An English Lesson about Electricity! Learn English Vocabulary about Electricity!

Hi, Bob the Canadian here.

Welcome to this English lesson about electricity.

Now, I should tell you,

I did do a lesson earlier this year about electricity.

I'll put a link right there, if you want to check it out,

but in that lesson, I was in my classroom,

and in order to teach you words and phrases

about electricity in English,

I simply held up pictures.

Now, when you learn a language,

it's always good to review things,

so I thought today we would review the topic electricity,

but I would do it in a way where I show you

as many things as I can,

and I demonstrate as many things as I can,

as I teach you English words and phrases

that you'll need to know to talk about electricity.

(cheerful music)

Well, hey, welcome to this English lesson about electricity.

Before we get started, though, if you are new here,

don't forget to click that red subscribe button over there

and give me a thumbs up if this video helps you

learn just a little bit more English.

Well, let's talk about electricity.

One of the first things I want to talk about

is how electricity is generated, or how power is generated.

We use the word electricity and power

interchangeably in English.

Behind me, you can see a wind turbine.

This wind turbine is generating electricity.

It is generating power.

It is using the energy in the wind to turn the blades

so that it can turn a generator and create electricity.

This is not a windmill.

A windmill is something else.

I'll put a picture here,

so that you can see what a windmill is,

but one way that we generate electricity,

one way that we generate power is by using a wind turbine.

Another way to generate electricity is to use solar panels.

You can see this farm behind me has a bull (laughs)

and a solar panel installation,

so they are using the power of the sun

to generate electricity.

You can also see in the distance

that this building has some solar panels on it as well.

If this was a bigger installation,

if they had more solar panels,

we would call it a solar farm.

I'm happy that I was able to show you

an actual wind turbine,

and I'm happy that I was able to show you

a solar panel installation,

but I can't show you all of the other kinds of power plants

because they don't exist out here in the country,

but I will talk about them,

and I will put pictures here while I do.

We have nuclear power plants,

where we use the power of the splitting of an atom

in order to create heat,

and we use that heat to generate electricity.

We have coal-fired power plants,

where we burn coal to create heat,

and we use that heat to create electricity.

We have natural gas-fired power plants,

where we burn natural gas

and we use the heat that is generated to create electricity,

and in Canada, we have hydro-electric power plants,

where we use the power of flowing water

to create electricity.

This behind me is not a power plant.

It is simply a power station,

or what we sometimes call a power substation,

where high-voltage electricity comes in

with the power lines on one side,

and I think a different voltage goes out,

a more usable voltage goes out on the other side,

that can be sent to homes and business.

So once the power is generated at the power plant,

it needs to get to everyone's homes.

Behind me you see what we would call a utility pole

or a telephone pole,

and in this part of Canada, we call this a hydro pole,

and at the top, you will see the power lines.

That is what we use to get the electricity

from the power plant to someone's home

or to their place of business.

So I'm not sure if you can see this,

but there are power lines over there along the road,

and then there are power lines that come onto my property.

Up here on this pole, you see a transformer,

which takes the electricity,

takes the power that's coming in

from power lines on the road

and changes the voltage to be more usable

for us here on the farm.

The first place that electricity

actually comes into a building at our place

is in the barn,

and the first thing it goes through is a meter.

This meter measures how much electricity we are using,

so that at the end of each month,

the power company knows how much they need to charge us.

So this meter measure how much electricity we are using.

After the electricity goes to the meter,

it goes to what we call an electrical panel

or a breaker box.

Inside here are circuit breakers

and each circuit breaker

is for a different circuit in the barn.

We have another electrical panel in the house,

and it contains circuit breakers

for every electrical circuit that we have in the house.

This is a roll of electrical wire.

This is the wire that runs through the walls of our house.

So I just showed you the breaker box

or the electrical panel.

From the electrical panel, there is electrical wire

that runs through the walls of the house

to all of the light switches and to all of the outlets.

If you are building a home in Canada,

you will install electrical boxes

in the places where you need outlets

and in the places where you need light switches.

An electrical outlet in Canada looks like this.

We use 120 volts as our voltage in Canada,

and this is a typical outlet that you would see

in a Canadian home, also in an American home,

and of course, to make it look nice,

we would put a plate on the front when we are all done.

So you would see these outlets in Canadian homes

or American homes,

and that's what we call them in English.

We say that is an electrical outlet,

or we just say an outlet.

Of course, in some places,

you will want to install light switches

in the electrical box,

and you will want to put a nice plate on the front as well,

and then you could use this box to turn off your lights

or to turn on your lights.

This is a light fixture.

You would put this on a ceiling and connect wires to it,

and you would screw in a light bulb into the light socket,

so that this light fixture would then work,

and of course,

these wires would go back to the light switch.

So there you go.

A little introduction to what light switches,

what electrical outlets, and what light fixtures look like

in a Canadian home and in American home.

Electricity is really cool, and it powers a lot of things.

This is a small heater here.

This is how we refer to this part of any device

that uses electricity.

This is the cord for that device, and this is the plug.

In order for this to work, I need to plug it into an outlet.

So that's how you talk about anything that you are using

that needs electricity.

You have a cord and you have a plug,

so if you could just pretend

that we are in the house right now,

I am going to plug in this heater.

I am going to plug it in to this outlet.

There.

It's not gonna work because,

you know, there's nothing on the back.

If I needed to put this heater far away from the outlet,

I would need to use what we call an extension cord.

So an extension cord is a really long cord

that you plug into the outlet on one end,

and then it has on the other end,

a spot where you can plug in whatever you are using.

And if you needed to plug in more than one thing,

you could use a power bar.

So I can plug this power bar into this extension cord,

and then I can plug these cords (laughs)

into the power bar.

One second here.

I have too many cords here.

So there you go.

When you need to plug in more than one thing,

you can use a power bar.

When you are plugging something in,

you want to make sure that you don't touch

these metal prongs on the plug.

Also, you don't want to touch any bare wire,

if the cord is frayed,

because you can get electrocuted.

When you get electrocuted,

it means that the electric current enters your body

and it will injure you.

Electricity is actually very, very dangerous.

Of course, if you're far from an outlet

and you're using something small, like a radio,

that can run off of batteries,

you can always put batteries into it.

This is what we call a AA battery.

This is a AAA battery,

and this is a 9-volt battery.

So if you're using something small

that runs off of batteries,

you can always put batteries in it.

Sometimes, when you are using a computer,

you need to use one of these,

which actually has a few names in English.

Sometimes we call it a power supply,

sometimes we call it a charger,

and sometimes we call it an adaptor.

You're probably safe to use any of those three words

and people will know what you are talking about.

So I don't know a lot about vehicles,

but I do know there is a 12-volt battery

in every vehicle in Canada and in the United States,

and that battery is used to start the vehicle.

There is also an alternator in every vehicle,

and that alternator turns when the engine is running

and creates about 13.5 volts of electricity

to charge the battery

and to run all of the electronic components in the vehicle.

Well, hey, thank you so much for watching

this English lesson about electricity.

I hope you were able to learn

just a little bit more English while you were watching.

Remember, if you are new here,

don't forget to click that red subscribe button below,

and give me a thumbs up if this video helped you

learn just a little bit more English,

and if you have some time,

why don't you stick around and watch another video?

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