English Listening Practice: TikTok, ding-dong, hip hop, teeny-tiny

Hey guys, it's Ronnie.

Today we're going to practice some listening.

I'm going to tell you a story.

I'm going to speak slow enough so that you can understand my wonderful story.

And make this kind of like a listening test for you to, you know, kind of practice your

English listening, because people speak really quickly and it's hard to understand when people

speak in slang and they use different words, or they speak really quickly and they mush

words together, and you're like, "What is this person talking about?"

So, here it goes.

I think it was yesterday or the day before, no, it was definitely yesterday, I was looking

at TalkTik, and this guy was just telling a story about a simple guy, and he was on

the way - on his way to the store because he wanted to buy a cat kit, because he's really

hungry, right?

Because he had the munchies.

So, he went into the store and he got his cat kit, but when he was there, he also saw

those mints.

What are those mints called?

They're called "TakTik", so he's like, "Oh, it's been a long time since I've had a TakTik,

I'm going to get some of those."

So, you know, he paid for his chocolate bar and his mints, and he started to go back home.

But on the way home, he was walking down the street and he flipped over a pong ping ball

that someone - I don't know, someone was playing table tennis, and the ball just landed on

the road.

He flipped over it, and it's summertime, and he actually broke his flat flip.

He was so mad.

But then he realized, "Oh, bollocks, I've forgotten something at the store, I need more

rolling papers."

So, he goes back to the store and he asked for his favourite rolling papers, which were

players, but they didn't have them, and the guy said, "Oh, hey, do you know what?

We don't have players, but we definitely have the Zag Zags if you want those."

And he's like, "Oh, well, okay, I'll try something new today."

So, he's got his chocolate bar, he's got his rolling papers, he's got everything, he's

got a broken flip-flop, and he was kind of, you know, looking sad.

And the guy behind the cash, the cashier, said, "Ah, dude, are you okay?

What's up, man?

You look kind of stressed out" or whatever, and he said, "You know, I'm kind of pissed

because I broke my sandal here", and the guy's like, "Ah, do you know what'll cheer you up?

I just got an old-school Snoop Dogg hop-hip album in", and the guy put it on, and it was

like they had such a good time hanging out in the variety store, listening to music.

It was such a cool story, because these are the wonderful stories that you have on these

apps.

They're just so exhilaratingly wonderful.

They're not, actually.

I was just lying there.

But did you understand my story?

There's probably some words that you were kind of like, "What are you even talking about,

Ronnie?

What is TalkTik?"

Well, here's something so cool that even native speakers don't even know the rules to.

So, I'm going to let you in on some inside knowledge of ye olde English language.

You know the app is called TikTok, okay?

But did you know they spelt it differently, but it's actually the sound of a clock?

So, in English, when a clock makes the ticking noises, an old clock, right?

Like a cuckoo clock, cuckoo, cuckoo.

When we imitate the sound of a clock, it says TikTok, and that's how the company got the

name for the app.

The spelling's different, they use a capital here, a capital there, but when I said to

you "TalkTik", oh, it was really confusing.

Like, Ronnie has an app called TalkTik?

TikTok.

We have this zigzag, zigzag of rolling papers.

They're also - zigzag is also a pattern.

Hello, do you work?

A pattern - hello - a pattern's like this.

It's like a lightning bolt.

My marker's dead.

That's okay, we don't need that.

So, a zigzag is a pattern, and this is what happens in English.

If I said to you "Zag Zig" or if I said "Dong Ding", maybe it wouldn't seem that weird to

you, but other people go "Oh, there's something not quite right about that", and there's a

rule to it, which I really don't like rules, but I'll teach you what it is - whoa, hold

on there.

The rule is what we put first, the word we put first is an "i", so tick, zig, ding, tick,

tack, whoop, ping, hip, dilly, okay?

I'll explain what these words mean later.

And then we have an "a", so it's always going to be the "i" word and then the "a" word.

Or if you don't have an "a", it'll be an "o", so we would never reverse the order of this.

We would never say "Pong Ping" because we have an "i" here and an "o" there.

We always have to put the word with an "i" first, and then the word with an "o" or an

"a" after it.

And there's one crazy example that uses all of them, and it's a game, and it's called

"Tick-Tack-Toe", but we're going to play the game later when I get a new marker.

That'll be fun.

And in the UK, they call it "knots and crosses".

That's irrelevant.

UK, hello.

So, a ding-dong.

Does anybody know what a ding-dong is?

I want you to play with my ding-a-ling ding-dong.

A ding-dong is the sound that a bell makes.

So remember I told you that "tick-tock" was the sound of a clock, "zigzag" is a pattern

and a rolling paper brand, but "ding-dong" is the sound of bells.

Not balls, bells.

They go ding-dong, and the clock goes tick-tock.

Do you have those little candies, those little mints that I talked about in the story?

Those are actually called "tick-tacks", not "tack-tick".

So, you might be thinking, "Ronnie, why are you even teaching us this?

This is just nonsensical."

You're right.

It is a bit wishy-washy, it's a little bit crazy, but there's three reasons why I'm telling

you this.

One, if you mess it up like I did in the story and say "tack-tick" instead of "tick-tock",

people are going to not understand you.

It'll let people know right away that you're not a native speaker, which is fine, but it's

a dead giveaway.

The other one is if you are creating something in English, if you're a content creator, like

on, oh, I don't know, YouTube or something, or you're creating characters for a book or

anything creative, you should follow the rule because that's how the rhythm goes in English.

But what if you didn't follow the rule?

Hey, try it.

Make a character called "Pong Pang" and see how that goes over.

