Episode 0232

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

That's right. We're going to talk about toys. So, uh, we're going to actually take a look at a lot of different types of toys and, uh, we're going to be listening to a couple of commercials.

That's right. So we've got two children who are watching TV and they're listening to a number of different commercials. So we're going to learn about some of these very popular products in a moment. Let's first listen to our dialogue.

SpongeBob SquarePants will be right back after these brief messages.

The new Collector's Edition Nursery Rhymes Porcelain Dolls. Little Bo Peep comes with her own sheep and staff. Her clothes are made with the finest fabrics and real Italian lace and her face has been hand-painted by our finest artists. Only $199.

I've never had a porcelain doll before.

I doubt mom and dad will get you that for your birthday. She costs a pretty penny, plus, you'd most likely break her.

All right, we're back. So a lot of great toys and actually it's very popular that, well, maybe you're watching cartoons, you get a lot of these commercials that are selling you all types of toys.

Absolutely, because normally children watch cartoons and children like toys, so it makes sense.

Exactly. So why don't we take a look at uh so why don't we take a look at six keywords that we have for you on Language Takeaway.

Language Takeaway.

Okay, Marco, so what's the first word we're looking at here today?

All right, we have actually a brand, a very famous type of toy. Um they're called Legos.

Legos. So Lego, Legos.

Legos.

So Legos are basically little pieces that you put together to build things.

Yeah, they're like little blocks.

Okay, so uh when you see them, they don't look like anything. But as a child, you get to create anything you want.

Mhm. So Legos have become very famous. They have like special uh types that you can recreate maybe a spaceship from Star Wars, a pirate ship, a lot of different types now.

Okay, so the one in today's commercial is Pirate Legos. So they're building a pirate ship.

Exactly. Legos. All right. And the next toy that we have is also a proper noun. It's a brand and it's called Play-Doh.

Play-Doh.

Okay, so play like playing with something, playing basketball, but Play-Doh is

It's like clay, right?

It's like clay, but it's made out of flour I think and and you can shape it into anything you want. So when I was little, I used to make Play-Doh animals.

You know, you could you can make a ball and you make another ball and then all of a sudden you have a cow.

Right. So it's a very soft texture type of a of a material that you can mold. You can give it different shapes and that's what we call Play-Doh. Obviously, as you say, it's it's safe for children. I think it's made out of uh out of some flour.

Salt, salt and flour. Yeah.

And I think a lot of children sometimes eat this, so it's it's pretty safe for kids.

Right. So yeah, that's that's Play-Doh. It's a proper noun and I guess everyone just calls it Play-Doh, so this is the toy that we're talking about.

Now moving on, we are talking about uh the X-Men, Wolverine, Jean Grey, Rogue, Professor X. And all of these come in little statues that we call action figures.

Oh right, so what you're talking about here are obviously the X-Men, Marco. Uh and X-Men, there are many different kinds of X-Men. You have, like you said, Wolverine, who's maybe one of the most famous, and Rogue.

But when you collect these little statues, these little dolls, they're called action figures. So figure is like a kind of doll.

Right. So the X-Men is just an example. You have action figures of all sorts of cartoons or movies. Star Wars action figures are very popular.

Right, or G.I. Joe action figures are very popular as well.

That's right. So they're little toy statues that children play with.

All right. Moving on, now we have an adjective, a a way to describe the X-Men.

That's right. So the X-Men, as you know, are not normal people. They have special powers. Some X-Men can fly. Wolverine has uh animal abilities. He can use his long claws. Uh so these are mutants. That means that um they were humans, but something changed in them and it makes them have these special powers.

Okay. So a mutant is a maybe a person that has special powers, like uh like as you say, Wolverine, or and all these types of X-Men. But I guess to taken maybe a look at the verb mutate, that means

To change.

To change, right?

Okay. So to mutate is to change. So we could say, I found a frog that had three legs. So it clearly mutated.

Because normally frogs have like four legs.

Exactly. You see that sometimes with uh chickens that maybe have two heads or something like this.

These are mutants. They they have mutated.

Okay, very good. And now moving on to our dolls, they were talking about these beautiful porcelain dolls.

Okay, so let's talk about porcelain because I think everyone knows what a doll is, but but porcelain is a special kind of doll, right?

Right, it's a material. Mhm. Uh and uh usually you can find this material very commonly in your plates.

