Learn English Vocabulary: Computer Hardware

Hi, welcome to www.engvid.com . I'm Adam.

In today's lesson, I'm going to walk you through a computer setup.

Basically, we're going to look at all the different pieces of hardware, all the actual

tools that you're going to be using.

All the actual equipment that you're going to be using when you're using a computer.

Now, the main purpose of this lesson is to help you if you're working in a computer store,

if you want to go buy a computer, or if you have a computer and you want to call the technical

support department.

So, for example, tech support.

If you have a problem with your computer and you need to explain to someone, especially

over the phone, what's going on, you need to know all the different words for all the

different pieces of equipment that you have in order to explain what the problem is.

So, we're going to start with the actual hardware, with the actual things.

And then we're going to look at different functions for each one of these things that

you really need to know.

We're going to look at some shortcuts, some functions and things that you can do with

them anyway.

So, let's start with the actual computer.

There are different ways to use a computer.

You can use a laptop or a notebook.

Essentially, these are the same thing.

It used to be - the difference between laptop and notebook was size, but now, anything you

can put on your lap or anything that's foldable and you can carry is basically a laptop or

a notebook.

Okay?

These are mobile, as I said.

You can carry them with you.

You can put them into your bag and take them anywhere you want.

And these days, many of them have a touch screen, meaning that you can actually touch

the monitor that is on the laptop and do things on it without using your mouse.

Okay?

Next, we're going to look at a desktop.

A desktop is something that you have in your home or office.

You don't carry it around with you, it's bigger.

It has a tower.

The tower is where the actual computer is, where all the - the motherboard is, okay?

Laptops and notebooks also have a motherboard.

The motherboard is the - it's like a sheet inside the computer that has all the microchips,

that has all your memory and all the different functions of the computer.

If you don't know anything about computers, do not touch the motherboard.

Take it to a professional to fix it for you or to make changes to it, okay?

The desktop has a tower, and inside is the motherboard and everything connects to that,

including the monitor, the keyboard, the mouse, everything.

And then you use it on your desk.

On your desk will be nothing but the monitor.

The tower is usually underneath your desk.

You can also buy an all-in-one.

An all-in-one computer is just the monitor, and the computer is built into the monitor.

So, there's really nothing else except for the monitor and then you connect everything

to that, okay?

Speaking of the monitor, the monitor basically is like the TV.

This is where you see everything that you're going to be doing on your computer.

It is usually measured in inches, so let me just make this a little bit clearer so you

don't get confused.

Just so you know, one inch is 2.54 centimeters.

If you're in North America and you're going to buy a monitor, they will ask you how many

inches, like what size of monitor do you want?

In other places, it might be by centimeters, so make sure you understand the differences

for the monitor that you want.

These days, you can get curved monitors.

So, you have, like, regular flat monitors, or you can get curved monitors that give you

a little bit of a different perspective, a little bit different graphics, okay?

You can use a monitor just like you would a TV.

In fact, you can use a TV as a monitor for your computer as well.

Everything is connected these days.

Next, you have your keyboard.

This is where you're typing and you're doing a lot of your functions for computing, okay?

The traditional keyboard is a QWERTY, meaning that all the letters start at the top row

with Q,W,E,R,T and go on like that.

That's a QWERTY keyboard, that's the standard keyboard in English, okay?

The keyboard has keys.

Everything that you press on the keyboard is called the key, that's why it's a board

with keys, keyboard.

You can get a Chiclet keyboard or a regular keyboard.

Chiclets are very thin keys.

So, most laptops use chiclet keyboards, but you can buy external keyboards that are thicker

or different shapes, sizes, etc.

Most keyboards have a number pad.

So, you have the numbers at the top row, but you can also have them on the side, so it's

a little bit faster to type numbers.

And laptops also have a touchpad, which is usually like a square area on the keyboard

that you can use as a mouse, if you don't want to use a mouse.

Okay, so speaking of mouse, let's talk about the mouse.

A mouse is like a little device on the side of the computer that you use to move around

and move the cursor around, and I'll talk about the cursor a bit after.

The mouse lets you do a lot of the functions without having to type anything.

So, you can move pages up and down.

You can open different windows.

You can press on different programs to open them.

They - the mice or the mouse has a right click, a left click, and a scroll button.

So, click so the things you do with your fingers, and in the middle is a button to scroll to

move pages up and down, okay?

Next, if you want to connect to the internet, you're going to need a modem.

A modem is basically the phone line or the cable line that connects the computer to the

internet.

