Learn English: Basketball Vocabulary

Hi, everybody. Welcome to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam. In today's

lesson, I'm going to look at the sport of basketball; professional basketball.

Now, I know that some of you might not be very interested in basketball, but

this is a good lesson to listen to for listening practice. But also, you will

pick up some words here from sport... from this sport that are actually used

in everyday conversations. People, especially Americans, like to take

expressions and terms from sports, and use them in everyday situations. And

you'll see a couple of examples of this. So, you should watch this. And then, you

never know, you may decide that you actually like the game of basketball and

want to learn a bit more. So, let's start with the "court". Right? So, this

is called a "court". The playing area is called a "court". The building is

usually called an "arena"; sometimes it's called a "stadium". And the "court"

is split into two halves; you have the "defensive half" and the "offensive

half". And at the middle of the game, the teams switch sides. So, for half the

game, one team is shooting against this net; the second half, they're shooting

against the other net. And the players sit on the "sidelines" of the court, and

they can do all kinds of things; they can cheer their teammates on, etcetera.

Now, this court is not drawn to scale, so it might seem a little bit funny. And

this is basically what it looks like, but not exactly. So, this is the "half

court". This is "half court" — means halfway between the two ends.

Here, you have what is called a "three-point line". So, any shots that

are taken behind this line that go in the basket are worth three points,

anything inside is worth two points, and any shot taken from this line — the

"free-throw line" — is worth one point. So, that's how you get your score. The

point is to get... to win, to get more points than your opponent. Now, the

interesting thing about this game: This is the highest-scoring game of any

sport. Sometimes the scores go over 100, 120, 130 points. Most other sport...

sports are a little bit lower scores. So, who plays? Who is involved in this

sport? Each team has five "players"; there are two "guards". Now, you can

talk about specialty guards, like "shooting guard" and "dribbling guard".

I'm not sure what the other one's called. There are two guards that are

supposed to, like, control the play and play better defense. There are two

"forwards" and there's one "center". He's the one who generally jumps for the

ball at the beginning of the game. Generally speaking, the centers are also

the tallest guys. Some of these guys are very, very tall, like, six-six,

six-seven, even seven-feet tall. And, of course, the... each team has a coach and

the... the rules are observed by the "referees". Okay?

In terms of the actual mechanics of the game: On each side there is a

"backboard". This is a big piece of board. These days is actually made of

plexiglass. There's a... on the backboard, there is a "basket". The

"basket" is made of a "hoop" — that's the ring. And attached to the ring is a

ba-... is a "net", which makes... The whole thing together makes the "basket".

And the ball has to go in, and you get your points that way. So, how is the

game split up? So, there are "four quarters"; each "quarter" is twelve

minutes. So, the total length of the game is 48 minutes. But of course there

are whistles, there are stops, there are breaks — there's a break at halftime, a

little break between the quarters — so the game usually takes about two hours

to play completely. If, at the end of the game, the score is tied — like 120

to 120 — then the teams will play "overtime" for five minutes. If, after

five minutes, the score is still tied, they will play another overtime, and

they will continue until the clock runs down and there is one clear winner. Now,

along all the... the whole court has a "boundary", so every time the ball goes

outside of the line anywhere, this is called: "out of bounds". So, the play is

whistled, whistled dead — the referee blows the whistle, the clock stops,

everybody stops and they start again, and the other team gets the ball. The

team that didn't lose the ball. "Out of bounds" is also a very common expression

in everyday conversations. "Out of bounds" means you went past a certain

limit. You went where you shouldn't have gone. So, if you're having a

conversation with someone and you say something inappropriate, that person

say: "Okay, that's a little bit out of bounds. Let's stop there and continue

the conversation", or just separate; go our separate ways. So, very common

expression.

So, I already mentioned the "three-point line" where you get extra points. The

"free-throw line". Now, the reason you would shoot the ball from here, the

basketball from the "free-throw" line is because you were awarded a free throw

because the other team had a "foul"; the other team did something that they are

not allowed to do. Either the player touched you in the wrong way, like, got

in your way or hit you, or anything like that that they're not allowed to do.

