#16- 20 Slang Words, Phrasal Verbs, and Idioms for Technology
[00:00:00] On today's episode of the Real Life English with Gabby podcast, I'll be teaching you 20 awesome slang words, phrasal verbs, and idioms about technology. You'll be learning words like tech-savvy, geek out, buggy, boot up, sync up, power down, and more. Let's get to it.
Hey there, welcome to the Real Life English with Gabby podcast. I'm your host, Gabby, your fun and friendly English teacher from the one and only New York City. My goal is to teach you phrasal verbs, idioms, and slang that will help you speak English confidently and understand real American conversations. Are you ready to improve your English skills? Let's jump right in.
Hello. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. Thanks so much for listening. Today's [00:01:00] episode is all about tech. I'm really not a tech person. But there is some tech that I am okay at, usually stuff that has to do with content creation, because I've had to learn tech these past few years. However, if you make me create my own website or fix a computer problem, I am totally and completely helpless. Thankfully, my husband is a tech wizard genius, and he can figure out a lot of my tech issues. So for all of you listening, if you don't know tech, marry someone who knows it. And even more so, we plan on putting my two young sons, who are six years old and two and a half, into some tech classes, coding classes, in the future because of how necessary it's going to be for [00:02:00] their generation to know tech.
In today's episode, I'm teaching you 20 new vocabulary words and expressions about tech. And these words will really help you in your daily life interacting in English about this topic. Tech is a really big part of our culture now, and we need to know how to express our thoughts and opinions about tech. So let me tell you the vocabulary for today's episode. We have tech-savvy, troubleshoot, geek out, gadget, cutting edge, beta, have a bug or buggy, glitch, plugin, plug and play, boot up, run into, freeze, hack, login, log [00:03:00] out, sync up, the cloud, backup, power down, and reboot.
Before we get into today's story, I just want to tell you that I created a study guide just for you to give you all the information that I teach in this episode. This is the perfect way for you to review all of the new vocabulary that you learn in this episode. Every study guide has a full transcript, all the vocabulary words and definitions, new example sentences, and practice activities. If you want the study guide, just go to the episode description and hit the link. That'll bring you right to the page where you can have it sent to your email.
As usual, I created a story that has all of the new vocabulary words in context. [00:04:00] So listen to the story, listen for the words, and then afterward listen to my explanations.
Because this podcast episode is all about technology, it's a little bit higher level than usual. Normally my podcast is recommended for B1, B2, C1, C2 level students, but this episode is definitely challenging because of the technology topic. So it's a very good time to go look at the study guide. You may be a little confused when you hear the story because there's a lot of high-level expressions. Before I start the story, I just wanted to pre-teach you one of the expressions, which is a gaming console. A gaming console. Some of you may know what that is. If any of you are gamers, you like playing [00:05:00] video games, a gaming console is a gaming system like Nintendo, PS4, Xbox, etc. So in the story, when you hear gaming console, that's what they're talking about.
All right, so let's get into today's story. Shall we?
Anton Pierre had loved technology since he could remember. He was incredibly tech-savvy and could fix computers, code websites, and troubleshoot any technology problem that came his way. He was the go-to tech person in his neighborhood to fix any tech problem. He loved following tech news and was always geeking out over the latest cutting-edge gadgets and technology. One day Anton heard about an exciting opportunity to [00:06:00] participate in a beta test for a new gaming console. The company was looking for tech-savvy people like him to provide feedback and help identify any bugs or glitches in the system. They were even paying money to beta testers who found and fixed problems. Excited for this opportunity, Anton quickly signed up and received the beta version of the gaming console. As soon as Anton plugged in the console, he was impressed by its plug-and-play functionality. With just a few simple steps, he was able to boot up the system and start gaming. However, it wasn't long before he ran into a problem that caused the console to freeze unexpectedly. Determined to hack the problem, he decided to log in to the online community group to talk to [00:07:00] other beta testers. They all discovered that the glitch was due to an issue with the console and the cloud syncing up. Anton knew that he could fix the problem, so he decided to back up his game data, power down the system, and reboot it. After he did that, he found a way to apply the necessary updates and permanently fix the problem. He then shared his discovery and hack with the rest of the beta community and even with the console company. They were so impressed with him that they decided to hire him. His dream of working for a gaming company and using his tech skills daily had thankfully come true.
All right.
So I know this story was very techie. [00:08:00] And some of you, like me, who are not techie might be listening to this, like, oh my gosh, there's so much stuff I don't know here.
Let's talk about the definitions to these words.
Firstly, we have a word that does not apply to me: tech-savvy. Okay. So let's break this down. The word savvy means skill. So you might hear someone say he has business savvy or he is savvy with business. This means skill. Knowledge. So tech-savvy means someone who is extremely knowledgeable with technology.
Next, we have the word troubleshoot. So you see the word trouble in this word, so that should help you figure out the meaning of this word. So to troubleshoot is actually a verb, and it means to identify and solve problems, specifically with electronic [00:09:00] equipment or machinery of some kind. People often say, let's try to troubleshoot this problem.