All right. So it's not clear. It's not glass.

Um it's colored. It's normally whitish. Um and very, very fine, very pretty.

Mhm. So you call it porcelain. I guess it's a type of ceramic, right?

That's right. Mhm.

Okay. So yeah, you have porcelain dolls. Many people also have very fine China that you call it, like dinner plates.

Or teacups.

Or teacups and those are usually made of porcelain. All right. And uh finally, they were talking about a game that has three games in one and one of the kids said, wow, that's ingenious.

Ingenious. This is a great word. Makes you sound really fluent. So ingenious basically means clever.

Right. It's a really good idea.

Yeah.

It's very a clever good idea, yeah. So if something is ingenious, it's just, wow, it's very creative.

You have gloves and mittens.

All right. So a lot of interesting words there, a lot of specific toys and uh particularly brands that you may or may not know. Um but why don't we go back and listen to the dialogue again and we'll be back with Fluency Builder.

SpongeBob SquarePants will be right back after these brief messages.

The new Collector's Edition Nursery Rhymes Porcelain Dolls. Little Bo Peep comes with her own sheep and staff. Her clothes are made with the finest fabrics and real Italian lace and her face has been hand-painted by our finest artists. Only $199.

I've never had a porcelain doll before.

I doubt mom and dad will get you that for your birthday. She costs a pretty penny, plus, you'd most likely break her.

Okay, so the first phrase here in Fluency Builder is a really important one for anyone who's buying anything because you often see this phrase on packages or you hear it in commercials.

Right. As you saw, as you saw in the Play-Doh commercial, the guy said, "Treasure chest sold separately."

Okay, sold separately. That means the treasure chest is not included. You have to buy it extra.

Mhm. As you say, you usually see it in packaging as well. Maybe you buy a toy car and at the bottom, it will say, "Battery sold separately."

That means there are no batteries in the box. You have to buy batteries extra.

Exactly. So that's what the phrase sold separately means. It indicates that you it's not included in the product that you are buying.

Mhm.

All right. Now moving on again to the uh action figures and the dolls. We saw this very interesting way of describing them. For example, the action figure said, "Special edition collectible X-Men action figures."

Okay, special edition. This is really important and it's very common, I think, with uh with special toys or action figures or even baseball cards. Special edition means that they're produced specially on one occasion, at one time. They're not always produced.

Right. So for example, if you have, like you say, uh baseball cards, or maybe action figures, they're produced normally, but then a limited amount, a special type of the same action figure will be produced. So that's a special edition, or also commonly known as a collector's edition.

All right. So some people collect stamps, you know, stamps for letters that you send. And I know many countries like America, um offer special edition or collector's edition stamps. These are produced once and usually they mark a special occasion like the Olympics in 1996, we had special edition stamps.

Right. So these uh special edition objects are usually not used. They're for collectors, like, like the name says, right? Collector's edition.

Right. So you plan to sell them later on or you collect them for yourself. Uh they're not normal.

Right. They usually go up in value because they're very limited.

That's right.

Okay. So collector's edition, special edition. And now when they were talking about the porcelain dolls, as well, it's pretty expensive, right? Almost $200.

That's a really expensive doll.

And so one of the kids said, you know what? I think uh mom and dad won't buy you that because uh it costs a pretty penny.

A pretty penny. This does not mean that the penny is beautiful.

Right. A penny is a one cent coin in the United States.

That means uh it's very, very low in value. The coin. But a pretty penny is actually the opposite. It means it's very expensive.

Mhm. So why would how would you uh use this in another in another example?

Uh, I've always wanted to buy a Ferrari, but man, Ferraris cost a pretty penny.

Okay. So you have to add the word cost before you say pretty penny, right?

That's right. You can't say it is a pretty penny. You have to say it costs a pretty penny or

It's worth a pretty penny.

Exactly, it's worth a pretty penny.

Okay. Very good. And for our last phrase, I think this one is a very good phrase, uh because it describes a lot of different toys that glow in the dark. Glow in the dark toys.

Okay, so something that glows in the dark, the verb here is to glow, means that uh it can be seen even when it's dark. So, for example, when I turn the lights off and um I can see this yo-yo in my room, that means it's glow in the dark. It has light even in the dark.

Right. So there are a lot of different toys and things like this. Usually glow in the dark toys, they have a green glow, right? They look green in the dark.