They... there would be a "penalty", basically; a punishment — that's a "free

throw". So, this whole little box and the two lines, and the circle — this is

called a "key". So, when a player is shooting a free throw, all the other

players stand along the sides of the "key" and wait. If the person gets the

ball in the basket, that's a point. If he... if he misses, then the other

players can jump, try to catch the ball, and get the rebound and continue

playing. The main actions in basketball are "passing". They "pass" to each

other; they "shoot" the ball into the basket, hopefully; and "dribbling".

"Dribbling" is that bouncing action where you bounce the ball. You're not

allowed to walk with the ball in your hand. If you take more than two steps

with the ball in your hands, that's called "traveling" and the play stops,

and you give the ball to the other team. Every time you give the ball to the

other team, either you lost it or you made a mistake and they get it — that is

called a "turnover". So, too many "turnovers" is a bad thing. Now, "foul".

So, if you do something, if you hit a player or if you get in a player's way,

you get a "foul". If a team... there are two different types of "fouls"; there is

"team foul" and "personal foul". Every time a player gets a foul, it's a

personal foul. If you get too many fouls — I think it's six — you are kicked out

of the game; you are ejected, in which case we say you... "The player fouled

out". He got too many penalties and he was kicked out of the game; he's not

allowed to play anymore in that game. In the "team foul", you're allowed four

team fouls each quarter. Once you get to the fifth, it's an automatic free throw

for the other team every time there's a... there's a foul. Okay.

Other verbs that occur are "assist". So, the player who passes the ball to the

other player who then gets a basket gets an "assist". So, the shooter gets the

basket; the player who passed it to him gets the "assist". You can "steal a

ball"; you can get the ball away from the other team. Every time you do that,

you get a "steal". "Rebound" — when the ball goes up, everybody jumps to try to

catch it, if it doesn't go in the basket. So, you get that. That's called

a "rebound". Now, there are all kinds of names for plays in basketball; there's

"give-and-go" and there's all these other things. "Hook shot", "jump shot",

"field goal shot". The main... main ones I want to mention now are: "slam dunk",

and "layup". And the reason I want to mention these two is because they are

used in everyday situations as well. A "slam dunk" is when a player holds the

ball and jumps high, and stuffs the ball right into the net. It's not a shot; he

doesn't let it fly. He just takes it and pushes it into the net. So, it's

basically a guaranteed two points, because you don't... nobody misses a

slam dunk. They're not shooting it; they're stuffing it into the net. So,

when we use "slam dunk" in everyday situations, we mean something that is

for sure going to happen. It's almost guaranteed to happen, right? So, if I go

for a job interview, and I do... I think I did a very good job, and then I leave

and my friend asked me: "How did it go?" And I say: "Oh, it was a slam dunk."

That means I think that for sure I'm getting the job because I did such a

good job. Right? "It was a slam dunk" means very, very good. A "layup" is when

a player doesn't really have any defenseman around him, and he can just

run and take a couple of steps, and just basically throw the ball very lightly

into the basket. So, it's a very easy basket. So, a "layup" — we also talk in

everyday situations where something is just a little bit easy. You don't need

to try very hard. You don't need too much skill. You just "lay it up" — it

was a very easy thing to do.

So, now obviously all this stuff I'm talking about the NBA. Although, in the

US, college basketball is actually even more popular than professional

basketball; but both are very, very popular in the US. In Canada, there's

only one professional basketball team, and that's in Toronto. And all the

players are trying to get... all the teams are trying to get into the

"playoffs". And once they are in the "playoffs", they are competing for the

"Larry O'Brien Trophy". That's the championship trophy in the NBA. Okay?

And that's it. Of course, there's a lot more to know about the game. If you want

to get into it, you can study all the details of the game; learn the rules,

learn the players, etcetera. But this is a good introduction to the sport. Plus,

you get a few expressions that you can use in other situations in everyday

life. Okay? So, I hope you like this. If you have any questions about this,

please go to www.engvid.com. You can ask me there, and I'll be happy to help you

out. There's also a little quiz to test your comprehension of this lesson. And

that's it. If you like the video, give me a like please. Don't forget to

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And come back; I'll give you some more useful vocabulary and lessons to help

you improve your English. Okay? Until then, bye-bye.