Playing Chess

Hello everyone! Welcome to EnglishPod! My name is Marco.

Hi guys! My name is Catherine.

And today we’re gonna be looking at another lesson a… as part of our sports series and this time, well, it’s a debate: is it a game or is it a sport?

Ooh, it’s a sport. You have to work your mind.

Yeah, so we’re looking at chess – a very old, very popular sport; very difficult to play as well.

It takes a lot of practice and believe me it’s frustrating at the beginning and I’m still kind of in the beginning, in the medium stages, but, uh… Yeah, it takes a lot of practice and it takes, uh… Well, it takes a lot of time to familiarize yourself with the rules.

Right.

So we’re gonna be learning a little bit more about the pieces and the rules today.

Okay, perfect, so we’re not gonna preview anything. Let’s listen to the dialogue for the first time and then we’ll come back and talk about the sport.

Alright, so, um, the kid is obviously not very interested in learning how to play chess.

Not at all, you know, the arts of these kind of slower games might be replaced very soon by video games.

Yeah, I guess, uh, it doesn’t really appeal to a little nine-year old or ten-year old instead of, you know, playing something like this with this…

Tf-tf-tf-tf.

Yeah, shooting.

Yeah, exactly.

But it’s a very great game; it’s very difficult like we mentioned. So we’re gonna look at the name of the pieces and the rules that are related to these pieces in “language takeaway”. Voice: Language takeaway.

Well, the first one you might have heard it before, because this is a word that is often used in strategy in general, so…

Uhu.

Um, the word pawn.

A pawn.

A pawn usually means, uh, something that is not very important, that you can use to distract an opponent.

Uhu. Alright, so on the chessboard you have eight pawns, so these are the ones that you have the most, but their movement is very limited…

That’s right.

So they can only move two spaces forward on the first move, right?

Right, or one space after that.

One space forward. And only when it’s going to capture another piece, can it move diagonally.

Alright, so you can’t just go diagonally. You have to go forward until you’re going to take another person’s piece to capture it and to go diagonally.

Alright.

But a pawn, this is funny. You can also use this word when you’re talking about other things like “he used her as a pawn in his little game”, you know…

Uh.

So you wanna make an analogy or to make a comparison from life to this game, so you can… you can use the word pawn.

Pawn. Very good. Now, moving on to the other pieces on the chessboard, on the very far ends of the board you have the rook.

Okay, you’ve got two of these…

Right.

And they kind of look like towers from a castle.

Uhu.

And, uh, it’s a very… well, they’re very important pieces and actually…

Very important.

My favorite pieces, because they’re not very important at the beginning of a game, but at the end of the game… boom-boom-boom, you can do a lot of damage, cause they can go anywhere in straight lines.

Right, so they can go forward, backwards and to the sides.

Uhu.

As many spaces as they want.

The whole board if they want.

The whole board.

Yeah, so easy… easy pieces to forget about at the beginning, but they are very important.

And now, uh, next to the rook we have the bishop.

Okay, this is very different from the rook, because the bishop can also go anywhere, but they can only go diagonally.

Right. So only diagonally. They can also move four directions, but diagonally, right?

Exactly, so you can go forward and backward, but it has to be in… a diagonal, slanted line.

Okay. And now, next to the bishop we have the knight.

Ooh, the knight, so he is the one galloping on the horse like those old stories of King Arthur we used to hear.

Hehe.

But, uh, the knight can go in an L-shape and I’ve…

Exactly.

And I’ve never understood this, but…

It’s weird, so it can move two spaces forward and then one to the right or one to the left.

Uhu.

Or it can move two spaces to the right and then one forward, so it’s very strange, but it always has to move three spaces and in a shape of an L.

So I thought maybe he was the drunken piece…

Hehe.

He can go forward a little bit, then tum-tum, he kind of moves to the side.

??? to the side. Hehe. Right, so that’s the knight. It’s actually a very, very important piece as well. And, uh, now the two main pieces maybe of the chessboard: the… the queen and king.

So the king is kind of sad, he can only move one space. But the queen is really the killer, cause she can do anything she wants.

This is, uh, interesting, right? Why did they make it like that? The queen can move a s many spaces as… as she wants in any direction.

Uhu.

While the king can do the same – any direction he wants, but only one space.

Mm, I don’t know.

I think there’s a some similarity between real life… Now, it’s like the queen can do anything she wants and the king can kind of do whatever he wants.

Well, maybe it has to do with he has… the… the fact that he has tostay put and represent the country and she can move around and move behind the scenes and has a little bit more mobility.

Maybe.

Who knows.

So, uh, but in the end the most important piece is the king, right? Once the king is captured, the game is over.

Exactly, so, uh, let’s listen to today’s dialogue one more time and slow it down a bit and find out s… if the boy understood any of these rules. DIALOGUE, SECOND TIME (slow)

Alright, we’re back and, uh, now why don’t we explain a couple of these phrases that we also used to explain the pieces? But let’s look at some of these more in-depth now in “fluency builder”. Voice: Fluency builder.

