Lesson Transcript

Hi, everybody. My name is Alisha. In this lesson, I'm going to talk about some computer-related phrases that we use in English.
Let's get started. Okay, I want to begin with an important word. This word can be used as a verb and as a noun. It is to crash, to crash. One point here, when you're using this word in speech, make sure this A sound is clearly pronounced as an A sound, to crash.
If you don't use this properly, this A sound, it could sound like crush. I've heard some learners do that. So make sure this is an A sound, to crash. So, to crash means to stop working completely. Only means one hundred percent. When your computer crashes, it stops.
You cannot use it for usually a short period of time. In an example sentence, my computer crashes every time I open this program. My computer crashes. So this is a regular verb, which means we can add S to the end. My computer crashes every time I open this program. So that S sound is added because my subject is my computer, it. So it crashes every time I open this program. Okay, let's move on to the next one. The next word is quite similar, to freeze, to freeze.
We use this as a verb when we're talking about computers and as well when we're not talking about computers too. But to freeze, to freeze is a little bit different from to crash. To freeze means to stop working, yes, but this is often used for one program. So maybe your computer, like your operating system, Mac or PC for example, maybe that's okay, it's still usable, but one program stops working. So for example, Word stopped working or maybe Photoshop stopped working. We use the verb freeze to talk about that. Or if your computer stops working but it doesn't crash completely, like it doesn't turn off as we'll talk about later, you can use freeze to mean like you can't move your mouse, you can't move the cursor or you just can't type anything. So to freeze can be for a program or for a computer that just it doesn't actually respond to your requests anymore.
In an example sentence, Word froze when I tried to save my essay. So freeze, the past tense is froze, froze. Word froze when I tried to save my essay. So word is a program and that means this program, only this program froze or stopped working when the speaker tried to save their essay.
So freeze becomes froze in past tense. Okay, let's move along to the next one. The next one I included two words here because they're used fairly similarly. They are glitchy, glitchy and buggy, buggy.
If you do programming or are familiar with like computer related problems I suppose, maybe you see bug is here in this word bug. So bug means problem, like a problem in code for example. So glitchy or buggy, these are adjectives that we use to mean having lots of errors. So this is typically used in an application or software, also in games, anything that's like a user experience situation. It could be a website as well. Something is glitchy or something is buggy. It means that that thing has lots of errors. We often use this to talk about problems we can see with our eyes.
So for example, if the picture is like disorganized or if you're playing a video game for example and like the character can walk into walls or get stuck in the floor somewhere, we can say it's glitchy or it's buggy. So there are some kind of strange errors that we see in a piece of media or in like software or applications. For example, this beta application is super glitchy. This beta application is super glitchy. I'm going to talk about this beta word next. So this application is super glitchy, meaning it has lots and lots of errors. Okay, so let's continue on to this next word. So the next word is beta, beta.
So beta and you might see beta version. So beta, a beta thing, a beta program or a beta application as I used in this example sentence is a test version of something. So like I write here, a program or an application usually. So a beta version of something might have lots of glitches if we use it as a noun or it might be super glitchy because it's a test application. So if you have tested an application or a piece of software, maybe you noticed some problems and you can say, oh, this is glitchy or this is buggy.
So a beta something is a test something. Okay, let's move along. The next one I want to look at, let's look at the next two in a pair. The first one is to be infected, to be infected. We use this for people as well when we get sick. Virus is the next one. This is a pronunciation point, I think. This has a good one. This VI sound is pronounced vi, virus, virus. I've sometimes heard students use like a W sound here. It should be a clear v sound, virus, a virus. So to be infected and virus, these are words we use for our health as well.
A virus is a type of sickness, a type of illness. So we actually keep this meaning, but we use it for computers. So to be infected means to have a virus or spamware, I'll talk about this in just a moment, to have a virus or spamware on your computer. So it's installed on your computer or there's something that's wrong with your computer because of a virus or something similar. A virus then is a harmful computer program. So harmful means like dangerous or bad or causes problems. A virus. So a virus, for example, could install strange things on your computer. A virus could steal information from your computer.
A virus could maybe spy on someone, I'm not sure, but a virus is harmful in some way. So when we use these in sentences, we might say something like, my grandma's computer was infected with eight viruses. So here you'll notice when we use this verb infected, it was infected with eight viruses.
We use with to connect it. We also use this same pattern when we're talking about people's health conditions. I was infected with this virus or I was infected with this disease. We use with. So my grandma's computer was infected with eight viruses.
