Vehicles and Machines Advanced English Listening Practice - Say It Like A Native

Our first word is fictional. Fictional. When something is fiction, it’s not real in the

sense that maybe you can talk about a dog being a real animal but a dragon being a fictional

animal. So, a dinosaur would be a real animal even though it might look like a dragon. But

it just means something that’s maybe an idea or not an actual thing, a real thing.

So, this is where we get books from fiction and non-fiction. So, non-fiction just talks

about maybe biographies or history books or other things, maybe a self-help book. So,

information that’s supposed to be practical or true or real. So, fictional is the opposite

of that. A fiction. Fiction.

Next, hydraulic and pneumatic. You will hear the word hydraulic when we’re talking about

cars in the Master Class video. Uh, pneumatic will not be in there, but I thought that was

a good word just because it’s another thing related to this.

When you’re thinking about using energy or some kind of, uh, maybe matter or something

to, to generate energy or power, there are different ways of doing this. So, one way

is using water or water pressure. So, maybe you have some kind of pipe where you put lots

and lots of water in there and use that to maybe move something like a crane up and down

or some other kind of engine. So, this is called hydraulic, hydraulic. So hydro meaning

water. So, we’ve got hydraulic, you know, pressure or a hydraulic system like a lifting

system.

And pneumatic is where we get air, or air pressure. So, if you have pneumonia, it’s

the same idea where you have, uh, like a problem with your lungs. I don’t want to explain

a lot about that sickness, but that’s again, where the idea comes from. So, you have hydraulic

and pneumatic. Pneumatic.

Next, aspect. Aspect. You’ve probably heard this in not only these lessons before but

also lots of times in conversations. And you will hear it many, many times in this conversation,

so it’s a great thing to listen for. Uh, aspect is a way of talking about a thing or

a part or a feature of something. So, you might talk about a movie and say, “Well

the visual aspect of the movie was great, but the story was not so good.” So, the

visual part or the visual feature, maybe the movie looked really beautiful, uh, but maybe,

you know, the story just wasn’t very good.

So, I can talk about the aspect of something, or if I want to kind of reverse the, the way

I use it, I could say maybe the style aspect or the image aspect or the visual aspect.

So, you can talk about the aspect of something or the visual aspect or the something aspect.

Listen for both of these in the conversation. You’ll hear different versions of them,

but really, just the idea of using aspect. Uh, this is a more advanced word, but you

will hear it in conversations especially between, uh, more educated people or that use that

maybe in professional and business settings. Aspect. Aspect.

Next, realistic and real-life. Real- life. Now, just looking at something that’s real

or we talked about fictional a moment ago. So, something that’s real is true or it’s

accurate in some way. And specifically, from the conversation, you’ll hear me and Will.

So, we are talking about, uh, the graphics or something. And so, the graphics talks about

the way something looks. And if you look at the history of video games, the graphical

fidelity, that’s another great word for this month’s lesson. So, the fidelity of

something just means how close it is to the real thing. Or, if you make a copy of something,

uh, how close that is.

So, you could maybe do an impression. I’m gonna do an impression of some famous actor

or a comedian or something, and you can talk about the fidelity, or how close or how accurate,

uh, how similar that is to the real thing. So, the graphical fidelity, this is how closely

we can mirror or to connect with or to show, to match, uh, the realism of something. So,

the graphical fidelity of video games is becoming more realistic and looking more real-life

or looking more lifelike.

Now, listen carefully the, to, to the pronunciation of this. Even though we have real and life

because we have those two L’s there. We have the real, the ‘l’ from real and then

the ‘l’ from life. They blend together because we don’t want to say real-life.

It takes too much time, so we just cut one of those L’s and just say realife, realife,

realife. It’s almost like ree-ya-life. Like a Y-A sound. Real-life. Real-life. That’s

a much easier way to think about it.

So, real-life, we’re just talking about something that looks real. Like, I can draw

or paint a picture that looks, wow, it almost looks like real flowers or something. Ah,

and again, this is different from something that’s fictional in that sense. Where we’re

talking about something being either true like a real-life, an actual thing like a dinosaur,

and a fictional thing, uh, like a dragon.

Next, to calibrate something. To calibrate. Now, this is a technical term, but it’s

also very commonly used in everyday situations. And it just means to make sure that you’re

using an instrument of some kind, and that it has, uh, a proper connection to some standard

measurement or whatever you’re measuring that against.