So, Marco, one of the first phrases that we, uh… that we heard was the word, uh… was the phrase to move diagonally.

Uhu.

Or a diagonal line and so, the pawns can sometimes do this and the bishop can do this, but…

Uhu.

What does that mean “to move diagonally”?

Okay, so basically “a diagonal line” is not a line that goes straight up, right?

Uhu.

Straight up to the sky, for example, or to the side.

Uhu.

Right? It goes at… at an angle, so it’s maybe going at forty five degrees or thirty degrees, so that’s a… that’s a diagonal movement or diagonal line.

Exactly, uhu. The next phrase we have is very strange and this one you might hear from parents or children.

Uhu. He says a little horsy.

A little horsy, so…

Hehe.

Uh, in many languages we have ways of, uh, breaking down words or adding to words to make them sound cuter.

Uhu.

And this is one of those cases, so, uh, for example, little puppy or a little kit… kitty or kitten.

Uhu.

These are words to make… to make things sound cuter, so, uh, in this case horse becomes horsy.

Horsy. So I want to ride the horsy. It’s a cute way of saying I wanna ride the cute horse.

Mommy, mommy, I wanna ride the horsy.

Hehe. Exactly.

So, baby talk often involves having these rhyming words: mommy, horsy, doggy, puppy.

Uhu, a doggy, exactly, very good. So it’s a… it’s a cute way of saying something. And now when we were talking about the… the chess pieces, uh, when another piece takes or gets a piece, you say itcaptures it.

Okay, we say capture, because, well, maybe it’s a bit nicer than killing it.

Yeah.

But capture means taking and keeping for yourself.

Uhu.

So we have a very popular game in America called capture the flag.

Right, where you have to take each other’s flags, right?

You’re stealing, essentially.

You’re stealing.

Yeah.

Um, so, yeah, this is the term that is used in chess “to capture another piece”. Sometimes like, for example, in Spanish we actually say like to “eat the other piece”.

Really?

Yeah, you eat it.

Weird.

That’s weird. Hehe.

Well, we’re a little bit more tame…

Yeah. Hehe.

In those English speaking countries, but, uh, to capture is, uh… is a very important phrase and you’re gonnna hear that in the news as well, because you can capture a person.

You can capture a criminal.

Uhu.

Alright, and the final word and the way that you end a game of chess you say checkmate.

Checkmate.

Checkmate.

Checkmate.

Hehe. So the game’s over, checkmate.

Well, there’s two things that can happen at the end of a game and, well, only one thing can happen at the very end of a game, but you’re gonna hear these two phrases. The one is check and the other ischeckmate.

Uhu.

So check means that I can take your king if I want to – move!

Right, it’s in danger.

It’s in danger. But checkmate is the end all. This means this is the very, very last part of a game where you cannot do anything, I trapped you and I win.

Right, very good. So the game is over when somebody says “checkmate”. Uh, why don’t we listen to this dialogue for the last time? And then we’ll come back and talk a little bit more about this very interesting game.

Pop quiz, Marco.

Alright.

The word check and the word mate, they both have… they both have meanings in English, but put together what does this… what does this… what does this phrase come from? What could it possibly mean?

I have no idea. Why don’t you tell us? Because I seriously don’t know where it… where it comes from.

Okay, well, this is actually very interesting, cause I… I looked it upand I… I had no idea either…

Uhu.

Because we’ve always just said this.

Right.

And it doesn’t really make sense. So I looked it up in the internet and I discovered that the game of chess is actually a very ancient game.

Uhu.

And it did not come from England; it did not come from France…

Hehe.

It actually came from Persia.

Uhu.

And, uh, in Persian there’re some words that kind of became the English word checkmate that mean “the king is captured” or “the king is defeated”.

Uhu.

Right.

Okay, so that’s what it means. It doesn’t mean “the king is dead”.

No.

Uhu.

It doesn’t mean that he’s dead. It means that he’s been taken.

Okay.

And so, over time the, uh, Persian word went into Arabic and Arabic became French and English and then now we say checkmate.

Checkmate.

Uhu.

Okay, interesting. Um, this is a very interesting word and I’m sure everybody that’s listening has a different translation for it in their own language. I know for example, that in Spanish we would sayjaquemate.

Jaquemate.

Right, so, uh, I guess like jaque is something in check, it’s in danger. And then mate – kind of like kill.

Hm.

So maybe it’s… it’s probably not translated properly, because as… as you mentioned it, it should mean defeated or… or captured, not killed. So, uh, listeners, why don’t you let us know how you saycheckmate in your language? Come to our website englishpod.com.

And also tell us if you have questions about the thing we talked about today or if you wanna share some stories of your own chess victories. Uh, please, get in touch with us on our website, uh, otherwise you can e-mail us at englishpod(at)praxislanguage.com, but until then have a great day… Bye everyone!

Bye! ***