Understand REAL English: Fictional Characters in Everyday English

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

video, I'm going to introduce you to some very famous characters. Now, if you

look at this board and you look at all these names, you should notice that

these are all fictional characters. And "fictional" means not real. They are

from movies, or from books, or just from legend; from myths, etc. from a

different... from different places. Okay. So, we're going to look at all

these people. Now, why am I going to introduce you to these characters?

Because these are so famous or so well-known that people use these

characters, they refer to these characters in everyday situations. And

when somebody refers to one of these characters, the person listening right

away understands what they're trying to say; what they mean when they're

describing somebody else or a situation, as the case may be.

So, for example, if we look at "Darth Vader" — "Darth Vader" was a character

in the movie... in the Star Wars movies, and he represents pure evil. So, when

you want to describe someone and you think they're really mean and not... or

not nice, or you really just don't like them, you can easily describe them as

"Darth Vader". So, for example, my friend got a new job and at the end of

his first week, I called him, I say: "Hey. How's your new job?" He goes...

And he says to me: "You know, my boss, he's... he's... I hate that guy. He's

like... he's Darth Vader. He's worse than Darth Vader." As soon as he says:

"Darth Vader", I get an image of somebody dressed all in black, and, you

know, like breathing through his mask and just being very, very mean and

killing everybody. So, not a very good boss. On the flip side, from the same

movie series, we have "Yoda". "Yoda" is somebody who's very calm, very quiet,

but very clearly focused on what he or she has to do, and very nice and trying

to help somebody. Right? So evil and goodness, basically. So, if somebody is

"Yoda" — somebody is very calm; not necessarily good, more about calm. "Very

Zen", we would say about this person. But, again, when you refer to these

characters, it's very clearly understood what you're trying to say about someone

else. So, we're going to look at a few more.

Let's look at "Tarzan". "Tarzan" was lost as a baby and he was lost in the

jungle. And some gorillas or monkeys — I don't know... exactly know the story

exactly — raised him. So, he grew up like an animal, but he's a man. But he's

very strong; he has lots of muscles, but not very educated. So, when we talk

about people who are, you know, like, maybe have very good body, but "not much

in between the ears", we would say: "Oh, he's like Tarzan." Right? We would

describe him as "Tarzan". And it's very popular in sports, especially football,

to say about somebody: "He looks like Tarzan, but plays like Jane." It means

he looks very tough, but he's actually very wimpy, very weak; not a very good

player.

"Charlie Brown". I think everybody knows Charlie Brown, and Snoopy, and Lucy, and

all the gang there at the neighbourhood. So, when we describe someone as "Charlie

Brown", we're talking about somebody who's a very nice person, but very

mediocre. Nothing special. You know? Just gets by his life, does the things

he's supposed to do, tries his best, but somehow never really succeeds. So, let's

think about Charlie Brown. He goes to kick that football, and Lucy always

moves it for him, and he always falls on his head. So he means well; he just

can't necessarily do very well. And a very common expression people use...

they say to somebody is: "You're a good man, Charlie Brown." It means: "You

tried very hard, you meant well, you wanted to help, but somehow you landed

on your back and failed." So, people feel a little bit bad for you, but they

like you. Everybody likes Charlie Brown; he's just not going to get very far in

life.

"MacGyver". Now, MacGyver was a TV show in the 80s, and I'm pretty sure they

started it again. Or, no, sorry. In the 90s. And they started a new series

called "MacGyver", but everybody understands "MacGyver" because it's

actually used as a verb. "To MacGyver something" means to make something out

of nothing. So, in this TV show, this character, MacGyver, always somehow got

into trouble or found himself in a situation where he had to help people.

And somehow, he always got trapped in a room, or a car, or a van, or a plane,

with like a... like a matchstick and a piece of tape. And somehow, he was able

to build a bomb, and blow up the whole place and escape every single episode.

Whatever little things he had, he was like... he was a very smart guy; he knew

a lot about science, and he was always able to make a bomb out of everything.

If you gave him a cube of sugar and a piece of lemon, he'll make you a bomb

somehow out of that. So, when somebody does anything, they tweak something, or

they build something, or they make some sort of contraption out of very

miscellaneous parts; out of whatever little pieces of things they found — we

say: "Wow, you really MacGyvered that whatever." If you fix your car, you

MacGyvered the car. You MacGyvered this, you MacGyvered that — you made something

out of nothing, or you got yourself out of a difficult situation by using your

wits.

"Captain Ahab" is from a famous book called "Moby Dick". Captain Ahab, he was

the one who had a wooden leg. And the reason he had a wooden leg is because a

white whale, Moby Dick, bit his leg off. And he spent the rest of his life

looking for that white whale because he wanted to kill that white whale. And

when we talk about somebody "being like Captain Ahab", we're talking about

somebody who's just obsessed with something; who can't get whatever that

thing out of their mind. So, they become a little bit crazy. So, when somebody is

like very, very stubborn or very, very obsessed about something, we will call

him "Captain Ahab" or just "Ahab" for short. Most people just say: "Ahab"

without the "Captain". So, we can also use that to describe somebody. Okay?

Then there's "Barbie". I'm not sure if there's an i-e or just "i", but Barbie

is a doll; she's a very famous doll. She has blonde hair, she has a perfect body

as far as plastic bodies go, and she's supposed to be the perfect woman. Right?

And her boyfriend, Ken, is the perfect guy. And the problem with Barbie is that

she is very superficial. And actually... actually, I'm pretty sure it is with an

"e": "Barbie" for the Barbie doll. So, when we talk about... when we describe a

woman as "being a Barbie" means she's very good looking, but she's plastic.

