Pronunciation ChallengeOld People Vs. Technology

day 631

Hey, VoiceTube listeners! How’s it going today? This’s your host Steve. I’m coming up [[to at you]] with a new pronunciation challenge. Today, we’re gonna talking a little bit about old people and technology. Usually, these two words don’t really go together very well, do they?

Speaking of my grand parents, my grandmother, she can’t really use cellphone, and l don’t think she’s owned a computer about fifteen years and even though she has the cellphone, it’s a really [[?old foot]] phone, she doesn’t really hard to use it. Now, my parents, they’re in their fifties now, they’re getting a little bit bad on technology. But when I was a kid, when I was a teenager, l always have to fix stuff for them, you know, why wasn’t my TV turn on? Steve, can you come fix it? Maybe that was something easy as pluging in, you know, the AC into the wall, or putting an AC in my cable into the TV. So they’re getting better and now my dad actually has an iPhone, l think it’s nine, so [[he has a nicer phone than l do]]. l’m still kind of in the old Stone Age [[when it comes to ]] phones.

And I notice in Taiwan, the old people seen much better with technology. I see old people on the MRT all the time with cellphones, sometimes they’re playing games, texting people [[online]], or using Facebook. And l’m just really impressive like, Wow, the old people in Taiwan are really good at technology while American old people so often so bad with it. So wondering if maybe Taiwanese old people are better than the old people in America.

Alright, guys, today’s sentence says: l’ll just put your credit card information into our system here, oh here we are, here we are.
Okay, let’s move on to the pronunciation. This’s actual a dialogue, and it’s actually somebody’s speaking. So it sounds kind of polite, you know, if you’re going to a store like 7-11, or Muji, or something, the cashiers and people who work here tend to be polite to you. So she says in the video, l’ll just put your credit card information into our system here. The “just” is emphasized. The “just” is a little bit louder, and we’d like to emphasize that swiping this credit card is going to be really easy and l want to help you so let me just swipe the credit card [[?here]], no problem. [[That’s not really a]] problem at all. So “just”emphasizes the sentence to make it more polite and show us what the action that the speaker is going to take is something that’s going to be very simple to her, it’s no problem. Now, you might also notice the end of the sentence is a little bit strange. They say the same thing two times, oh, here we are, here we are. So usually, if we say the same thing twice in English, it means that we’re either trying to think and slow down the speech, or maybe we’re a little bit confused about something. So maybe I might say something like “how do you get there? how do you get there?” I’m trying to think of how l get to this place. Maybe l’m going to Taipei 101, uh, how do l get there? how do l get there? And you can see l’m slowing down, my talking is a little bit quiet, and l’m just trying to buy myself time just like l can hopefully remember how to get Taipei 101. And this case is trying to remember anything else.

+ buy time 拖延時間 = To stall or delay in order to gain more time to do something.

Alright, we’ll move on to the vocabulary, guys.

1. information [ɪnfɚˋmeʃən ] (n.)情報；資料；消息
* My teacher [[taught]] me the wrong information, Taiwan is not in Europe.

So you can see information is used as a noun. I got information from the teacher, l was [[taught]] information from the teacher. So [[?here is verb that ? ]] teach information, or give information. And of cause Taiwan is not in Europe, it’s in Asia. So if your teacher really told you this, [[this]] should be very incorrect information.

2. just [ʤʌst] (adv.)此時；很快；剛才
This seems like a easy word. And some people might think, why are we doing such a easy word in the pronunciation challenge? I want to do some adverbs and prepositions that some people [[might be confused]] on, and just is a really good example. Just is a hard word to use because it has so many different meanings. Usually, it is used with time and today l’m gonna teach you how to use it mostly with time or to make something seem easier. So listen to the example sentence.
* I don’t want to go to the night market, l just ate dinner 10 minutes ago.

So l just ate dinner, l could just say, l ate dinner 10 minutes ago but I wanna add just in there to emphasize that just 10 minutes ago, only 10 minutes ago I ate dinner. So I definitely don’t wanna eat more food. The “just” just makes the verb stronger as well as the meaning of the sentence. So just is a really common word but in the sentence one we use it to emphasize time. But listen to the next sentence, it has a different meaning.
* Let me just turn the light on.

Maybe your girlfriend or boyfriend comes home with you, and your apartment is really dark, and they’re scared like “ l don’t know, it’s really dark in here! it’s scary!”. So maybe you can say, let me just turn on the light. So it’s gonna talk adverb but in this case, it’s not talking about time, it’s talking about the fact of the action, and turn on the light is something like easy to do, there’s no problem, l can do that l can help you, no problem at all. Let me just turn on the light, no more ghosts, you see?
These are two meanings of just, there’re actually a lot more, and this’s kind of [[a ]] complex word despite [[how short]] it is. So please leave some examples below, leave some questions as well, and I will try to [[get to]] as many as l can. Just [[ because it looks ]] like an easy word, [[doesn’t mean it is ]] just is a good example. This’s a very good word to master.

3. system [sɪstəm ] (n.)(協同工作的) 系統
There’re many ways that we can use system. It could be an operating system for a computer or smartphone, like Apple’s iPhone uses iOS, whereas google has Android. It could also be your government system, like democracy or communism. It could be a study system, maybe you like to watch VoiceTube, l like to use flash cards, so different study systems. This word can be used for a lot of different things. The definition is an assemblage([əˋsɛmblɪdʒ]n.集合) or combination of things or parts forming a complex or unitary([ˋjunə͵tɛrɪ]單一的) whole. So it’s kind of confusing, definition [[if you’re just reading that]] but listen to the sentence.
* l use a PC because l don’t like the iOS operating system that Apple uses.

So as you can see, it’s an operating system, it’s putting something altogether. And you have all of your app, you have your homepage, you have the Internet, all of these have to be compiled into one tiny, little phone. So Apple uses the iOS operating system while PC uses the Windows system.

Alright, thanks for listening to today’s episode, everyone. I know that there was a lot of information, and l’m no doubt [[that your gonna learn it]]. How [[are]] your grandparents [[with]] technology? Today’s smartphones and computers, can they use them? Now, it’s kind of interesting to me because l was raised in the ninety as a kid, and technology is growing so much even since then. So then when I’m old and when you’re old, the world is going to be people that can use technology, like computers or cellphones or video games. But when we’re old, l don’t even know if computers smartphones are still [[be]] around, maybe. But maybe we’re also something like our brains being [[altered]]. So we will be more like computers [[?on our own]] body, that’s a little bit creepy, l know. Or we have some [[?Android]] robots that do everything for us. So it’s really hard to imagine how the world can change. And l hope when l’m old, l can still use technology.
Alright, thanks for listening, guys. Leave your questions and comments below. I’ll catch you on the next episode.

Technology does bring convenience, but it also makes people forget the essence of life.

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