Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1117, Assembling Furniture.
This is English as a Second Language podcast, episode 1117.
I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan.
Coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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On this episode we listen to a dialogue between Armand and Suzanne about assembling or putting together furniture.
Let's get started.
Did you know that this nightstand required assembly when you bought it?
The box said that it required simple assembly.
I guess what's simple to them isn't simple to us.
You can say that again.
These instructions aren't in English.
There are no diagrams showing how the parts fit together and we seem to be missing parts.
I also question the quality.
It's mainly made of particle board and plywood.
Do you think we should return it?
No, let's just keep it and do the best we can.
That's hard to do when there seems to be a design flaw with the drawers.
The pieces don't fit together as they should.
These nails are also bent, and these screws look defective.
It's not looking good, is it?
I also bought this because I thought everything could be assembled using Allen wrenches.
But it looks like we'll actually need a hammer, screwdriver, and maybe a drill.
Well, let's see what we can do.
If we don't have the right tools or parts, I have a solution.
What?
Duct tape.
Armand begins our dialogue by asking Suzanne, did you know that this nightstand required assembly when you bought it?
A nightstand N-I-G-H-T-S-T-A-N-D one word requires is a small table that you put next to your bed, usually to put a lamp, a clock and perhaps a glass of water on.
A nightstand usually also has what we call drawers little boxes that pull out from the table that you can put things in and then slide back into the table.
Armand is asking Suzanne if she knew before she bought it that this nightstand required assembly.
Assembly, A-S-S-E-M-B-L-Y, is the noun form of The verb to assemble, A-S-S-E-M-B-L-E.
To assemble means to put something together, to take individual pieces and to put them together to make something else.
Nowadays it's popular for some stores to sell furniture, things you put in your house, such as tables, chairs and perhaps nightstands unassembled.
That is, they're not put together.
You have to basically build or put the piece of furniture together yourself.
One popular store here in the U.S. and in many other countries is IKEA, a Swedish company.
You can buy furniture, but usually you have to assemble it yourself.
And boy, if you've ever assembled something from IKEA, you know it's not as easy as it looks.
It's not as easy as it appears.
Anyway, Armand is not very happy, I think, with Suzanne, because he has to assemble this nightstand.
Suzanne says the box said the cardboard container that it came in is called a box, that it required simple assembly.
Simple assembly would be not very complicated, maybe three or four pieces, say.
She continues, I guess what's simple to them isn't simple to us.
The company thinks it's simple, but you don't think it's simple.
Armand says you can say that again.
That expression you can say that again is when someone says something that you agree with and you want to emphasize that you really agree with that person.
Armand says, these instructions aren't in English.
There are no diagrams showing how the parts fit together, and we seem to be missing parts.
So the instructions, the information that tells you how to assemble the furniture, aren't in English for this particular nightstand.
According to Armand,
He also says there are no diagrams showing how the parts fit together.
A diagram D-I-A-G-R-A-M is a drawing that shows you how something works or how something should be put together.
To fit together means to be placed next to each other and joined so that they are connected.
If you are assembling a table, the legs would fit together with the table top.
They would be connected to each other.
However, Armand says that they seem to be missing parts.
A part, P-A-R-T, here is a piece, in this case a piece of the nightstand.
I also question the quality, Armand says.
To question here means to doubt or to have doubts about something.
Armand says, it's mainly made of particle board and plywood.
Particle board is a cheap, inexpensive material made by compressing or putting together many smaller pieces of wood.
Sometimes companies sell furniture made of particle board because it's cheaper.
Another cheap form of wood is called plywood plywood p-l-y-w-o-o-d.
Plywood is a wooden board made from layers of wood that are glued together.
They're stuck together.
Plywood is usually very thin, and Some people use plywood on the walls.
They put the plywood up on the walls.
This was very popular in the 1960s and the 1970s.
Instead of painting your wall or putting wallpaper on it, you could put pieces of wood on it, called plywood.
