Do you love sports or do you hate them?
I'm Oliver and welcome back to the Easy English Podcast.
And today we are going to be looking at the history of sports, and not a boring history, but more why they are a thing.
Almost everyone loves some kind of sport.
Maybe you don't enjoy watching it on TV.
Some people do.
But maybe you enjoy playing a game with friends in the park.
Maybe athletics is more your cup of tea.
Or perhaps you love some good old classic football or soccer for the Americans.
Today we are going to learn some new vocabulary and phrases.
And as always...
It's the best place to practice your English listening skills while learning something new.
So even if you're not a big sports fan, we're all going to learn something new today.
As you can see, I'm in a new location if you're watching the video.
I finally got my new office set up in our new house. so I'm able to have my own recording space.
It's completely empty at the moment, so there's nothing on the walls.
It will take some time for me to fill it.
I'm using a very tiny desk in front of a window that has no curtains.
So it's very bright on my face and I've tried to put something in front of the window to hide the light.
But regardless, we will continue and the podcast will be made.
If there is a problem with the audio, I apologize because the room is still empty.
It's there might be an echo.
An echo, it's like echo, echo, echo, echo, a repeat of the voice.
So, as I mentioned today, we are going to take a simple look at the history and inception, so the creation of some very popular sports and games like football, basketball and tennis.
So we're going to look at how they were created.
Who came up with this idea and why has it become popular?
But let's first look at our key vocabulary.
Today we're going to learn five useful words that you will hear during our chat today.
Listen out for them and practice your active listening skills.
Even if you know these words already, I want you to try to hear them, to try and recognize these words in my speech today.
That's your challenge.
The first word is athletics.
Athletics, and this is a noun, and it means physical exercises and sports in general, especially competitive ones, so running and jumping, for example, are forms of athletics.
The next word for today is contest contest, And this is a competition or a game in which people try to win something.
So we could say an example about a football tournament.
So the final contest was very close.
It was a very close game.
The third word is regulation.
Regulation.
That's a strange word, right?
Regulation means an official rule or instruction that tells you what you must do or what you can't do, really what is allowed and what is not allowed in a game or sport.
All players must follow the regulations of a sport.
And this word not only applies in sport, but you can use it in society too.
We have rules and regulations, and it often just means laws.
So other laws that are put in place as well.
So this is a useful word.
It's not just for sport and it essentially means rules or laws, I guess.
The fourth word is inception.
I used this word towards the start of the podcast, and inception means the beginning of something, the creation of it, such as an activity or an organization.
So we could say, if we're talking about the growth of a company, we could say Google has grown a lot since its inception, since its creation.
And the final word for today is squad, squad.
And this is a group of players in a team, often a smaller selected group.
So we might say that the football coach chose the best squad for the match.
So the squad is that team, right?
That group of players.
So keep all these words in mind as we talk and discuss about the origins of sports.
But first, I want to remind you that if you haven't yet, you can check out my new book.
The link is in the description below.
It's an ebook which is going to teach you English phrasal verbs for short stories.
Every page introduces and shows you a phrasal verb, a useful phrasal verb.
It is then used within a very short story on each page, with some practice questions at the end to put the verb in the correct form.
And as you go through the book, it will repeat and show you, within the future stories, verbs that you have already learned, to help reinforce those in your memory.
So you can check out that book in the description below.
It's an ebook and it's still on sale for my initial launch month.
I also want to thank all of my Patreon supporters for making this podcast possible.
If you're a Patreon supporter, thank you so much.
If you would like to support this podcast and show and help us to keep growing, then check out the Patreon.
The link is also in the description below.
Every week I post a bonus episode of the podcast, as well as all of the main podcasts, without any advertisements added to that.
And it has the full transcript and vocabulary lists as well with each podcast that I upload.
So if you want to support and get those extra benefits, you can check out the Patreon as well.
It's simple.
You sign up and subscribe and you get access to all of the previous content and the new weekly content every single week.
Now back to the main episode.
So first, let's think simply.
What is a sport?
What is sport?
A sport is a physical activity, right?
It's a physical activity usually where either or either people or squads compete against each other.
It has clear regulations and rules and the goal is often to win.
You want to win.
Whether you're an individual or a team, you want to win.
That's the point of the game.
People play sports for fun, for exercise, or as even professionals, to win prizes and fame.
From running to swimming to team games with a ball, Athletics are about physical skill, strategy and sometimes even luck.
And we usually call someone who is really, really good at sports maybe professional.
We call them an athlete.
So an athlete is someone who is great in athletics and usually professional.
People have been playing games for so long and doing physical activities for thousands of years.
In ancient times, early humans needed to be strong and fast for hunting and surviving.
So running, jumping, throwing and wrestling are all natural skills for us humans.
And these skills slowly turned into early forms of sports or contests.
A very famous early example of organized athletics is the ancient Olympic Games in Greece.
And these began over 200 years ago.
Began over, sorry, began over 2,700 years ago.
I'm not sure where I got.
It is true over 200 years ago, but I'm clearly still quite tired this morning.
Over 2,700 years ago.
Athletes would compete in running, wrestling and throwing events.
These games were very important culturally and spiritually.
They show that people have always enjoyed competition and physical challenges from their very first inception.
And spectators, people who are watching, love, love to watch as well.
So we're going to look at a few sports today.
And let's start with arguably the world's most popular sport football, also known as soccer in some countries.
