📕 Part 1: Games

This episode's vocabulary

Unappealing (adj.) - not attractive or interesting.

Chill out (phrasal verb) - to relax completely, or not allow things to upset you.

Tabletop (adj.) - used to refer to board games, card games, and other physical games, rather than computer games.

Demanding (adj.) - needing a lot of time, attention, or energy.

Anecdotal (adj.) - anecdotal information is not based on facts or careful study.

Concrete (adj.) - based on sure facts or existing things rather than guesses or theories.

Diversify (verb) - to start to include more different types or things.

Contact sport (noun) - a sport such as rugby or American football in which players are allowed to touch each other when, for example, they are trying to get the ball.

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Questions and Answers

M: Rory, what kind of games do you like to play?

R: Uh, any that involve either shooting or strategy in terms of video games. I used to play first person shooters like Doom all the time. If we move away from video games, then I like chess, but all other board games I find quite unappealing. Oh, unless it's Risk, which is always entertaining, but it's like really long.

M: What kind of games did you play when you were a child?

R: Well, the ones I just mentioned, but more often because I had more free time and there is this... Oh, there was this flight simulator game we would play fairly regularly. Crashing was a regular feature there, not just in terms of crashing the computer, but crashing the plane as well. And I think we used to make up games as well when we were at school during break time.

M: Do you think adults should play games?

R: I don't see why not. If you have the time when you want to chill out, then you should be allowed. I think there are a lot of board games designed specifically for older people, actually. Like there's this tabletop game called Warhammer for Decay. And that requires you to build models and paint them and oh, and send them into battle. And that looks quite fun. It's just a bit demanding for me.

M: What did the children learn from games?

R: Well, we could probably divide it up into two sets of beneficial outcomes. If they play alone, then they learn to plan and how to rely on themselves and I've heard some anecdotal evidence of people improving their aim. So they play shooting games, then they go to a firing range and they're pretty good at shooting. And then maybe more concrete benefits can be seen in learning how to play together, where children learn teamwork if they're playing like a team game, for example.

M: What games are popular in your country today?

R: Well, I think they're popular everywhere and they always have been, but the formats diversified. So you got regular board games, contact sports now, electronic games. Cyber sport as a thing now.

M: Do you think mental games like chess are good for you?

R: Well, I was thinking about this the other day in school. I think lots of people encourage their children to play chess because lots of clever people have played in the past. But I think you might be confusing cause and effect a little bit here. I think those people were brilliant and played chess, not because they played chess.

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Discussion

M: Rory, thank you so much for your playful answers. So games. What game are you playing, mister?

R: What's that from?

M: From my head. It's all a game for you, huh?

R: Oh my God. I don't want to play this game anymore.

M: OK. Different games in the world include board games, first of all. OK, like Monopoly, for example, board game.

R: Monopoly isn't a board game. It's a way of causing a family breakup without involving alcohol.

M: OR alcohol. Yeah, so again, different board games. So board game like a table game, but we call them board games. Then we have contact games, like contact sports. Right. Like rugby. We have...

R: Football is a contact sport. Judo.

M: Oh, football.

R: It's a spectator sport as well, but so is rugby.

M: Hmm, OK.

R: Um, but yeah, it's a contact sport, especially with drama queens who take a dive and make contact with the ground, thinking of players in any team other than Chelsea.

M: But then we talk about electronic games. Right. So shooting, different strategy, strategy games. Right?

R: Yeah, there are puzzle games and plot formers. And what else are there? Well, there's lots of different kinds.

M: Fight simulator games.

R: Well, fight simulators and flight simulator.

M: Yeah. Oh, flight. Yeah, yeah. And you said flight simulator games. So you're kind of like a steering a helicopter.

R: Well, we never did, we never got very far with the helicopter, but we didn't get far with the planes.

M: Mm hmm.

R: It's easier to fly a plane than a helicopter, in my opinion.