Now, just to make this very clear, a very common, everyday usage is to calibrate a scale.

So, if you have a regular scale, you want to weigh yourself. How much, you know, find

out how much you weigh. You would stand on the scale. If you just stand on the scale,

maybe you don’t know if your weight is accurate or not.

So, you think, oh, well, the scale says I am 110 pounds, but I should be 93 or something.

So, you think that’s true, so probably, the scale is off. You can talk about something

being incorrect or the numbers are not matching properly. You can talk about at, talk about

that in a casual way just saying something is off.

Like, even just in general, you can say, you know, something’s kind of off about that

person or this, the feeling of this room. Something feels a bit off. A very quick and

caw, casual conversational way of describing that. So, if a scale is off, or some machine

is off, it means it’s not measuring something or not, not showing something accurately.

You need to calibrate that thing first.

So, in the case of the scale, you would not put any weight on it, and you would just turn

it on and see what the, the measurement if you have a, a digital scale it should see,

uh, or it should say zero. So, it’s not measuring any weight. Or, if you have a mechanical

scale, that’s the one that has the actual little arrow or something that spins around.

So, that’s a mechanical scale. Uh, so, you want to make sure that is zeroed out. So,

when it’s zeroed out, it means it’s actual, it’s accurately or calibrated to that correct

zero. And then you can stand on the scale and weigh yourself.

Next, nauseous, nauseous. Nauseous is talking about, you know, a way of feeling like you’re

going to throw up, blah, because maybe you’re very sick. So, if you get into a car, you’ll

hear us driving or not driving, but describing excuse me, describing this in the conversation

where people are in a simulation.

And we’ll talk more about that in the Fluency Corner lesson, but if you go to a theme park

where you have those rides that kind of simulate a, a real situation where you’re driving.

It, it’s supposed to feel like you’re in a car or you’re flying or something.

Usually, there’s a, a TV screen or something. You’re looking at it, and it’s projecting

an image, but the thing you’re sitting in is moving around as well. Usually, with some

kind of hydraulic system or pneumatic system.

Uh, but those things, if the, the visual and the, the feeling that you get, the motion.

Like, if the screen is making it look like you’re moving that way, but you feel like

you’re moving that way, you will start to feel nauseous.

Now, you can call this car sick if you’re in a car, or if you’re on an airplane, you

would call this airplane sickness or air sickness. Or, if you’re on a boat you could call this

sea sickness. But it’s just that motion sickness in general if you don’t remember

which one. It’s pretty easy, car sickness, air sickness or sea sickness. Uh, but you

can just talk about, uh, motion sickness.

And nausea is that, that way of describing it in a bit more, uh, maybe advanced, this

is what maybe a doctor would describe it. But you can just say, yeah, I’m kind of

car sick or I have motion sickness.

So, if you feel nausea or something makes you feel nauseous. Oh, it makes me, oh, I,

the smell of that, oh, it’s making me nauseous. You can say casually, it’s making me gag.

Like, eh, eh, like, you feel like you’re going to throw up. Nauseous. Nauseous.

Next, another measurement term is X accurate. So, if you want to talk about how precise

something is, the precision of a measure ming, uh, measuring instrument. You can talk about

a scale. Uh, as an example, we talked about the scale earlier. So, a regular scale might,

uh, in American terms, it might give you, uh, the amount of pounds you are or if you’re

in, uh, like Japan or the UK, you would get kilos, whatever it is for your country. Uh,

but maybe you want to get more specific, and you don’t want to just know pounds. You

want to know even maybe, uh, like, a gram or an ounce in American English. So, how many

ounces. It should be 16 ounces to the pound, I believe, if I remember that correctly.

Really, I, the metric system is so much easier. I don't know why we don’t use that in America.

Anyway, we will save that for a, a lesson for another topic, uh, or another time.

But, uh, that idea of being X accurate, like millimeter accurate or gram accurate. It just

means it’s precise or it’s measurable to a particular tinier or more specific measurement.

Next, another great word, forgiving. Forgiving. Now, the regular term forgive just means to

ask for… Maybe you did something wrong and, like, as an example, I, I forgot to pick up

my wife from the airport. I took a nap, uh, and I, like, woke up late and thought, oh

no! My wife’s waiting for me at the airport. She’s going to be very angry. So, I get

there, uh, and I give her some flowers. I say, “Oh, I’m so sorry. Please forgive

me.” So, I’m asking for her permission, uh, just say, like, make sure everything is

okay. So, I’m asking for forgiveness.