And if you don't want to connect your computer to the internet with a cable, then you need

Wi-Fi, okay?

And just make sure we understand - I know in some countries they pronounce it a little

bit differently.

In English, we say "wi-fi", okay?

And this is our router, "rou-ter", okay?

Not "root-er", "rou-ter" if you need to explain to someone.

So, the router basically sends out the internet signal throughout the space it's basically

programmed for.

And you have Wi-Fi and you can connect all kinds of devices to this, okay?

So, you have all kinds of devices.

You can have a phone, you can have games, you can have all kinds of different things

connected by Wi-Fi.

Then you have all your accessories.

So, what we've looked at so far, these are the essential pieces of the computer setup,

if you want to do computing, if you want to get on the internet.

Now, all these extra things are extra.

You don't have to have them, but they do make life a bit easier.

So, they are called accessories.

They're not necessary, they're extra.

If you want to listen to things, you can use speakers.

You can also plug headphones into the jack.

Every computer will come with a jack, that's like a little hole in the computer where you

put the little metal tipped wire inside.

You plug it into the jack and you can get speakers or you can use your headphones.

If you need to print things out, if you have files and you need to print them, you would

use a printer.

If you have documents that you want to send someone else, then you would use a scanner.

A scanner basically takes a picture of the document, creates a file in your computer

and then you can send that file to somebody else.

Now, if you have to keep a lot of things on - a lot of files or videos or music and you

don't have enough memory space on your computer, you can use an external hard disk drive, okay?

So basically, this is a little box like this, sometimes it's a little bit bigger.

And it has a lot of memory space, and you can put all your files, all your movies, all

your music on there and keep it separate from the computer.

A lot of computers, they come with a lot of memory these days, but files are getting bigger

and bigger and people generally need to use external hard disks as well.

Now, if you need to carry files with you from one place to another, but you don't want to

carry your external hard disk with all your files, you can just use a thumb drive.

Some people call it a thumb drive, some people call it a memory stick.

It's basically a small USB component, and we'll talk about USB as well.

USB is the plug, so the headphone plugs into a jack.

The memory stick or the thumb drive plugs into a USB slot.

There are slots, especially in the laptop, they will be on the side.

In the tower of the desktop, you will see USB slots.

You put your thumb drive in there.

Okay.

So now, we have all our equipment set up.

Now, let's see what you can do with some of these tools specifically.

Okay, so now, we're going to look at some of the functions that you can do with your

hardware, with your equipment.

But just before we get started, this is a very basic list.

If you really really want to know how to do a lot of different things with your computer,

with your keyboard, with your mouse, etc., make sure you do some more research.

This is just to get you started with the basics, okay?

So, let's start with shortcuts.

These are for the keyboard.

You can do a lot of things with the keyboard instead of always using your mouse and clicking

and clicking.

Sometimes, it's a little bit faster just to use the keyboard.

So, we have a control key.

This should be on your - probably on your bottom left of your keyboard.

There might be another one more in the middle.

You can use control + the x key to cut something that you can move somewhere else.

Ctrl + C = copy.

So, cut and copy are a little bit different.

Cut, you're removing it from one place, putting it somewhere else.

Copy, you're just leaving it there but putting it somewhere else as well.

Ctrl + V = to paste.

So, after you cut or copy, you go to the new location.

You press Ctrl + V and it puts it there.

Ctrl + Z or "zee", depends on where you come from, to undo.

So, if you did something and you think "Oh wait, I made a mistake", you can press Ctrl

+ Z and it will go back to before you made that mistake, and then you can continue from

there.

And Ctrl + A = to select all.

So, if you want to copy a whole page, instead of dragging your mouse all over the place,

just press Ctrl + A, everything will be highlighted in blue.

Then Ctrl + C, copy.

Ctrl + V, paste somewhere else.

Now, all of these things are just there to save you time.

Computers have made people very fast.

Everything has to be very fast, fast, fast.

So, be fast.

Use these shortcuts, okay?

Now, if you're having a problem with your computer and you want to stop a program or

you want to stop something from happening, Ctrl + Alt + Delete, all at the same time.

You will be given the task manager.

Just find that program you want to stop and put "End Task".

A little bit easier to understand when you actually see it, but this is a very good shortcut

to help you stop something that's happening on your computer.

So, that's more or less the keyboard, what you need to know.

Otherwise, typing, numbers, calculator, etc.

Oh sorry, I should also mention, there's an Fn button at the bottom of your keyboard.

This is function.

What the "Fn" means is "function".