Next up is a really cool phrasal verb, geek out. Geek out is very popular in American culture, and to geek out about something means to become excited or enthusiastic about a specific topic that you love. Often times it's about technology. But actually in English, the word geek does not only refer to technology and science. For example, I'm a history geek because I studied history. My bachelor's degree is in history and my master's degree is in teaching English. Quite the combination. I know. I'm a history geek. So we don't only use geek for science and tech. We can use it for movies, books, TV shows, anything in your field that you love. So again, geek out is when you get excited because of something that happened in a field you love. So if you love superheroes [00:10:00] and you saw a trailer for Deadpool versus Wolverine, you're like, oh my gosh, I'm geeking out right now. I use this expression a lot because I'm a geek, as you've probably heard in previous episodes.
Next we have a gadget. It's very important that you know the word gadget. A gadget is any small electronic or mechanical device or tool. So gadgets could be anything from phones to anything basically that runs on tech, we would call it a gadget.
Next we have cutting-edge technology. Cutting edge or cutting-edge tech is technology that is new and right at the forefront of development. Apple, Tesla, Microsoft, Samsung, a lot of these companies have cutting-edge tech. So it's very innovative. Like they're thinking of new types of tech. We would use this expression for [00:11:00] that.
Next we have beta. I'm pretty sure that in some of your languages, you also use beta. But the beta version, this is just a pre-release. So if there's some kind of software or hardware that is not ready for the public yet, but it's ready for testing or pre-release, we call this the beta version or it's in beta.
Next we have the word bug. Or buggy. The word bug is slang for the word insect. So a spider, a ladybug, a tarantula, a cockroach, a mosquito, these are all bugs. Okay. But technologically, a bug is some kind of flaw, some kind of weakness or defect in a tech program, software, hardware, anything. We say, I don't like Apple's new version because it has a lot of bugs [00:12:00] that means it has a lot of flaws or defects. We can also use it as an adjective and say it's buggy. Next up, we have glitch. So glitch and bug are almost the same. I would say the only difference is that a bug is going to be problematic until someone fixes it. So if a program has a weakness, it's going to keep that weakness until they fix it. A glitch is usually temporary. Like when social media goes down for a few hours, we say there's a glitch. It's typically a temporary problem.
Next, we have the phrasal verb plugin. Plugin is to connect a device to power or another device. I plugged my phone into the charger. I plugged the controller into my Nintendo system. So you're just connecting something to a power source or another device. Plug and play, [00:13:00] plug and play is an expression that means you buy something, you can connect it to power or plug it in and immediately start using it. You don't have to set anything up. So Anton was talking about how the gaming system was plug and play. He didn't have to do anything else to use it.
Next we have the phrasal verb boot up. Boot up. It very simply just means to start up. If I have to boot up my phone, boot up a device, that's what that means. Which is why reboot, when we put re in front of boots or boot up. That means to restart or start again. So R E in English is a prefix. And it means again, so reboot is to restart the computer, restart a device, typically because you want to fix a problem or because maybe you want to update [00:14:00] something. So that's boot up and reboot.
Next we have run into. And in this case, it's run into a problem. This means to encounter a problem unexpectedly, suddenly. I'm typing on my computer and then I run into a glitch. I run into a problem. That's run into.
Next we have freeze, to freeze, to be frozen. This is when something is unresponsive. It does not respond to you. It stops working, stops functioning. This happens all the time. If your computer is glitching or has some bugs, maybe the whole screen is going to freeze. Think about when you're meeting with someone on zoom. And the connection is bad. All of a sudden they freeze, the screen freezes, or they become frozen. It just stops working. There's no response.
[00:15:00] After that, we have hack. And to hack something is to modify something or manipulate something. If my computer is not working or I can't get into a website, I can manipulate the system in a very clever way, in a non-standard way. And this is where the word hacker comes from. A hacker is someone who can manipulate programming in a very non-standard way. This comes from the verb hack. To hack something is to find a shortcut or an easier way to get into something. So here we say to hack or a hack.
Next is login. Log out. Log in is when you try to get into the system by putting in what we call your credentials, your username, your password. Anything like that to enter the system is [00:16:00] login. To exit the system is log out.
Then we have sync up. So anything with sync is when data gets transferred and saved. Right. So syncope is just the phrasal verb form of that. And this is when you make sure that data on different devices saves and it's consistent. It's up to date. So when I do something on my iPhone, it syncs or syncs up with my MacBook and my iPad.
Next, we have the cloud. I have a feeling a lot of you know what the cloud is. But the cloud is just data storage. It's the internet version of saving data. We no longer need hardware like disks or USBs or thumb drives to save our information. It all goes into the cloud.
Next, we have [00:17:00] a phrasal verb back up. Backup is one of those phrasal verbs that has like nine different meanings. So I'm going to tell you the one meaning in context here. Backup is to make a copy of your data for safekeeping. So you want to back up your information on the cloud in order to save it so that you can't lose it.
And lastly, we have power down. Power down is a phrasal verb that is the same as shut down or turn off. But it's specifically for technological devices. So I wouldn't say I'm powering down the oven. I would say I'm powering down the computer or some kind of big machinery.
All right. Well, you just learned new vocabulary for technology. Don't forget that listening to this and just listening to this is not the most effective way to learn new vocabulary. The most effective way is to listen and then practice what you hear, and the perfect way to do that is through the study guide that I created just for you. Remember to access that study guide, just go to the episode description and click on the link. All right. That's it for today.
Well, that's a wrap for today's episode of the Real Life English with Gabby podcast. Be sure to download today's study guide so that you can learn how to use this vocabulary confidently. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe for more weekly adventures in English learning. Also, I'd love to hear from you, so please leave me a review. Thanks so much for tuning in.