Right? There's maybe not much inside; not much personality. So, very, very

superficial. Very surface good looking; not inside good looking. And the same

for Ken. So, it's a little bit of an insult to call somebody "Barbie". Right?

So, just keep that in mind. But people refer to this a lot when they're

describing somebody. And if you're on Instagram, you'll see a lot of people

calling each other "Barbie" or "Ken", or whatever, because it's all fake; it's

all plastic, I guess you could say.

"Forrest Gump" is a very famous movie. I'm sure most of you have seen it, or at

least have heard of it. So, Forrest Gump, this character — that's his name,

Forrest — he's very slow. He's, like, not... you can't say he's stupid; he's

just slow. He thinks very slowly, he speaks slowly, he acts slowly; but he

can run really, really fast. So, two things when people refer to somebody as

"Forrest Gump". Sometimes, people just use it as an insult. Like, if somebody

is talking slowly, they'll call him "Forrest Gump". But realistically, we

talk about "Forrest Gump", someone who appears slow, but is actually very, very

smart because this character did amazing things in his life. And he became very

successful, very famous, very powerful, but very slow. So, you can also think of

"Forrest Gump" as somebody who's very, very lucky because based on what they...

how they speak and how they act, they shouldn't be able to succeed, but

somehow they always do. And when somebody needs to run away, you always

say: "Run, Forrest, run!" Right? Because that's what he did in the movie. So,

that's... People refer to that line a lot; every time somebody starts running,

especially running away from somebody.

"Mary Poppins" — an old movie. I think it's Disney, but I'm not sure. There was

an old movie with Julie Andrews, but there's, I think, recently there was a

remake of this movie. But anyways, when you refer to someone as Mary Poppins,

you are saying that this person is just too, too, too much sweet. Everything's

sugar and lovely, and everybody's happy and very optimistic to the point where

it's just unnatural. It's actually not a good thing. So, if you're describing

someone, like: "Don't be a Mary Poppins" — you're being too sweet; like, it's not

realistic. "Be normal", basically. You're a little bit too optimistic, too

sweet. It's... It... it makes people feel uncomfortable, in other words.

"Sherlock Holmes" was a very famous detective in novels, and this character

is able to solve any murder mystery, any mystery, any crime. So, when somebody is

very good at observation, or very good at investigation or finding things out,

we might refer to him as "Sherlock". We generally... we don't refer to the full

name; we don't say: "Holmes"; we just say: "Sherlock". But another expression

we have is: "No kidding, Sherlock." When somebody says something that's very,

very obvious or makes an observation that everybody else has already seen as

well, people will say: "No kidding, Sherlock." Although, to be fair, and

excuse my language, most people say: "No shit, Sherlock." That's the common

expression. It means you've just said something very obvious. We... everybody

already understood this. Right? Don't say the second one; say the: "No

kidding, Sherlock", but you'll probably hear the second one more often.

Then we have the abom-... "Abominable Snowman" — a little hard to pronounce.

"Abominable Snowman", or the "Yeti", or "Bigfoot", or "Sasquatch". These are all

the same character. Different countries or different regions of the world have a

different name for it. So, the Abominable Snowman is mostly in, like,

the mountains, like places that have mountains would call that. Yeti, I

think, is more from, like, the Himalayas, from like the Mount Everest

region. Bigfoot is very common in Canada and the US. And I think Sasquatch is

mostly in Canada. But basically, it's all the same thing. This is a very big

man, ape mix. He's very tall, he's very big; full of hair. So, he looks a little

bit like a big gorilla, but he walks on two feet. And whenever you see a picture

of the Yeti, or the snowman, or whatever, it's always very, very blurry.

So, you're not exactly sure it's real, but everybody believes it. So, this is

not a real character. It's not from a movie, not from a book; this is just

from legend. Right? So, people have always said: "Oh, yeah, somebody says

they saw this person."

So, when we call somebody: "Yeti" or "Bigfoot", or we descri-... describe

someone as being a "Yeti", or a "Bigfoot", or a "Sasquatch", there's two

meanings. One is that this person is not real; somebody is just imagining him,

because nobody's actually seen this person. So, if you think about a

business, everybody works in a company, but nobody knows who the... the chief

is, who the CEO is. So, they call him "Yeti", because he's a mystery. He...

everybody thinks he's there, but nobody's actually seen him. That's one

meaning. Another meaning, and it's not very nice so don't use it; and be

careful who you use it with, if you do use it. If you see, especially a man,

but a very big, hairy man — you might... people sometimes will call him a

"Sasquatch" or "Bigfoot". It's not nice. It's very, very rude, but you might hear

that some people use that expression. And that's what they're referring to: A

big, hairy person. All right? Okay.

Now, there are obviously many, many, many more fictional characters that

people use in everyday conversations. But remember: Learning English or

learning any language is not only about vocabulary and grammar; you need to

understand the cultural references. So, when somebody is having a conversation

and they're talking about: "Oh, did you see Barbie? She got a new... another

plastic surgery." They're referring to this character and you... you need to

make sure that you understand that connection, that reference in order to

understand the conversation. You might understand all the words, you might

understand the grammar — if you don't know the culture, it's a little bit hard

to follow some... some conversations. And, again, people refer to movies, they

refer to movie lines, or books, or TV shows, or all kinds of different things

in everyday conversations. You need to start getting to know what these

references mean. Okay?

So, if you want to make sure you understand these ones, go to

www.engvid.com and take the short quiz there that will test your knowledge of

these. You can also ask me more questions. In the comment section at

engVid, you can also suggest other fictional characters that you have heard

native-English speakers use in conversation, in regular conversation,

and teach each other more references. Anyways, if you liked the video — I hope

you did — give me a like. Please subscribe to my channel, and don't

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back soon for more culture tips, grammar tips, vocab, etc. See you.