I used to have stars. So they were stickers, star stickers, and I put them on my ceiling so that when I was in bed, I could look at them and they were glow in the dark. So when the lights were off, I still had stars.

You can still see them.

Mhm. So yeah, glow in the dark. It's a way of describing an item, an object that you are able to see in the dark.

Mhm.

All right, so that's all we have for you on language. All right, so that's all we have for you on Fluency Builder. Why don't we go back, listen to the dialogue one last time, and we'll be back to talk some more.

SpongeBob SquarePants will be right back after these brief messages.

The new Collector's Edition Nursery Rhymes Porcelain Dolls. Little Bo Peep comes with her own sheep and staff. Her clothes are made with the finest fabrics and real Italian lace and her face has been hand-painted by our finest artists. Only $199.

I've never had a porcelain doll before.

I doubt mom and dad will get you that for your birthday. She costs a pretty penny, plus, you'd most likely break her.

All right, so talking about toys. These are really interesting toys. Are there any specific toys that you had when you were growing up or that you really, really liked?

I had an amazing Brio train set. Okay. This is when I was young and uh a train set is basically like Legos with trains. So you build a track and you push the train around the track. And so I used to have a um a track that was as big as the living room. And my my challenge, my goal was to use every single piece.

And then you would turn on the train and it would go away.

It wasn't electric. So I had to push it myself.

Oh, okay. What was your favorite toy?

What was your favorite toy?

Um actually, when I was growing up, I used to collect little toy cars.

Oh, why?

I used to have a lot of little toy cars and uh I even had a little uh special, I don't know, like a box for them when you can so I could see them. And then as time went on, I I got to collect the scale cars, you know, the ones that are like one to 10, one to four.

Did you build them or did you buy them made?

No, usually I I bought them made. I actually tried the whole um building model cars, model airplanes, but it's so hard.

Very hard. Even adults have a hard time with that.

It's very difficult. So I don't know what type of kid actually does that when they're growing up, but uh but yeah, so many toys out there. So many people collect them, play with them. You have childhood toys that uh you're very fond of. So that's what we want to know. What type of toy did you grow up with? What did you like to play with when you were a kid?

Or if you have kids, what toys do your kids like? Uh because we're not too familiar with toys these days. We'd be curious to hear about those.

That's right. So we want to hear from you. Come to Englishpod.com and we'll see everyone there.

Bye.

The English audio review.

Listen to the meaning, then say the vocabulary word.

A container used to give its shape to something.

Mold

Considered valuable by collectors.

Collectible

A posable plastic figurine of a character.

Action figure

A kind of toy.

Yo-yo

An animated television series.

SpongeBob SquarePants

A toy set of Lego.

Pirates Lego set

A group of similar things that belong together.

Set

A fictional superhero team.

X-Men

A modeling compound used by children.

Play-Doh

A chest filled with valuables.

Treasure chest

Let's try that faster.

A chest filled with valuables.

Treasure chest

A fictional superhero team.

X-Men

Considered valuable by collectors.

Collectible

A container used to give its shape to something.

Mold

A modeling compound used by children.

Play-Doh

A group of similar things that belong together.

Set

An animated television series.

SpongeBob SquarePants

A posable plastic figurine of a character.

Action figure

A kind of toy.

Yo-yo

A toy set of Lego.

Pirates Lego set

Now say the word and hear it in a sentence.

Set

The little girls took out their tea set and had a tea party.

Set

This Lego set comes with five men, a dragon, and two horses.

Set

Own all three sets of exotic toy animals and create your own zoo.

Mold

He pressed the Play-Doh into the mold.

Mold

She poured the cake batter into the cake mold and then placed it in the oven.

Mold

Collectible

I keep this doll on the shelf in its original box because it is a collectible doll.

Collectible

I have a lot of collectible items, such as baseball cards and model airplanes.

Collectible

Every year for my birthday, my uncle gives me a collectible coin.

Action figure

This action figure can shoot a laser from its arm.

Action figure

My sister has several Toy Story action figures.

Action figure

The actress thought it was weird to see her face on her character's action figure.

Yo-yo

This guy in my school does crazy tricks with his yo-yo during recess.

Yo-yo

She looped the string around her finger, threw the yo-yo, grabbed the string several times and performed a trick.

Yo-yo

The only thing I know how to do with a yo-yo is how to throw it.