hey guys it's ronnie today we're going
to practice some listening i'm going to
tell you a story
i'm going to speak slow enough
so that you can understand my wonderful
story um
and
make this kind of like a listening test
for you to
you know kind of practice your english
listening because
people speak really quickly and it's
hard to understand when people speak in
slang and they use different words
or they speak really quickly and they
mush words together and you're like
what is this person talking about so
here it goes um i think it was yesterday
or the day before no it was definitely
yesterday
i was
i was looking
at tactic
and uh this guy was just telling a story
about a simple guy
and he was on the way on his way to the
store because he wanted to buy
a cat kit because he's really hungry
right because he had the munchies
so he went into the store
and he got his cat kit but when he was
there he also
saw those mints what are those mints
called they're called tactics so he's
like oh
it's been a long time since i've had a
tactic i'm gonna get some of those
so
you know he paid for his his chocolate
bar and his his mints and uh he started
to go back home
but on the way home he was walking down
the street and he flipped over
a pong ping ball that someone i don't
know if someone was playing table tennis
and the ball just landed on the road he
flipped over it
and it's summertime and he actually
broke his flat flip he was so mad
but then he realized oh
bollocks i've forgotten something at the
store i need more rolling papers so
he goes back to the store
and he asked for his favorite rolling
papers which were
players but they didn't have them and
the guy said oh hey you know what we
don't have players but we definitely
have the zagzigs if you want those and
he's like oh well okay i'll try
something new today so
he's got his chocolate bar he's got his
rolling papers he's got everything he's
got a broken flip-flop and he was kind
of
you know looking sad and the guy behind
the cash the cashier said
ah dude are you okay what's up man you
look kind of stressed out or whatever
and he said
you know i'm kind of pissed because i
i broke my sandal here and the guy's
like ah do you know what'll cheer you up
i just got an old-school snoop dogg hop
hip album in
and the guy put it on and it was like
they had such a good time hanging out in
the variety store listening to music it
was such a cool story
because these are the wonderful stories
that you have on these apps they're just
so exhilaratingly wonderful
they're not actually that i yeah
i was just lying there but did you
understand my story
there's probably some words that you
were kind of like what
are you even talking about ronnie
what is tactic
well
here's something so cool
that even native speakers
don't even know the rules too so i'm
going to let you in some inside
knowledge of ye old english language
you know the app is called
tick-tock
okay but did you know
they spelt it differently but it's
actually the sound
of a clock
so in english when a clock makes the
ticking noises
an old clock right like
when we imitate the sound of the clock
it says tick tock and that's how the
company got the name
for the app
the spelling's different they use a
capital here kappa there
but when i said to you tactic
oh it was really confusing
like ronnie has an app called talk tick
tick tock
um
we have this zigzag zigzagger rolling
papers they're also zigzag is also a
pattern
hello do you work a pattern's hello
a pattern's like this it's like a
lightning bolt my mark is dead
that's okay we don't need that
so a zigzag is a pattern
and this is what happens in english
if i said to you zagzig
or if i said
dong ding
maybe it wouldn't seem that weird to you
but other people go
oh there's something not quite right
about that
and there's a rule to it which i really
don't like rules but i'll teach you what
it is whoa
hold on there
the rule is
what we put first the word we put first
is an i so
okay i'll explain what these words mean
later and then we have an a
so it's always going to be
the i
word and then the a word or if you don't
have an a it'll be an o so we would
never reverse the order of this we would
never say pong ping
because we have an i here and an o there
we always have to put the word with an i
first
and then the word with an
o or an a after it
and there's one crazy example that uses
all of them
and it's a game
it's called tick
tack
toe
but we're going to play the game later
when i get a new marker that'll be fun
and in the uk they call it knots and
crosses
that's that's irrelevant uk hello so
a ding dong does anybody know what a
ding dong is i want you to play with my
ding-a-ling ding-dong ding-dong is the
sound
that a bell makes so remember i told you
that tick-tock was the sound of a clock
a zigzag's a pattern and a rolling paper
brand but ding-dong is the sound of
bells
not balls bells they go
dong
and the clock goes tick tock
do you have those little candies those
little mints that i talked about in the
story those are actually called tic tacs
not
tactic
so you might be thinking ronnie why are
you even teaching us this this is just
nonsensical
you're right it is a bit of
wishy-washy it's a little bit crazy but
there's three reasons why i'm telling
you this one if you mess it up like i
did in the story and say talk tick
instead of tick tock people are
gonna not understand you
um it'll let people know right away that
you're not a native speaker which is
fine
but it's a dead giveaway um
the other one is if you are creating
something in english if you're a content
creator like on oh i don't know youtube
or something um
or you're creating characters for a book
or just anything creative you should
follow the rule because
that's how the rhythm goes in english
