Hi guys. Welcome back to English with Max. In this video we're going to look at some
board game vocabulary. As you can see, I'm currently playing a game of Monopoly with Frank and George.
Before we get started though, I just want to quickly remind you that you can also follow me
on social media, and if you'd like to sign up for my free advanced English email lessons, you'll find
the link in the description. Okay, let's get started. First we're going to look at some vocabulary
that's commonly used in board games generally, so not just in Monopoly. Here we have the board.
This is a board. That's why these types of games are called board games. Next we have dice.
This is an irregular noun. The singular is "die" (one die) and the plural is "dice" (two dice). We don't say "two
dies". Lots of native speakers actually say "dice" for both the plural and singular, so they say "one dice,
two dice". When I was younger I was taught that that was incorrect, so I say "die" and "dice",
but languages evolve, so lots of dictionaries now say that both ways are acceptable. Now if you do
this... that's rolling the dice. To roll the dice. If there's just one, you could say "to roll a die". Okay,
now it is Frank's turn. Um... if it's the time for you to roll the dice or to do something in a game,
then we say it's that person's turn. In this game here it is now Frank's turn. There you go Frank.
Do you want me to roll the dice for you?
He's so lazy.
There we go. You got a four. One, two, three, four. Would you like to buy that? No?
Okay. But look, Frank, you got a double. If the numbers are the same, that's called a double. You
can get a double or roll a double. If you roll a double in Monopoly, you get another turn. You got
a seven. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. And I think you own that one already, don't you? Yeah. Okay,
now it is George's turn. We're going in a clockwise direction. Clockwise means the same way that the
hands on a clock move. In other words, the person to your left will go after you. The opposite to
clockwise is anticlockwise, but in most games the direction is clockwise. George, it is now your turn.
Do you want me to roll for you as well?
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. And you have landed on a street that
nobody owns. Would you like to buy it? No? You're going to save your money? Okay. It is now my turn.
Ten. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. And I have passed Go, so I get money from the
bank. Now in Monopoly, this square here is called Go. And that's where everybody starts. If you pass Go,
you also get money from the bank. Now you might have noticed that it doesn't actually say Go
here. That's because this is a very old German version of Monopoly that a friend gave to me
years ago, um yeah... but it doesn't really matter for this video. Even if I did have
an English version, I honestly wouldn't go through all the street names. If you want
to learn the street names in Monopoly in English, well... um... you can Google that.
Another thing that can happen to you in Monopoly is landing here and going to
jail. So if you land on this square here, you go directly to jail. Now these things here that you
use to move around the board are called tokens. One token, two tokens. That's the proper name for them,
but lots of people also just say "piece". One piece, two pieces. You probably know
the names of most of them. Most of them are quite easy... This is a dog. This is a ship.
This is a hat.
This is an iron. Be careful of the pronunciation. It's not "ai-ron", remember. It's
"iron" in British English and "iron" in American English. This is a boot.
This is the car.
And here are a couple of words that you might not know. This is a... this is a thimble. Thimble.
This is something that is used in sewing. And here we have a wheelbarrow. That's a wheelbarrow.
And you probably know these as well, but just in case... this is a house and this is a hotel.
And now we're going to look at some chess vocabulary. We'll start with this. This is the board,
or more specifically, the chessboard. There are 64 squares on a chessboard. 32
white ones and 32 black ones. So the two... um... sides in chess are black and white. They don't have to
literally be black and white, but the lighter colour is just called white and the darker
colour is called black. Okay, now let's look at the pieces. This here is a pawn. A pawn.
Each side has eight pawns. Next we have a rook. This is a rook. Some people call them castles, but
the more proper name is "rook". Next we have a knight. Knight. And this is a bishop. Bishop.
Here we have the queen.
Queen. And this is the king. King. Now when the king is under attack, so for example...
I mean, this would never happen in a game of chess - like this... But if the king is here and a bishop
is attacking it, that's called check. The king is now in check. Now if the king is in a position
where it can't get out of being attacked, that's called checkmate. Checkmate. And that's the end of
the game. Now in chess (you probably know this) white always moves first. You could say: white starts,
white goes first, or white moves first. And then after white moves, it is black's turn.
In chess you can also say that it's the other person's move. So I could say: Now it's black's move.
I've just started a game of Scrabble with Frank and George. I went first
and I put "turn" and then it was Frank's turn and he put "fart".
Well done, Frank. Now I'm not going to go into all of the rules of Scrabble, but in case you don't
know the game, you basically need to create words with tiles that you get. Each tile has a letter
on it. Um... sometimes you will get a tile that has nothing on it and that's called a blank
tile. Let's now look at the board a little more closely. Here we have double letter score.
That means that if, for example, there is a T there, which is worth one point,
you would get two points... because double one is two. Two times one is two. Gosh, I'm good at math.
Um... here we have triple letter score. So that means that you multiply the number by three. For example,
if there's an F here, which is worth four, you would get 12. But obviously you can't just have a single
tile here. That would be attached to a word. We also have double word score and that means that you
add up the numbers of all the tiles in the word and then double it (or multiply it by two). And
there is also triple word score, which everybody tries to get. Can you see that? Triple word score.
And that's the same as double word score, but you multiply the total by three.
And now we're going to look at backgammon. Backgammon. Be careful of the pronunciation.
We don't say back-gammon. The "k" flows into the "g". So we say "backgammon".
Backgammon. Now like in chess, the dark colour is called black and the light colour is called white.
These are just called dice - they're regular dice. This is called a doubling cube.
A doubling cube. This part here is called the bar. And these triangular bits here are called points.
Points. Now these things here have several different names. Some people call them checkers,
for example. You can also call them stones. I just call them pieces, to be honest.
Pieces.
And finally we have dominoes. These things here are called dominoes.
There are lots of different games you can play with these, though. One piece... oh can I get it out?
One piece is called a domino. So... one domino, two dominoes. You can also call these tiles. So this
is a tile or a domino tile. The word "tile" is quite general. It's used in lots of different contexts,
but if you know that the person is talking about dominoes, then yeah... a tile is one of these.
Thanks very much for watching, everybody. I hope you found this
helpful. If not, then hopefully it was a bit of fun. If you liked the video, don't forget to
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Monty's making noise.
... a house... oops.