Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 594, Competition and Prizes.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 594.
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 for this episode that will help you improve your.
This episode is called Competition and Prizes.
It's a dialogue between Olga and Apollo.
That is going to be using a lot of vocabulary we might use when you are competing with someone.
You are both trying to win something, such as in a sport or a game.
Let's get started.
Are you going to take me on or are you chicken?
Me chicken?
No way.
Bring it on.
Okay, but get ready to get trounced.
I'm going to teach you a thing or two about how this game should be played.
Ready for some humiliation?
Stop trash talking and get over here.
What are we playing for?
How about $20 or $30?
Those stakes are too high.
Let's say that the champion will get bragging rights.
Bragging rights?
If I can't have a cash prize, I was hoping for at least a trophy or a medal.
Yeah, right.
You want a medal for winning at thumb wrestling?
As far as I'm concerned, thumb wrestling should be an Olympic sport.
Olga begins our dialogue by asking Apollo...
To take someone on or to take on someone is a phrasal verb meaning to compete against someone.
When someone wants to challenge you in a game or a sport, you decide to play against them.
You are taking them on.
To take on has a couple of different meanings in English, however, somewhat different than this one.
Take a look at the learning guide for some more explanations on that phrasal verb.
To be chicken here means to be scared, to be afraid of something.
We tend to think of chickens as being scared animals, at least in the U.S.
So a chicken is a coward, someone who doesn't have any bravery, someone who is always afraid of things.
It's definitely an insult to call someone a chicken or to say simply, are you chicken?
Notice you can use it with or without the indefinite article A. Apollo says, me, chicken?
You're saying that I am chicken?
No way.
Absolutely not.
He says, bring it on.
Bring it on is a phrase used to show that you are ready to do something.
You are excited about something.
You are enthusiastic about doing something.
We might say this phrase in response to someone who challenges us to do something, who says I want to play you in basketball.
I challenge you to a game and you say, bring it on.
Meaning, yeah, okay, let's play.
I'm going to beat you.
I'm going to win.
That's what you're saying here.
Olga says, okay, but get ready to be trounced.
To trounce T-R-O-U-N-C-E means to defeat someone, to beat someone very badly, to win with many, many points more than the other team.
Well, Ola is saying that Apollo is going to get trounced, the passive form to get trounced by, Olga.
She says When you say you're going to teach someone a thing or two, You are saying that you are an expert.
You are going to show someone how something should be done.
We often use this phrase to make a joke when we think that we are much better than the other person.
And that's the case here with Olga.
She thinks she is much better at this game, whatever it is they're playing.
Olga then says, ready for some humiliation?
Humiliation is when you are very embarrassed by something.
When something very wrong has been done to you or you have done something wrong.
Apollo says, stop trash talking and get over here.
To trash T-R-A-S-H hyphen.
Talk means to insult someone you are competing against and say good things about yourself.
You say bad things about the other person.
So, for example...
It is very common in boxing matches when two men typically hit each other with their fists in a formal competition we call boxing.
It's very common for one or both of the fighters, the boxers, to trash talk the other, to say how terrible the other person is and how good they are.
That's to trash talk.
Olga is trash-talking Apollo by telling him that he's going to get trounced and that she's going to teach him a thing or two.
Apollo says, what are we playing for?
In other words, what is the prize?
Usually when you ask this, you're talking about money.
So, if I win, you give me $10.
We're playing for $10.
To play for is a phrasal verb that like to take someone on has different meanings in English, and those are found, you know where, in the learning guide.
Apollo says, how about $20 or $30, meaning that is what we will play for.
Olga says, those stakes are too high.
Stakes, S-T-A-K-E-S. is money or something valuable that you are betting on or that you are gambling with.
Here, they are playing a game, and the winner of the game will get the prize.
The prize is the stakes.
It's what you are betting.
It's what you could lose if you don't win.
Steak, S-T-E-A-K, is completely different.
It's a noun that refers to a kind of meat that you would eat from a cow.
This is completely different, although you could have, I guess, some good steaks as the steaks for a bet possible.
Olga says, To brag, B-R-A-G, means to tell everyone how good you are.
Usually it's a negative thing to brag.
We don't want people bragging about themselves.
But here...
The expression bragging rights means that you have the ability to say how good you are.
The other person is in a sense giving you permission, if you win, to say how wonderful you are and to tell everyone about it.
Apollo says bragging rights if I can't have a cash prize, in other words, if the prize or the stakes is not money.
I was hoping for at least a trophy or a medal.
A trophy T-R-O-P-H-Y is a large object, usually a a plate or a cup or a statue that you receive for winning a prize for winning a competition.
The trophy is the prize.
In American sports, in professional hockey and professional football, for example, American football When the best professional team wins the championship, they receive a large trophy.
We use trophies, for example, for children when they win some competition at school.
We use trophies for movie stars, for the Academy Awards.
The best actor and the best actress get statues as trophies.
Apollo wants either a trophy or a medal.
A medal...
M-E-D-A-L, is like a big coin.
It's a round, flat piece of metal that has something on it that says what you have won.
In the Olympics, you probably know there are gold medals, silver medals, and bronze medals.
Those are the three medals the three prizes that you get for either first, second, or third place.
Apollo wants either a trophy or a medal.
Olga says, yeah, right, meaning you aren't serious.
You're being silly.
You want a medal for winning at thumb wrestling?
Your thumb is the smallest finger on your hand.
To wrestle is a sport where typically two men are competing and they try to use their bodies to make sure the other person is flat on the ground or cannot move.
Thumb wrestling however, is when you take your right hand and someone else takes their right hand and you touch your fingers together, you curl them, you make like what we would call a semicircle, a U, and you try to use your thumb to make the other thumb stay down.
So you're trying to get on top of the other person's thumb and push it down so that he or she can't move it?
It's a game that children play, typically.
Of course, it's a silly game, not a game where you would have a trophy or a medal.
But Apollo says, as far as I'm concerned, thumb wrestling should be an Olympic sport.
As far as I'm concerned, is an expression we use to introduce our personal opinion, what we think about something.
An Olympic sport would be a game or sport that would be played every four years at either the Winter or Summer Olympics.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Are you going to take me on, or are you chicken?
Me?
Chicken?
No way.
Bring it on.
Okay, but get ready to get trounced.
I'm going to teach you a thing or two about how this game should be played.
Ready for some humiliation?
Stop trash talking and get over here.
What are we playing for?
How about $20 or $30?
Those stakes are too high.
Let's say that the champion will get bragging rights.
Bragging rights?
If I can't have a cash prize, I was hoping for at least a trophy or a medal.
Yeah, right.
You want a medal for winning at thumb wrestling?
As far as I'm concerned, thumb wrestling should be an Olympic sport.
Our scriptwriter deserves a trophy and a medal because, as far as I'm concerned, she's the best scriptwriter in Los Angeles Dr Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I am Jeff McQuillan.
I thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again 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.