but what if you didn't follow the rule
hey try it make a character called pong
ping and see how that goes over but it
seems to be like the rhythm of english
um
tic tac is a candy kitkat
chocolate bar famous all over the world
you get four little pieces of chocolate
in that one
ping pong oh this is fun ping pong is a
game called table tennis
and when i was researching it it's also
called
whiff
again these are words that sound like
what you're doing
that could get tricky but look it even
follows the same rule or the same
pattern this one has an i
and then this one's followed by an a so
it's whiff-weft not waf-whiff they'd be
like playing it backwards you're like oh
i'm whiff-laughing you and
it's just not a good scene
do you like hip-hop music
yeah good
um if you are familiar with some
old-school hip-hop snoop dogg
it doesn't work because he's an o and an
o here's a song ideally dally i went to
the alley i found a smoker named sally
i'm paraphrasing there but dilly dally
to dilly dally around
it's so i don't know my grandmother
would say that to me um it means like
you're kind of like you're wasting time
you don't really have a purpose you're
just oh let's go over here oh what's
over here you're having a faff you're
dilly dallying you're you're not walking
purposefully and also i'd like to put a
shout out to the canadian band from
newmarket dilly dally guys what's going
on good name are you playing are you
just dilly dallying around on stage
there
so
in the hip hop
genre even snoop dogg says dilly dally
so it must be cool um
hippity hoppity
yeah i listen to hippity hoppity music
which maybe dilly dally does but hippity
hoppy is like oh you see this guy oh
it's a bunny rabbit um when we're
children bunny rabbits
they they listen to hip hop
but when they jump they go hippity
hoppity hippity hoppity not hoppity
hippity so yeah this bunny rabbit he's
he's gonna hippity hoppy over here
because he's a cool bunny
now as i was telling you
tic-tac-toe do you know how to play
tic-tac-toe look at this there's an i
an a and then o
so this is a prime example of this
rule and you know how much i hate rules
so tic-tac-toe is basically
you put either an x
or an o
and you try and get them in a line
now remember at the beginning of the
lesson i said that they're called knots
and crosses
that sounds a little bit
better to me because
no it would have to be a cross and then
a not but not in british english means
zero but we call them
oh
we call them x's and o's in english x
and o's or
tic-tac-toe
choose which one you like better knots
and crosses
x's nose or tic-tac-toes so we used to
play this when we were a kid and
basically you have to get three x's in a
row or three o's in a row and they can
be vertical which is up and down they
can be horizontal which is round or they
can be diagonal
yeah i won
tic-tac-toe
um
i like this dingle dangle i even like
the word of it i was trying to figure
out what song it had dingle dangle in it
and i came up with nothing
um but the best example i can give you
of how to use dingle dangle is think of
um your grandfather if you have one and
think of his balls they're probably
drooping almost down to his knees and
when he walks they they sway from side
to side so
if something dingle dangles it means it
moves from side to side
um with little
little effort so
mostly just balls dingle dangle in the
wind
so that's how you remember that now
close to that would be teeny weeny
teeny weeny means very small
so some grandfathers have
big danglers big dingle dangles but
a little teeny weeny little guy there on
his
yeah this
boot
is also teeny weeny teeny weeny means
very small so next time you're hanging
out with your grandpa i also be like hey
can i see your dingle danglers and
he'll
totally show them to you it'd be great
family fun time um wishy-washy
wishy-washy means something that's not
really serious or it's a little bit
weird or straight me yes i'm kind of
wishy-washy uh
it doesn't mean that you're not
smart it just
just means you're a little strange or
unorganized though this is kind of this
lesson is kind of wishy-washy
uh
i don't know what's happening here but
there's another reason reason number
three
why i really want you to understand the
a
the i the a and the o
method
because when you're learning verbs
everyone hates irregular verbs
so i'm going to teach you how to use
this method to remember those crazy
irregular verbs
okay so
this whole tick tock quickie
gibberish thing it actually has a
purpose when you're learning the
irregular verbs mind there aren't a lot
of them but
anything to help you
we have the a
in the second row so like i said all of
these verbs begin with the eye begin
drink and swim then when we put them
into the simple past
all the changes is the verb changes from
an i to an a so begin
begin
drink drink
swim swam so in the simple past we're
following
this cool little pattern that i showed
you
um
they don't rhyme and have fun things
like
wickety-wacky and stuff like that but
that's okay um
then
instead of an o we actually have a u so
we're not following the
i
a
o we're following the i
a u but that's cool because it helps us
remember begun drunk and swam so we have
begin
began begun
the past participle
drink
drank drunk
swim swam
swam and swam's always weird for me it's
like
i have swam in the river it always
sounds strange but
that's english for you so when we use
the past participle
we have to clear our throat so we use
the past participle we're going to use
it in anything that's perfect so present
perfect or past perfect also in passive
voice you're gonna have to know your
past participles there so remember this
this this cool thing
i
a
and o or you
ah hippity hoppity i'm outta here guys i
hope you enjoyed everything even if you
didn't doesn't matter