Episode 0139

Hello everyone, welcome to English Pod. My name is Marco.

And today we're going to be looking at another lesson as part of our sports series and this time, well, it's a debate, is it a game or is it a sport?

Oh, it's a sport, you have to work your mind.

Nah, so we're looking at chess, a very old, very popular sport, very difficult to play as well.

It takes a lot of practice and believe me, it's frustrating at the beginning and I'm still kind of in the beginning intermediate stages, but uh yeah, it takes a lot of practice and it takes a well, it takes a lot of time to familiarize yourself with the rules.

Right.

So we're going to be learning a little bit more about the pieces and the rules today.

Okay, perfect. So we're not going to preview anything, let's listen to the dialogue for the first time, and then we'll come back and talk about the sport.

What is that?

Okay. Each player gets 16 pieces. You can be the white ones, and I'll play with the black pieces. Now in the front, you set up the pawns. Those are the least valuable pieces and can only move one space forward.

When you're about to capture another piece, it can move one space diagonally.

What about all these other pieces?

See this one that looks like a tower? It's called the rook.

The one with the tall hat is called the bishop.

See this little horsey? This is called the knight. It's a very important piece, so it's best not to let your opponent capture it.

That's right. That's the queen and that's the king. If the other player captures your king, he will say checkmate and the game is over.

All right, so um, the kid is obviously not very interested in learning how to play chess.

Not at all, you know, the arts of these kind of slower games might be replaced very soon by video games.

Yeah, I guess uh it doesn't really appeal to a little nine-year-old or 10-year-old instead of, you know, playing something like this versus yeah, shooting. Yeah, exactly.

But it's a very great game. It's very difficult like we mentioned. So we're going to look at the name of the pieces and the rules that are related to these pieces and language takeaway.

Language takeaway.

Well, the first one, you might have heard it before because this is a word that is often used in strategy in general. So um,

The word pawn.

A pawn.

A pawn usually means uh something that is not very important that you can use to distract an opponent.

Mhm.

All right, so on the chessboard you have eight pawns. So these are the ones that you have the most, but their movement is very limited.

So they can only move two spaces forward on the first move, right?

Right, or one space after that.

One space forward.

And only when it's going to capture another piece, can it move diagonally.

All right, so you can't just go diagonally. You have to go forward until you're going to take another person's piece to capture it and to go diagonally.

All right.

But a pawn is funny, you can also use this word when you're talking about other things like he used her as a pawn in his little game, you know.

So you want to make an analogy, you want to make a comparison from life to these games, you can they can use the word pawn.

Pawn.

Very good.

Now moving on to the other pieces on the chessboard. On the very far ends of the board, you have the rook.

Okay, you got two of these and they kind of look like towers from a castle.

And uh it's a very, well, they're very important pieces and actually my favorite pieces because they're not very important at the beginning of a game, but at the end of a game, boom, boom, boom, boom, you can do a lot of damage because they can go anywhere in straight lines.

Right, so they can go forward, backwards and to the sides.

As many spaces as they want.

The whole board if they want.

The whole board.

Yeah, so easy, easy pieces to forget about at the beginning, but they're very important.

And now uh next to the rook, we have the bishop.

Okay, this is very different from the rook because the bishop can also go anywhere, but they can only go diagonally.

Right. So only diagonally.

They can also move four directions but diagonally, right?

Exactly. So you can go forward and backward, but it has to be in at a diagonal slanted line.

Okay.

And now next to the bishop, we have the knight.

It's weird. So it can move two spaces forward and then one to the right or one to the left, or it can move two spaces to the right and then one forward. So it's very strange, but it always has to move three spaces and in the shape of an L.

Right, so that's the knight. It's actually a very, very important piece as well.

And uh now the two main pieces maybe of the chessboard, the the queen and king.

So the king is kind of sad. He can only move one space, but the queen is really the killer because she can do anything she wants.

This is uh interesting, right? Why do they make it like that?

The queen can move as many spaces as as she wants and any direction.

While the king can do the same, any direction he wants, but only one space. I don't know.

Well, maybe it has to do with he has the fact that he has to stay put and represent the country, and she can move around and move behind the scenes and has a little bit more mobility.

Who knows.

So uh, but in the end, the most important piece is the king, right? Once the king is captured, the game is over.

Exactly.

So uh, let's listen to today's dialogue one more time and slow it down a bit and find out if the boy understood any of these rules.

What is that?

Okay. Each player gets 16 pieces.

You can be the white ones and I'll play with the black pieces.

Now in the front, you set up the pawns. Those are the least valuable pieces and can only move one space forward.

When you're about to capture another piece, it can move one space diagonally.

What about all these other pieces?

See this one that looks like a tower? It's called the rook.

The one with the tall hat is called the bishop.

See this little horsey? This is called the knight. It's a very important piece, so it's best not to let your opponent capture it.

That's right. That's the queen and that's the king. If the other player captures your king, he will say checkmate and the game is over.

All right, we're back and uh now why don't we explain a couple of these phrases that we also use to explain the pieces.

But let's look at some of these more in depth now in Fluency Builder.

Fluency Builder.

So Marco, one of the first phrases that we uh that we heard was the word uh was the phrase to move diagonally or a diagonal line.

And so the pawns can sometimes do this and the bishop can do this.

But what does it mean to move diagonally?

Okay, so basically a diagonal line is not a line that goes straight up, right? Straight up to the sky for example, or to the side.

Right? It goes at an angle, so it's maybe going at 45 degrees or 30 degrees. So that's a that's a diagonal movement or diagonal line.

Exactly.

The next phrase we have is very strange.

And this one you might hear from parents or children.

He says a little horsey.

