Playing Chess

Marco: Hello everyone, welcome to EnglishPod.
My name is Marco.

Catherine: Hi guys, my name is Catherine.
And today we're going to be looking at another lesson as part of our sports series and this time, well it's a debate.
Is it a game or is it a sport?

Marco: Oh, it's a sport.
You have to work your mind.

Catherine: 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 and intermediate stages.
But yeah, it takes a lot of practice and it takes a lot of time to familiarize yourself with the rules.

Marco: Right.
So we're going to be learning a little bit more about the pieces and the rules today.

Catherine: Okay, perfect.
So we're not going to preview anything.
Let's listen to the dialogue for the first time and then we'll come back and talk about the sport.

Voice: Bobby, come here.
Look what I got you.
What is that?
A chess board.
Daddy's going to teach you how to play.
Cool.
Okay.
Each player gets 16 pieces.
You can be the white ones and I'll play with the black pieces.
Now in the front, you set up the pawns.
Those are the least viable pieces and can only move one space forward.
When you're about to capture another piece, it can move one space diagonally.
What about all these other pieces?
See this one?
It looks like a tower.
It's called the rook.
The one with the tall hat is called the bishop.
See this little horsey?
This is called the knight.
It's a very important piece, so it's best not to let your opponent capture it.
And these two?
They are husband and wife.
That's right.
That's the queen and that's the king.
If the other player captures your king, he will say, checkmate, and the game is over.
Doesn't this sound fun?
Nah, this sounds boring.
I'm going to go play Killer Zombies on my PlayStation.

Marco: All right. So the kid is obviously not very interested in learning how to play chess.

Catherine: Not at all.
You know, the arts of these kind of slower games might be replaced very soon by video games.
It doesn't really appeal to a little nine-year-old or ten-year-old instead of, you know, playing something like this versus, yeah, shooting.

Marco: Yeah, exactly.
But it's a very great game.
It's very difficult, like we mentioned.
So we're going to look at the name of the pieces and the rules that are related to these pieces in Language Takeaway.

Voice: Language takeaway.

Marco: Well, the first one you might have heard before because this is a word that is often used in strategy in general.
So the word pawn.

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

Marco: All right.
So on the chessboard, you have eight pawns.
So these are the ones that you have the most, but their movement is very limited.
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.

Catherine: All right.
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.

Marco: All right.
But a pawn 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.
So you want to make an analogy.
You want to make a comparison from life to these games.
You can use the word pawn.

Catherine: Pawn.
Very good.
So let's go to the other pieces on the chessboard.
On the very far ends of the board, you have the rook.

Marco: Okay.
You've got two of these and they kind of look like towers from a castle.
And it's a very, well, they're very important pieces and actually my favorite pieces because they're not very important at the beginning of a game, but at the end of a game, boom, boom, boom, you can do a lot of damage because they can go anywhere in straight lines.

Catherine: Right.
So they can go forward, backwards, and to the sides, as many spaces as they want.

Marco: The whole board.

Catherine: The whole board.
Yeah.
So easy, easy pieces to forget about at the beginning, but they're very important.
And now next to the rook, we have the bishop.

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

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

Marco: Exactly.
So you can go forward and backward, but it has to be in a diagonal slanted line.

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

Marco: Ooh, the knight.
So he's the one galloping on the horse, like those old stories of King Arthur we used to hear.
But the knight can go in an L shape and I've never understood this, but.

Catherine: It's weird.

Marco: So it can move two spaces forward and then one to the right or one to the left, 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 the shape of an L.
So I thought maybe he was the drunken piece.
He can go forward a little bit, then he kind of moves to the side.

Catherine: Right.
So that's the knight.
It's actually a very, very important piece as well.
And now the two main pieces maybe of the chessboard, the queen and king.

Marco: So the king is kind of sad.
He can only move one space, but the queen is really the killer because she can do anything she wants.

Catherine: This is interesting, right?
Why do they make it like that?
The queen can move as many spaces as she wants in any direction, while the king can do the same in any direction he wants, but only one space.

Marco: I think there's 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.

Catherine: Well maybe it has to do with the fact that he has to stay 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?

Marco: Yeah.
But in the end, the most important piece is the king, right?
Once the king is captured, the game is over.

Catherine: Exactly.
So let's listen to today's dialogue one more time and slow it down a bit and find out if the boy understood any of these rules.