Now, the origins, the inception of soccer or football is quite disputed, because we can see many ancient ball games were played in cultures like china, with a game called cuju.
We had greece and rome, And these were very different from modern football but involved kicking a ball.
Then in medieval Europe, it was called folk football.
So especially in England, people played a rough game.
So a very intense game called a folk football.
And it was often played between times.
It had very few regulations and would involve hundreds of people.
And it was often violent and chaotic.
They would kick the ball between these two towns with hundreds of people.
But as games became more popular, there was the need for regulations.
People realized that they needed clear regulations.
Clear rules to make the game more fair and less dangerous.
In 19th century England, different schools and clubs played football with their own rules.
It was all different from place to place and this caused confusion when they played against each other.
So it led to the birth of modern football.
So several English clubs met in London and they created something called the FA the Football Association and they wrote down a clear set of rules and regulations for the game.
Separating it from another popular game, rugby.
And this was the true inception of modern football as we know it.
Then of course there was the global spread of football.
So British sailors, merchants and soldiers took the game to other countries and it spread rapidly all over the world.
And now there are billions of fans of football, including the World Cup, where squads from all over the world compete.
Of course I want to add every country has its own history of football, how football became popular and developed in their country.
And each has its own place and its own story.
Another popular sport, which is very new and one that I'm not so familiar with but is so popular in America, is basketball.
A little bit unlike football, the inception of basketball is very clear.
It was invented in December 1891 by a Canadian physical education teacher, a PE teacher.
And this was in the USA.
It was a simple idea with simple regulations.
He got a very simple idea, throw a ball in a high basket.
He used peach baskets as goals, nailed to the gymnasium balcony.
So he put a basket up on the wall and the first game had very few regulations.
Players could not run with the ball, so there was no dribbling at first, and the goal was simply to throw the ball into the basket.
But this sport quickly became popular in the USA because it was very easy for people to learn.
It could be played indoors with many people and was less likely to cause injuries than other sports that were popular at the time.
Students and teachers spread the game across the country and by the early 20th century basketball was played in many other countries.
Today, it's a major global sport, especially popular in the USA, Europe, and Asia.
So before we look at our last sport, tennis, let's go to our listener spotlight.
This is my favorite segment of the show.
It's where I ask you a question and in the next episode I read out some of your answers and ask you another question for next week.
I love seeing your answers and seeing your responses to the questions.
It's a great way to practice your English and it really, really encourages me to keep making these episodes.
So a couple of weeks ago, I had an episode about efficiency.
It was maybe last week.
And I asked what you do to be efficient.
So to use your time the best way that you can.
And I had a few comments.
So we had Sophia from Italy.
She said, to be more efficient with my study time, I always make a short to-do list for the day.
And I try to do the most difficult task first.
This way, I don't waste time deciding what to do.
And I feel more productive.
That's a classic and very effective tip, Sophia.
That's great.
And I'm sure it could help many people.
We had another comment from, hopefully I say this name correctly, Daiki from Japan.
And he said when I leave my house, I always put my keys and wallet inside in the same place, near the door.
This saves me time every morning because I never waste time searching for them.
It's a small thing, but it makes my morning more efficient.
Such a smart daily habit, daiki.
That's great.
And lena from germany says to be efficient with her cooking.
She often doubles the recipe when she cooks.
So when she cooks once, she has enough for at least two meals, and this saves time and energy during the week.
That's excellent.
Great tip for meal planning, Lina.
So for next week, for the next episode, I would like you to answer the following question to practice your English.
And do try.
I want you to answer, do you like sports?
If yes, tell me what is your favorite sport and why.
If you don't like sports, tell me why you don't like sports.
And if you comment on this video below on Spotify or on YouTube, or if you're on another platform, you can message me.
I will pick two or three of your answers and read them out on the next episode of the podcast.
So finally, let's look at tennis.
It's an elegant sport played with rackets.
Before we find out what the origins of tennis is.
If you've listened this far and you're not following or subscribing the podcast, make sure that you follow and subscribe to stay up to date with new episodes of the Easy English Podcast.
Okay, so with tennis, there seems to be a medieval origin.
The origin of tennis can be traced back to a medieval French game called, I guess.
In English it translates to palm game, palm game and it was played indoors hitting a ball with the hand, then later with gloves and small rackets.
It was very popular with royalty and nobles.
The game then spread to England and other parts of Europe and over the centuries the regulations and equipment slowly changed.
And just like football, the birth of modern tennis appeared to happen primarily in England.
Those English people really seem to love their sports.
And this happened in the 19th century.
So not that long ago, to be honest, this modern sport of tennis, it was played on a grass court with specific regulations.
The modern form that we know today was developed in england in the 1870s and since then there has been the creation or the inception of major tournaments such as Wimbledon.
And it's spread around the world, particularly in English-speaking countries.
It's now an Olympic sport with millions of players and fans globally.
Okay, so today we've learned about the origin and history of three different major sports.
I hope it was interesting and that you learned something new.
And you've learned some new vocabulary, words such as athletics, contest regulation, inception and squad.
Remember, if you want access to the full transcripts and vocabulary lists, you can subscribe and support the Patreon.
The link is in the description below.
Regardless, I will see you in the next episode on Thursday this week.
So I look forward to seeing you there and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day or week or whenever you're listening to this.
Thank you so much for supporting and listening to the Easy English Podcast and I will see you very soon.
Goodbye.