M: So you can talk about any kind of game here. Again, tennis is a game. Chess is a game. Right. So anything. If you hate games, you can just choose one game. So you can talk about that.

R: Well, everybody likes to play something.

M: Yeah.

R: I can't think of a single person who hates every kind of fun.

M: Hmm. Drinking games, for example. You can talk about drinking games or you play on people's nerves. My life is a game, you know. So when they ask you about your childhood, it's good to say I used to play. So I used to play board games or used to play different shooters...

R: Or you could say the ones I just mentioned. But remember, pronunciation not just mentioned, but just mentioned.

M: Just mentioned.

R: Just mentioned. I just mentioned it. But of course, if you're going to talk about the games that you played when you were a child, especially if you are my age, then everybody remembers when your PlayStation crashed, which means it's stopped working. Vanya will not remember this because Vanya is 12. Mhm?

V: I have PlayStation 1.

R: Yeah. In a museum maybe.

V: No, still have it.

R: Really? Hmmmm.

M: Right. So, and we played Mario, Tetris.

R: Oh, Tetris is a Russian game, isn't it?

M: Yeah, it is a Russian game, Tetris, Nice, yeah. Then hide and seek.

R: That's a game you play with the KGB.

M: First you play Doom and then you play hide and seek with KGB. OK, a Scottish joke. Ha ha. Right. You can also make up games. So when you create games yourself so you can make up a drinking game, you can just make it up.

R: It's a phrasal verb for creating things. And if you're interested in phrasal verbs by creating things, why don't you check out our podcast.

M: On phrasal verbs.

R: Yes.

M: Yeah. The link is in the description. You play a game when you want to chill out, which is another phrasal verb.

R: Which is another phrasal verb.

M: Yeah, I can say chill, right? So when I want to chill, I usually play a game with my family. I play some board games. Yeah, I really enjoyed your answer to the question. What do children learn from games? And you said we could probably divided up into two sets of beneficial outcomes. Wooow.

R: Wooow. Modal verb could. Modal verb could with divided up. Phrasal verb.

M: Into two sets of...

R: Beneficial outcomes.

M: Beneficial - good, outcomes - results, right? Yeah. This is so cool. And then you've mentioned anecdotal evidence. This is a very interesting word based on anecdotal evidence.

R: That sounds complicated, doesn't it? But it just means based on stories I've heard from people.

M: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

R: That's literally what it means. So if you ever hear like a scientist saying, well, based on anecdotal evidence, then you can just think like, oh, yes, based on stories from random people, you know.

M: Yeah. Yeah. So we can base our facts, whatever we say on the research, on facts or anecdotal evidence from random people. I really like how you used your intonation when you said something about chess, like I think chess players were brilliant and played chess.

R: Oh, brilliant people.

M: Yeah. Brilliant people.

R: And play chess. yeah. Well, we stressed the and because we want to point out that these two things are not connected. They just exist together at the same time.

M: Yeah. And then like not because they played chess but because... Again with intonation.

R: There's lot's of like, well, there are lots of normal people that play chess and they're just normal. Like me, like I play chess and I'm not particularly special.

M: You are special.

R: Well, not in the intelligence sense. Maybe in the lack of intelligence sense. But, dear listener, you do not like intelligence because you've been listening to us talk about how to talk about games. I like this episode.

M: Yeah. Now we're talking about like video games. Right. So VR, Virtual reality. Have you ever done this virtual reality?

R: I did. I went to Domodedovo and played with VR there and it was really weird. I didn't like it, but that's because I'm old. Young people might like it.

M: Oh yeah, I've done it once. I played Spiderman. Oh my God. And then all of a sudden I was on top of a building. I was screaming. I was like, no, I was really afraid. Yeah. So it does mess your brain, I think, but it's really cool.

R: But hopefully we've given you lots of new and useful vocabulary to play with, but enough of our wordplay.

M: Thank you very much for listening. Bye!

R: Bye!

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