Hey, E, I see you're measuring yourself for a new suit, and I notice you have the descriptive

words to tell you what you want.

Hi. James from engVid.

A lot of times in English we use shapes to describe things.

For most students, they have the classic shapes: Square, circle, and triangle; and I'm going

to today teach you a few other shapes that we use, which are sometimes a combination

of shapes that we can use to accurately describe real-world things.

Okay?

If you don't... if you don't know what I mean, give me a second; we're going to go to the

board and you'll find out.

Okay?

All right, so, E, you're going to get yourself a new suit, and it seems you have a cylindrical

body, and you're talking about your head is oval.

Well, I guess it is kind of egg-shaped, isn't it?

Okay, so let's look at the usual suspects: The square... sorry.

The circle, the square, and the triangle.

We talk about these shapes all the time.

Many students say, you know: "Teacher, it's like a square; it's like a circle", they don't

even use this one.

Sometimes we say this: "Round".

We use "round" to describe something that's circular.

Oops, I just told you one of the words you're going to learn, but you'll see what I mean.

And these are pretty good for describing the world, but the world we live in aren't nice,

complete shapes.

In fact, sometimes they're mixed, so I'm going to try to give you as much as I can.

And you see me looking around for objects I might be able to find in the real world

that you use every day that you can actually start going: "Wow, I can use my English and

it's actually... these strange words have real meaning."

So, let's look at the first one: A "cone".

Sorry, it's a circle with a triangle.

I did it again.

So, when you look here, you put these two together-okay?-and they form this weird kind

of, I don't know... you might say... sometimes you've seen in the old movies when they would

have, like, a megaphone: "Helllloo?"

Okay?

That's a cone-shaped.

When I was born, I had a cone shape.

They pulled me out, and my head was kind of like that.

It's embarrassing, but true.

Anyway, so, a cone.

I don't have anything for a cone, unfortunately.

But I know something all of you enjoy in the summertime.

Just take this, make it upside down.

And when you go for ice cream, you will say: "Can I have a blueberry ice cream, please?

And I want it on a cone", and they will give you a cone.

There, ice cream cone.

Didn't think I could do it, but there you go: Ice cream cone - that's the first one.

And, really, it is a circle with a triangle mixed together.

All right?

So let's look at the next one: "Semi-circle".

Well, if I'm from Jamaica, man, you know what I mean, because it's a patty.

A "patty" is a food in Jamaica, but a "semi-circle" is half a circle.

But I have a better one for you for that.

A lot of times when you have... because I do teach kids when I'm not here, and I want

them to sit down, I ask them to sit down in a semi-circle or a semi-circle, okay?

And it means they sit in a half-a-circle formation, so I can stand here and talk and then they

sit around me.

Right?

Because I don't want them behind me in a circular formation.

Another word for saying "semi-circle" is... to describe this, you would say: "semi-circular".

Semi-circular, that means half a circle.

So, a semi-circle is what it is, but it's a semi-circular shape; half of a circle.

Cool?

All right.

Want to go for the next one?

The next one I have something for you: A "cylinder".

Now, what is a "cylinder"?

Do you remember I told you?

In some cases what we have is things are mixed together in reality because you cannot get

just a square, and a triangular, or a circle shape.

A cylinder is: Take a square and pull it out, and then make it round, and you have a cylinder.

And I'm sure you're saying: "Okay, what are you talking about?

I don't understand."

This is a cylinder.

The marker is long and round.

And if that's not good enough for you, your bottles of water are cylinders.

We cut them off at the ends, but it's a cylinder.

And for those of you, like my French friends, you'll know a cylinder that makes you very

happy.

Yeah?

Yes.

Yeah?

Makes me happy, too.

So, the cylinder part is here.

You might even say this is a bit of a cone here, so we've got the two shapes together;

but really we're looking at the cylinder - it's round.

And that's why I said in many real-world objects we talk about, you would say: "But I wouldn't

say it's a cylinder."

And you're right, because you're going: "James, that's not really a cylinder."

I go: "It's not, but it is... it is cylindrical, like a cylinder."

You'll notice when we have the cylindrical and you go circular, they're descriptive,

so I'm giving you what it is - the shape.

But how would I use this in real life?

I wouldn't say: "This is a cylinder."

Because if someone told me this is a cylinder, I'd say they're wrong.

If they told me it's cylindrical, I'd go: "Yeah, it's round, it's long.

It's a square that's been pulled, and it's got circles; it's cylindrical."

Same with a marker - it's cylindrical.

Cool, right?

And now you sound very intelligent.

"Can you pass me that cylindrical wine bottle, not the square one?

No, no, no.

I don't want boxed wine; I want a bottle of wine.

Thank you."

Okay?

Cool.

So that's "cylindrical".

Now let's look at the other one.

"Egg shape".

You've seen this in life, and I don't have one, but you know what one is.

But what do we call it?