Little horsey. So uh in many languages, we have ways of uh breaking down words or adding to words to make them sound cuter. And this is one of those cases. So uh for example, little puppy or little kitty or kitten. These are words to make to make things sound cuter.

So uh in this case, horse becomes horsey.

Exactly.

So baby talk often involves having these rhyming words. Mommy, horsey, doggy, puppy.

Mhm, a doggy, exactly.

Very good.

So it's a, it's a cute way of saying something.

And uh now when we were talking about the the chess pieces, uh when another piece takes or gets a piece, you say it captures it.

Okay, we say capture because maybe it's a bit nicer than killing it, but capture means taking and keeping for yourself.

So we have a very popular game in America called Capture the Flag.

Right, where you have to take each other's flags, right?

You're stealing.

You're stealing.

Um, so yeah, this is the term that is used in chess to capture another piece.

Sometimes like for example, in Spanish, we actually say like to eat the other piece.

Really?

Yeah, you eat it.

But uh to capture is uh is a very important phrase and you're going to hear that in the news as well because you can capture a person. You can capture a criminal.

All right, and the final word and the way that you end a game of chess, you say checkmate.

Checkmate.

Checkmate.

Checkmate.

So the game's over, checkmate.

Well, there's two things that can happen at the end of a game and uh well, only one thing can happen at the very end of a game.

But you're going to hear these two phrases, one is check and the other is checkmate.

Mhm.

So check means that I can take your king if I want to.

Move.

Right, it's in danger.

It's in danger, but checkmate is the end all. This means this is the very, very last part of a game where you cannot do anything. I've trapped you and I win.

Right, very good.

So the game is over when somebody says checkmate.

Uh why don't we listen to this dialogue for the last time and then we'll come back and talk a little bit more about this very interesting game.

What is that?

Okay. Each player gets 16 pieces. You can be the white ones. I'll play with the black pieces. Now in the front, you set up the pawns. Those are the least valuable pieces and can only move one space forward.

When you're about to capture another piece, it can move one space diagonally.

What about all these other pieces?

See this one that looks like a tower? It's called the rook.

The one with the tall hat is called the bishop.

See this little horsey? This is called the knight. It's a very important piece, so it's best not to let your opponent capture it.

That's right. That's the queen and that's the king. If the other player captures your king, he will say checkmate and the game is over.

All right.

The word check and the word mate. They both have they both have meanings in English, but put together what is what is this where does this phrase come from? What could it possibly mean?

Okay, well, this is actually very interesting because I I looked it up and I I had no idea either because we've always just said this and uh it doesn't really make sense.

So I looked it up on the internet and I discovered that the game of chess is actually a very ancient game.

And it did not come from England, it did not come from France. It actually came from Persia.

And uh in Persian, there are some words that kind of became the English words checkmate that mean the king is captured or the king is defeated.

Mhm, okay. So that's what it means. It doesn't mean the king is dead. No. It doesn't mean that he's dead. It means that he's been taken.

And so over time, the Persian word went into Arabic and Arabic became French and English and then now we say checkmate.

Checkmate. Oh, okay, interesting.

Um, this is a very interesting word and I'm sure everybody that's listening has a different translation for it in their own language.

I know for example that in Spanish, we would say jaque mate.

checkmate

Jaque mate.

Right, so uh, I guess like jaque is something's in check, it's in danger and then mate kind of like kill. So maybe it's probably not translated properly because as as you mentioned, it it should mean defeated or or captured, not killed.

So uh listeners, why don't you let us know how you say checkmate in your language?

Come to our website Englishpod.com.

Uh please get in touch with us on our website, uh otherwise you can email us at [email protected].

The English Pod Audio Review.

Listen to the meaning, then say the vocabulary word.

On a diagonal.

Forward and to the left or right.

Diagonally.

A game in which each player moves 16 pieces across a board and tries to capture the opponent's king.

Chess.

The final and most important piece in chess.

King.

Make ready for use.

Set up.

A very powerful piece in chess.

Queen.

Very useful or helpful.

Valuable.

A useful piece in chess.

Knight.

To take.

Capture.

A piece in chess that can only move diagonally.

Bishop.

The weakest piece in chess, a person or group without much power.

Pawn.

Not interesting.

Boring.

A piece in chess that can only move along straight lines.

Rook.

Describe situation in which king cannot move.

Checkmate.

Let's try that faster.

Not interesting.

Boring.

A useful piece in chess.

Knight.

The final and most important piece in chess.

King.

Describe situation in which king cannot move.

Checkmate.

A game in which each player moves 16 pieces across a board and tries to capture the opponent's king.

Chess.

A very powerful piece in chess.

Queen.

To take.

Capture.

Make ready for use.

Set up.

The weakest piece in chess, a person or group without much power.

Pawn.

A piece in chess that can only move diagonally.

Bishop.

On a diagonal, forward and to the left or right.

Diagonally.

Very useful or helpful.

Valuable.

A piece in chess that can only move along straight lines.

Rook.

Now say the word and hear it in a sentence.

Diagonally.

Susan lives diagonally across the street from us.

Diagonally.

The bishop is a piece that can move diagonally as many spaces as it wants.

Diagonally.

Diane sits diagonally from me at work.

Set up.

Help me set up my new home theater system.

Set up.

We can't work today because the workers are setting up the network.

Set up.

Valuable.

His house was furnished with valuable antique furniture.

Valuable.

The witness provided valuable information which led to the apprehension of the murderer.

Valuable.

Capture.

Capture.

I've captured almost all your pieces. You will lose.

Capture.

I can't believe the police finally captured that murderer.

Pawn.

Germania was an underdeveloped nation that was a pawn in international politics.

Pawn.

The pawn is the least valuable piece on the chessboard, but it is a very important piece.

Pawn.

He used Sherry as a pawn in his evil game.