My house, where I grew up, had plywood in several of the rooms because my father didn't want to paint the rooms every couple of years.
So we had this brown plywood on the walls.
It was quite normal during the 1970s, or at least it was in the neighborhood where I grew up.
Armand asks Suzanne if perhaps they should return this nightstand, meaning bring it back to the store and get their money back.
Suzanne says, no, let's just keep it and do the best we can.
Armand says that's hard to do when there seems to be a design flaw with the drawers.
A design, D-E-S-I-G-N, flaw, F-L-A-W, is a mistake in the way that something was conceived or created.
It's a mistake in the basic idea behind, in this case, the nightstand.
Armand says there's a design flaw with the drawers of the nightstand.
The pieces don't fit together as they should, he says.
These nails are also bent and these screws look defective, says Armand.
Nails.
N-A-I-L-S are straight nails long pieces of metal with pointed ends that you use to put two things together.
I say they're long, but I mean really they're perhaps between a quarter of an inch and an inch or two inches.
Nails are used usually to put together pieces of wood, although you can use a nail to cut or to join two other kinds of material as well.
Armand says that the nails that came with this nightstand are bent, B-E-N-T.
Bent here means not straight.
Another word we would use is crooked, C-R-O-O-K-E-D.
Armand also says the screws look defective.
A screw S-C-R-E-W here means a long piece of metal about the size of a nail that has a spiral pattern around it.
A screw is not pounded in with a hammer as you would a nail.
A screw is put into a piece of wood or a piece of metal using something called a screwdriver.
It turns in order to go into the material.
You don't hit it, you turn it with a screwdriver.
Defective, D-E-F-E-C-T-I-V-E, means it doesn't work properly.
It has a problem.
Suzanne says it's not looking good, is it?
Meaning it doesn't look like this nightstand is going to be one that they want to keep.
She says, I also bought this because I thought everything could be assembled using Allen wrenches.
An Allen wrench W-R-E-N-C-H is a small tool that is in the shape of the letter L.
It's a metal tool that has a six-sided shape at the end of it, what we call a hexagon.
And it's used to turn special kinds of screws that require this special kind of wrench.
The screws themselves have a hole that is six-sided.
Suzanne says it looks like we actually need a hammer, screwdriver, and maybe a drill.
A hammer H-A-M-M-E-R is a heavy tool that you use to pound nails into a piece of wood or other material.
A screwdriver is a long piece of metal that is used to twist or turn screws so that the screw goes into the material.
A drill D-R-I-L-L is an electric tool that is often used instead of a screwdriver to put material into a piece of wood or metal.
Armand says, well, let's see what we can do.
If we don't have the right tools or parts, I have a solution.
Suzanne says, what?
Armand says, duct tape.
Duct tape D-U-C-T T-A-P-E is a very strong, thick tape that is usually gray in color and nowadays is used to connect two different things together and that perhaps are broken or that you don't have another way of connecting or keeping together.
People use duct tape nowadays all the time to cover a hole in something or to fix something that has broken.
It's a very strong tape that can be quite useful When something breaks or when you don't have a way of binding two things together with normal tape.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Did you know that this nightstand required assembly when you bought it?
The box said that it required simple assembly.
I guess what's simple to them isn't simple to us.
You can say that again.
These instructions aren't in English.
There are no diagrams showing how the parts fit together, and we seem to be missing parts.
I also question the quality.
It's mainly made of particle board and plywood.
Do you think we should return it?
No, let's just keep it and do the best we can.
That's hard to do, and there seems to be a design flaw with the drawers.
The pieces don't fit together as they should.
These nails are also bent, and these screws look defective.
It's not looking good, is it?
I also bought this because I thought everything could be assembled using Allen wrenches, but it looks like we'll actually need a hammer, screwdriver and maybe a drill.
Well, let's see what we can do.
If we don't have the right tools or parts, I have a solution.
What?
Duct tape.
Our dialogue today was assembled by the wonderful script writer, Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2015 by the Center for Educational Development.