You can't...

well, you can say everything is egg shape, but that's so unsophisticated and I know you've

been one of our viewers for a while, so you want the... the good vocabulary.

Well, we would say this: "Oval".

And I've met many people who actually have oval heads.

Remember I said I had kind of a cone head?

Well, some people have oval heads, so the base is bigger than the top.

Right?

It's actually quite a pretty shape.

There's also "heart-shaped", and I'll give you that one.

And when they say: "Heart-shaped", it's like this, like a heart.

Okay.

Some people have heart-shaped heads.

They don't have two bumps, but you can say: "Heart-shaped" or "Oval-shaped", and this

can be descriptive for somebody's face.

Okay?

All right, so we're there.

Let's move on to the next one: "Sphere".

Well, a "sphere" is a round... round thing, like a full circle that's three-dimensional,

okay?

And you're probably thinking: "Besides the planet Earth, where is James going to get

a sphere for me to see?"

Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dunh.

A sphere.

Three-dimensionals.

There's a circle, and a circle, and a circle goes in three dimensions.

Our planet is "spherical".

Notice I stopped saying the word "sphere" and I changed that word for "sphere" or "spherical"?

Because that's what it is.

To describe something, you say: "It's spherical."

Sorry.

There we go.

Spherical, meaning three-dimensional, round ball.

We could also use a simple word: "Round".

Right?

It's round, which doesn't mean just circle; it means it has to have some kind of volume

around it so you can see height, length, and depth.

Not bad, see?

Helps me... reminds me of my old math days, except now it makes sense to me.

[Laughs]

Okay, so we've got the long, round shape of the cylinder; we've got the round shape of

the sphere; we've got the egg shape or the oval; we've got the circle with the triangle

for the cone or remember my head-okay?-we've got the semi-circle and remember the kids

are sitting around it for half a circle.

So, these are all circular things.

What about the other ones?

Well, let's just step over here-right-and let's talk about things that have more of

a square shape to it.

Well: "Rectangle".

You know what a rectangle is, right?

This isn't just a rectangle; we'd say: "It's rectangular", because once again, the rectangle

is here.

But that doesn't describe this; it looks like a rectangle.

"Rectangular" we can talk about three dimensions.

It's a rectangular shape.

And we've added what we call a dimension or another side to it.

See that?

So, I put rectangle.

Let's me step over here so you can read it, and we're going to put... sorry, I'm having

a hard time writing over on that side.

"Rectangular".

So, it's an object that has two sides that are longer than the other two sides, but in

this case we're being rectangular, it also has other dimensions.

Cool?

All right.

Now we're getting somewhere.

Now: "Cube".

A "cube" is a three-dimensional box, so we see a box and a cube.

I wasn't able to get anything for cube.

I'm sorry.

I have Oxo cubes at home, but that doesn't quite count and you don't know what I'm talking

about.

But a cube is three-dimensional.

But we don't usually say: "It's a cube."

We might say: "It's"...

I know that's terribly scientific: "Something is cube-like".

Terribly, terribly scientific, but I'm sorry, that's how we say it because we're simple

and we'll go: "It's not a cube; it's cube-like" meaning it's like a square or a box that's

three-dimensional.

But sometimes when we say something is... doesn't really have a really good... oh, you

know, I could do this: This is cube-like.

See?

But it's missing a side, but it's still cube-like.

Right?

See?

Cube; cube-like.

But we could also say something is "boxy".

What?

Well, if you ask... if I asked my friend, if I go: "Mr. E, can you get that thing that's...?

That boxy thing over there?" he'd give me this.

And you go: "Why?"

It's because it looks like a box, it's a box, and a box happens to be usually cube-like

or a cube.

Sometimes we talk about cars are boxy or a sweater is boxy, so it has that kind of big

volume to it that's not really defined.

There we go.

And my last one, but not least, you're going to go: "What the flipping heck is that?"

Well, this is when we combine kind of a circle with kind of a square, we make it rectangle,

we elongate it, then we kind of put round edges on it.

And I'm sure you guys are going to go: "Okay, what is that?"

And I'll say: "Cigar shape" or "Hotdog shape", but I've got one better for you.

90% of you guys have this... one of these in your pocket.

I'm going to say it's "oblong".

And you look, here: "oblong" as in long, and "ob", I don't know what "ob" means.

We might say optical, around; I'm making it up, so don't go: "Mr. E and James said oblong

is optical and long.

It's an eyeball."

No.

It's a freaking cell phone.

Cell phones are long and they have rounded edges; they're oblong.

You could say rectangular, but this isn't rectangle; it's rounded.

So, a lot of you guys have cell phones and they're actually oblongs.

So, it's oblong shape.

Yes, you have square ones; and some people do have really fat, square ones; and some

people have similar ones.

I also have something else that's oblong, here.

What did I pick up that was oblong that I put down?

This is another form of oblong.

See?