It's usually blue, and there are different keys with blue things on them.

If you press Fn + another key with a blue thing, it will do what that is.

It could put the computer to sleep.

It can restart the computer; it can shut it down.

It could be used for other things.

You can use function with the arrow keys to raise or lower volume, increase or decrease

brightness, etc.

Again, just shortcuts.

Now, if you want to connect things.

The most common way to connect devices is through USB, okay?

So, USB is universal serial bus, I believe is what it stands for.

You usually have two or three slots on a laptop.

You usually have five or six on a desktop.

This is where you connect a wired keyboard or a wired mouse, or you can go wireless.

If you don't want to connect with cables, cables, you know, if you have too many cables,

it makes a bit of a mess.

So, you can go to wireless and usually, you're going to use a USB to connect wireless devices

and etc.

HDMI is another cable that you will usually use to connect your monitor to get better

connection, better graphics, etc.

And then you have your ethernet cable.

If you don't have Wi-Fi, but you do have a modem and you want to connect your computer

to the modem, you're going to use an ethernet cable to do that.

It looks like a phone cable, like a regular old style phone cable that nobody uses anymore,

okay?

So, those are the connections.

Again, sleep, restart, shut down.

This is when you want to stop using the computer but you're going to come back to it soon,

put it to sleep.

If you're having a problem or you have an update or if you want to fix something and

refresh, you do a restart.

It means it closes and turns back on right away.

Or you can just shut it down.

It means close it and leave the computer alone.

Now, another function you want to be thinking about is sync.

Sync means synchronize; it means make two different things work together like one.

So, you can synchronize mobile devices, smartphone, tablet, games, etc.

Things like that.

So, they work together with the computer.

These days, more and more programs and more and more things are becoming cloud based.

Cloud means that everything is stored somewhere else on a server that's far away from your

computer, on a server.

So, you can keep a lot of files there.

You can get a lot of programs that are kept there and you just use them whenever you need.

But you have to synchronize the cloud with your computer so that they work together like

they're together, okay?

Even though the server is far away.

Now, your mouse, very, very important tool.

As I mentioned before, you have right click, left click, and you have a little thing that

spins in the middle, the scroll.

If you right click on something on your screen, you use the right click.

A little box will open up, it's called a pop-up, okay?

And this pop-up, this pop-up will give you different options.

So, you can use this to cut, copy, paste, etc.

The left, when you click on the left button, this will make a command.

So, if you want to go to a link, you put the cursor - I forgot to mention the cursor - for

many people, it's just like a thing on the screen.

It's a little arrow.

You put the arrow on the link, you click left and it'll take you to that link.

So, the left click button is a command button.

It does what it's pointing at.

The scroll, as I mentioned before, if you want to just move up and down on a page.

Double click, if you double click on the left button, it's a command.

If you want to open up a program, if you want to open up a page, you double click and it

activates the program.

That's why we use it to activate different things.

And then you can click and drag.

Again, you're going to use your left click button.

You're going to go to like - let's say you want to copy this word.

You take this word, you click left, and then you move to someplace else that you want it

to be in.

Okay?

So, you might have heard of "drag and drop".

Let me see if I can fit this in.

If you want to move something from one place to another, you just drag and drop there.

So, you left click, keep holding it down.

So, you're holding it down, move it to the next place, let go and it will stay there.

So, that's drag and drop.

Click and drag.

If you want to copy a whole bunch of sentences, for example.

You see an article, you click - left click at the top, you hold it, you drag the mouse

down to the bottom, you let go.

The whole thing will be highlighted in blue.

Then you can copy, cut, and then move somewhere else, paste, etc.

So again, very, very basic introduction to using a computer in English.

When you're given instructions by your teacher, when you need to explain something to tech

support, technical support, these are the words you're going to use.

These are the words they are going to use with you to help you fix whatever problem

you may have.

For those of you taking the TOEFL exam, get to know some of these words, because you're

going to be working on a computer.

You're going to need to know what a scroll is, what right click, left click, etc.

How to use a mouse, how to use a keyboard.

So, if you have any questions about anything here, or if you want to ask me about other

parts of the computer, please go to www.engvid.com and ask me in the comments section.

There's also a quiz to help you refresh your memory and review what you've learned here

today.

So, use that quiz and come back soon.

I'll make another video for the actual internet and software of your computer, how to use

those things and how they function.

In the meantime, if you like this video, give me a like.

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel, and come back for more useful videos to help you

with your English, okay?

See you then.

Bye.