But when you talk about something being forgiving, in general, it just means there’s maybe

some, some play. Uh, and play just meaning, like, a, a, a range of something. So, there

might be, uh, like, if you’re trying to do something like I’m playing a video game.

I don’t have to push the button exactly right when I need to push it. Maybe I could

be a little late or a little bit early, and I would still be able to do something accurately.

So, these things are often designed into video games because humans maybe can’t push something

exactly when they need to push it. Uh, and the video game will be kind of designed to

help you with that. So, this means something is forgiving.

Now, the opposite of this would be unforgiving. And again, it’s a very common use, so I

just gave you kind of a mechanical idea of this where you’re talking about a bah, a

machine being very forgiving, uh, or something.

Even if I’m, you know, taking a picture, like, wow, this is really great light. It

makes me look beautiful. Like, this light is very forgiving. So, maybe my face is very

ugly, uh, but the light makes me look much more attractive, uh, then the light or something

like that is very forgiving.

You can talk about the weather being very unforgiving or forgiving as well. Usually,

we don’t talk about, uh, forgiving weather because either you just have nice weather

or really, really bad weather. So, you want to talk about an unforgiving storm or something

that’s really difficult. Maybe there’s, uh, like, you’re out on the ocean, and,

like, the sea, the ocean was just unforgiving. So, it was constantly hitting us with big

waves, and the boat almost tipped over. It was really bad weather. Unforgiving.

Next, anticipation. Anticipation. Anticipation is the longer, more advanced way of saying

that you are looking forward to doing something. But it also just means you are thinking towards

the future. You might not be looking forward to something, uh, as that means maybe it’s

a positive thing. But you could be anticipating a problem. So, it just means to think forward.

You’re looking at something happening. Okay, I’m anticipating and something. You think

about it like participating is when you’re actually in that thing. But anticipating is

when you’re thinking about that actually before it happens.

So, we’ve got the ‘anti’ word here, just meaning before. So, anticipate. So, I

need to anticipate things. I hope you are anticipating these new lessons as they come

out. So, as you’re learning one lesson, you are anticipating but also looking forward

to the next one we release. Anticipate. And you can also talk about the noun form, which

is anticipation. Anticipation.

Next, regulated. Regulated. Now, I’m kind of over pronouncing it here. If you would

hear this in a regular conversation, you will hear this in the Master Class video, but regularly,

we just say regulated, regulated. Regulated. Now, it’s a regulated, with a ‘t’ there.

But the ‘t’ becomes more of ‘d’ sound. Reguladed. Reguladed. Reguladed.

Now, regulated just means that it’s a government-controlled or something that has maybe a system of laws

in place so that there are rules. And you have to follow these rules in some way. If

you have an unregulated market, people can go out and maybe sell whatever they want to,

even if it’s not really a good product or it’s harmful or something. There are no

laws to protect consumers or people who would be buying those products. So, we talk about

an unregulated market or an unregulated economy or the opposite.

But you can also talk that maybe not just like government, but the rules for something.

So, you might have a sport, but maybe people don’t, you know, they’re just playing

by their own rules. They do whatever they want to do, so it’s unregulated. Like, an

unregulated boxing match where, you know, people could just do whatever they want to.

Or, there’s just no official rules because it’s not in some official organization.

Regulated and unregulated.

And finally, for the last of our individual words, we have to lose someone. And we’ll

also talk about a fatal accident. So first, to lose someone, often we use words that are

maybe sounding a bit softer or a bit more polite. So, instead of saying that someone

died, which you might see on maybe a news program, you talk about losing someone, or

you talk about someone passing on or passing or passing away. So, just think about a person

almost disappearing, and they just pass on to the next world or heaven or whatever you

think about when someone dies.

So, you’ll hear Will talking about this as, you know, they lost some people. Typically,

this is a thing you’ll hear, uh, maybe in war or a similar situation. Almost like that,

which is high-speed racing, where you might lose someone to some accident or whatever,

and it just means they died, but it is in a much more, maybe kind of soft and polite

way when you’re talking about that.

Uh, but fatal accident, fatal just means that there was an actual death. What, maybe you

say, like, there were a number of fatalities. Uh, so, a fatality just means a death, uh,

or a fatal accident rather than just a regular accident where someone actually died. Fatal

accident. Fatal accident. I’m Drew Badger, the founder of EnglishAnyone.com,

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