But it seems to be, like, the rhythm of English.

"Tick-tack" is a candy; "Kit-Kat", chocolate bar famous all over the world, you get four

little pieces of chocolate in that one; "Ping-Pong", oh, this is fun.

"Ping-Pong" is a game called table tennis, and when I was researching it, it's also called

"Wiff-Waff", "Wiff-Waff", "Wiff-Waff".

Again, these are words that sound like what you're doing.

That can get tricky.

But look, it even follows the same rule or the same pattern.

This one has an "i" and then this one's followed by an "a", so it's "Wiff-Waff", not "Waff-Wiff".

It'd be like playing it backwards, you'd be like, oh, I'm wiff-waffing you, and it's just

not a good scene.

Do you like hip-hop music?

Yeah?

Good.

If you are familiar with some old-school hip-hop, Snoop Dogg - doesn't work because he's an

"o" and an "o" - he has a song, "I dilly-dally, I went to the alley, I found a smoker named

Sally".

I'm paraphrasing there, but "dilly-dally" to "dilly-dally around", it's so...

I don't know, my grandmother would say that to me.

It means like you're kind of like...

You're wasting time, you don't really have a purpose, you're just, oh, let's go over here.

Oh, what's over here?

You're having a faff, you're dilly-dallying, you're...

You're not walking purposefully.

And also, I'd like to put a shout-out to the Canadian band from Newmarket, Dilly Dally.

Guys, what's going on?

Good name.

Are you playing or are you just dilly-dallying around on stage there?

So, in the hip-hop genre, even Snoop's album says "dilly-dally", so it must be cool.

Hippity-hoppity.

Yeah.

I listen to hippity-hoppity music, which maybe dilly-dally does, but hippity-hoppity is like...

Oh, you see this guy?

Oh, he's a bunny rabbit.

When we're children, bunny rabbits, they listen to hip-hop, but when they jump, they go "hippity-hoppity,

hippity-hoppity", not "hoppity-hippity".

So, yeah, this bunny rabbit, he's going to hippity-hoppity over here because he's a cool

bunny.

Now, as I was telling you, tic-tac-toe.

Do you know how to play tic-tac-toe?

Look at this.

There's an I, an A, and an O. So, this is a prime example of this rule, and you know

how much I hate rules.

So, tic-tac-toe is basically you put either an X or an O, and you try and get them in

a line.

Now, remember at the beginning of the lesson, I said that they're called knots and crosses?

That sounds a little bit better to me because, you know, it would have to be a cross and

then a knot, but "knot" in British English means zero, but we call them - oh, we call

them X's and O's in English.

X and O's, or tic-tac-toe.

Choose which one you like better.

Knots and crosses, X's and O's, or tic-tac-toes.

So, we used to play this when we were a kid, and basically, you have to get three X's in

a row or three O's in a row, and they can be vertical, which is up and down, they can

be horizontal, which is round, or they can be diagonal.

Yay, I won.

Tic-tac-toe.

I like this.

Dingle-dangle.

I even like the word of it.

I was trying to figure out what song had dingle-dangle in it, and I came up with nothing, but the

best example I can give you of how to use dingle-dangle is think of your grandfather,

if you have one, and think of his balls.

They're probably drooping almost down to his knees, and when he walks, they sway from side

to side.

So, if something dingle-dangles, it means it moves from side to side with little effort,

so mostly just balls dingle-dangle in the wind, so that's how you remember that.

Now, close to that would be teeny-weeny.

Teeny-weeny means very small, so some grandfathers have big danglers, big dingle-dangles, but

a little teeny-weeny little guy there on his, you know, yeah.

This boot is also teeny-weeny.

Teeny-weeny means very small, so next time you're hanging out with your grandpa, ask

him to be like, "Hey, can I see your dingle-danglers?" and he'll totally show them to you.

It'd be great family fun time.

Wishy-washy.

Wishy-washy means something that's not really serious or it's a little bit weird or straight.

Me, yes, I'm kind of wishy-washy.

It doesn't mean that you're not smart, it just means you're a little strange or unorganized.

Oh, this is kind of...

This lesson is kind of wishy-washy.

I don't know what's happening here, but there's another reason, reason number three why I

really want you to understand the A, the I, the A, and the O method, because when you're

learning verbs, everyone hates irregular verbs, so I'm going to teach you how to use this

method to remember those crazy irregular verbs.

Okay, so this whole TikTok, wikiwok, gibberish thing, it actually has a purpose when you're

learning the irregular verbs.

Mine, there aren't a lot of them, but anything to help you.

We have the A in the second row, so like I said, all of these verbs begin with the I.

Begin, drink, and swim.

Then when we put them into the simple past, all that changes is the verb changes from

an I to an A, so we have begin, began, drink, drank, swim, swam.

So in the simple past, we're following this cool little pattern that I showed you.

They don't rhyme and have fun things like wickety-wackety and stuff like that, but that's

okay.

Then instead of an O, we actually have a U, so we're not following the I-A-O, we're following

the I-A-U, but that's cool because it helps us remember begun, drunk, and swum.

So we have begin, began, begun, the past participle, drink, drank, drunk, swim, swam, swum.

And swum's always weird for me, it's like I have swum in the river.

It always sounds strange, but that's English for you.

So when we use the past participle, we have to clear our throats, when we use the past

participle, we're going to use it in anything that's perfect.

So present perfect or past perfect, also in passive voice, you're going to have to know

your past participles there.

So remember this cool thing, I, A, and O or U.

Hippity-hoppity, I'm out of here, guys.

I hope you enjoyed everything, even if you didn't, it doesn't matter.