The file format is the way information is stored and transmitted electronically.
For example, audio files can be MP3.
A picture can be a JPEG, .jpg.
A Microsoft Word document would be .doc.
That's the file format.
The clerk says that one of the players plays a lot of different file formats and is compatible with most of the major music download sites.
To be compatible means you can use it with something else, with the same technology.
To be able to use two things together means that they are compatible.
The iPod is compatible with iTunes.
You can use them together.
The clerk says that the player he is showing Sandy, can use both proprietary files and open source files.
Open source files are ones that are free for anyone to use.
It can also be software that is available for anyone to use or to change.
You don't have to pay for it.
The clerk says that the MP3 player comes with an FM tuner, a built-in battery charger and good quality headphones.
An FM tuner would be something that allows you to listen to radio stations on the MP3 player.
A built-in battery charger would is a part of the device the machine that allows you to recharge or put electricity back into a battery that is used for the equipment.
So you usually take it and plug it into a charger so that the battery can be recharged, have enough electricity to use to power the device, the machine.
Headphones are the things you put over your head or around your neck and you put them into your ears so you can hear the music or the sound coming out of something.
Sandy says, what about the player's storage capacity and charge time?
Storage capacity is the expression we use to describe the amount of space that the device has to save or store files.
Your hard drive on your computer could have a storage capacity of 100 gigabytes.
That's storage capacity.
Charge time is the amount of time it takes to recharge the battery so that the battery is, we would say, full again at full charge.
The word charge has a number of different meanings in English.
Again, take a look at the learning guide for some additional explanations.
The clerk says that this MP3 player has 30 gigabytes of memory and can hold about 7,500 songs.
7,500 songs.
He says you get about 15 hours of music playback on one charge.
Playback is when you are listening to something.
You are listening to the audio file.
So 15 hours of listening time on one charge of the battery.
The battery charges up, he says, in about four hours.
So it will be at full capacity in four hours after you start to charge it.
The MP3 player has a nice screen also.
That's backlit.
Backlit MP3. one word, B-A-C-K-L-I-T, is when the light comes from behind something.
The screen is, we would say, illuminated from behind, so that you can see it in the dark without having to turn on another light.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Can I help you?
I'm looking for an MP3 player, but I don't know a lot about them.
We have a large selection, as you can see.
Wow.
I really don't know where to begin.
What do you want to be able to do?
I just want something small and portable that I can use to listen to music that I rip from CDs.
I also want to be able to download songs off the Internet.
Most of the players you see here can do that.
One thing you have to watch out for is that some music websites are proprietary.
That means that you can only listen using certain types of players.
That's what I'm worried about.
Well, this one plays music in a lot of different file formats and is compatible with most of the major music download sites, both proprietary and open source.
It comes with an FM tuner, a built-in battery charger, and good quality headphones.
What about its storage capacity and charge time?
It has 30 gigabytes of memory and can hold about 7,500 songs.
You get about 15 hours of music playback on one charge, and it charges up in about 4 hours.
It has a nice screen, too, that's backlit.
It looks like what I've been looking for.
I'll take it.
The script for this episode was written by Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks for listening.
We'll see you next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
This podcast is copyright 2007.