So this is the plural form viruses, viruses. So that means there were eight harmful programs or eight harmful pieces of software or something on my grandma's computer. Okay, let's move along then. The next one I mentioned in the previous explanation, spamware. Spamware is an interesting combination of words. Spamware comes from spam and software together. So spam means like junk, stuff we don't need.
I think everyone has a spam email inbox. So this is like advertisements or like strange emails from mysterious people.
So spam is that stuff we don't need, that unnecessary junk. So spam and software equals spamware. So spamware is software that adds spam to a computer or it's just software that's kind of junk that we don't need. So let's look at a common way that we use spamware in a sentence. This one. My computer had a lot of spamware pre-installed. Pre-installed means before, like before I received it. Pre-installed.
In this case, it means when I received my new computer, there was a lot of spamware installed. That means there was a lot of junk software on my computer already when I got it. So spamware is just junk software that we don't need. It's not necessarily dangerous. So this is a point that's a bit different from a virus. A virus is kind of dangerous or harmful in some way. In most cases, spamware is just junk. It takes space on your computer. So spamware and virus are a little bit different.
Okay, onward to the next one.
The next expression here is to give an error or to give an error message. This just means to display an error message. But we use give because it's like the computer is giving us something. So we use give to talk about these sorts of irritating messages we get from our computer. An example. My printer keeps giving me an error. So here I'm using it in the progressive tense because I'm complaining. My computer keeps giving me an error. I could remove me. My computer, I'm sorry, my printer keeps giving an error.
I can include me here to show I am the one that's receiving this error. But we use give to mean display. Display would not cause a communication problem, but it does sound a little too formal. It sounds kind of polite. It's something we would use maybe in text like in a manual for a computer. But when we're just talking about computer problems, we often use give. It's giving me an error.
Okay, onward. Let's look at the next two. The next two, these are unique to your computer type, to your operating system type. The first one is unique to Mac computers. So the expression, there are a couple of them. They refer to this, I tried to draw it here, this thing. So if you're a Mac user, maybe you see something similar to this with very bright colors. This one is dark, like pink, green, blue.
So this thing often appears when you are waiting for something. And sometimes it goes for a long time in this spinning motion. This is called a couple things depending on who you talk to. Some people call it the spinning pinwheel. So a pinwheel is a children's toy that looks similar to this.
Or some people call it the spinning beach ball. So a beach ball is a popular toy to take to the beach that's brightly colored and looks similar.
So some people call it the spinning pinwheel of death. I'll explain why. Or the spinning beach ball of death. So this death here, death refers to dying. This means your computer's death. So this expression is used to refer to the brightly colored waiting symbol that may appear before a crash.
So remember I talked about crash at the beginning of this lesson. It means when your computer stops working completely.
Here I've used it as a noun. So before your computer crashes, you might see a spinning pinwheel of death or a spinning beach ball of death. Keep in mind, this is not an official phrase. This is just the expression that lots of people have come to use over time. So it sounds a little bit like a joke.
It's not a real like official statement from Mac or anything. But this is a common expression used to explain like a situation on your computer.
So similarly, PCs have this one. So again I've tried to draw it here. It's not great. But we call it on PCs the blue screen of death. The blue screen of death. So if you're working on your computer, suddenly the screen turns blue and there's often a quick like error message or something displayed here in white characters. So this is called the blue screen of death.
Sometimes you may see it called the BSOD. So we use this like as a phrase, like oh no, the blue screen of death. We also use this as a verb. So some example sentences. Let's take a look. First, oh no, I've got the beach ball of death.
So this is one example of how you could use either. Or this one, my computer blue screened. So here we're treating this as a verb. My computer blue screened. So it's not really a verb, but the speaker creates a new verb by adding this ED ending, which shows us its past tense.
Oh no, my computer blue screened, which means it crashed and I got this error. So these are a couple of kind of fun and interesting ways to talk about problems with your computer. The final expression for today is actually a question, a useful question, especially when you're traveling. It is, what's your Wi-Fi password? What's your Wi-Fi password? So what's your Wi-Fi password is great to use when you are traveling and you visit cafes, restaurants, bars, whatever, and you would like to use their Wi-Fi.
You can use it at friends' houses as well. So you want to connect to Wi-Fi. What's your Wi-Fi password? This is the question you use to ask for that. What's your Wi-Fi password? Or can I have your Wi-Fi password as well? Okay, so this is a quick list of some computer related expressions that you can use. I hope that that helps you explain Often these, well actually most of these are used for computer problems, but I hope that that's helpful for you.
Of course, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to let us know in the comment section of this video. Thanks very much for watching this lesson and I will see you again soon. Bye bye.

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