Voice: Bobby, come here.
Look what I got you.
What is that?
A chessboard.
Daddy's going to teach you how to play.
Cool.
Okay.
Each player gets 16 pieces.
You can be the white ones and I'll play with the black pieces.
Now in the front, you set up the pawns.
Those are the least viable pieces and can only move one space forward.
When you're about to capture another piece, it can move one space diagonally.
What about all these other pieces?
See this one that looks like a tower? It's called the rook.
The one with the tall hat is called the bishop.
See this little horsey? This is called the knight.
It's a very important piece, so it's best not to let your opponent capture it.
And these two? They are husband and wife.
That's right. That's the queen, and that's the king.
If the other player captures your king, he will say checkmate, and the game is over.
Doesn't this sound fun?
Nah, this sounds boring. I'm going to go play Killer Zombies on my PlayStation.

Marco: All right, we're back.
And now why don't we explain a couple of these phrases that we also use to explain the pieces.
But let's look at some of these more in depth now in Fluency Builder.

Catherine: So, Marco, one of the first phrases that we heard was the phrase to move diagonally or a diagonal line.
So, the pawns can sometimes do this and the bishop can do this, but what does it mean to move diagonally?

Marco: Okay, so basically a diagonal line is not a line that goes straight up, right?
Straight up to the sky, for example, or to the side, right?
It goes at an angle, so it's maybe going at 45 degrees or 30 degrees, so that's a diagonal movement or a diagonal line.

Catherine: The next phrase we have is very strange, and this one you might hear from parents or children.
It says a little horsey.

Marco: Little horsey.
So, in many languages we have ways of breaking down words or adding to words to make them sound cuter, and this is one of those cases.
So, for example, little puppy or little kitty or kitten, these are words to make things sound cuter.
So, in this case, horse becomes horsey.

Catherine: Horsey.
So, I want to ride the horsey.
It's a cute way of saying I want to ride the cute horse.
Mommy, mommy, I want to ride the horsey.
Exactly.
So, baby talk often involves having these rhyming words.
Mommy, horsey, doggy, puppy.
A doggy, exactly. Very good.
So, it's a cute way of saying something.

Catherine: And now, when we were talking about the chess pieces, when another piece takes or gets a piece, you say it captures it.

Marco: Okay.
We say capture because, well, maybe it's a bit nicer than killing it, but capture means taking and keeping for yourself.
So, we have a very popular game in America called capture the flag.
Right.
It's where you have to take each other's flag, right?
You're stealing, essentially.
You're stealing.
So, yeah, this is the term that is used in chess to capture another piece.

Catherine: Sometimes, like, for example, in Spanish, we actually say, like, to eat the other piece.
Really?
Yeah, you eat it.
Weird.
That's weird.

Marco: Well, we're a little bit more tame in those English-speaking countries, but to capture is a very important phrase, and you're going to hear that in the news as well because you can capture a person.
You can capture a criminal.

Catherine: All right, and the final word and the way that you end a game of chess, you say checkmate.

Marco: Checkmate.
Checkmate.
Checkmate.
So, the game's over. Checkmate.

Catherine: 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 going to hear these two phrases.
One is check, and the other is checkmate.
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.
It means this is the very, very last part of a game where you cannot do anything.
I've trapped you, and I win.

Marco: Right.
Very good.
So, the game is over when somebody says checkmate.
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.

Voice: Bobby, come here. Look what I got you.
What is that?
A chessboard.
Daddy's going to teach you how to play.
Cool.
Okay. Each player gets 16 pieces.
You can be the white ones, and I'll play with the black pieces.
Now, in the front, you set up the pawns.
Those are the least viable pieces and can only move one space forward.
When you're about to capture another piece, it can move one space diagonally.
What about all these other pieces?
See this one that looks like a tower? It's called the rook.
The one with the tall hat is called the bishop.
See this little horsey? This is called the knight.
It's a very important piece, so it's best not to let your opponent capture it.
And these two? They are husband and wife.
That's right. That's the queen, and that's the king.
If the other player captures your king, he will say checkmate, and the game is over.
Doesn't this sound fun?
Nah, this sounds boring. I'm going to go play Killer Zombies on my PlayStation.

Marco: Pop quiz, Marco.
All right.
The word check and the word mate, they both have meanings in English, but put together, where does this phrase come from? What could it possibly mean?

Catherine: I have no idea. Why don't you tell us? Because I seriously don't know where it comes from.

Marco: Okay, well, this is actually very interesting, because I looked it up, and I had no idea either, because we've always just said this, and it doesn't really make sense.
So I looked it up on the Internet, and I discovered that the game of chess is actually a very ancient game.
And it did not come from England, it did not come from France, it actually came from Persia.
And in Persian, there are some words that kind of became the English words checkmate that mean the king is captured or the king is defeated.

Catherine: Okay, so that's what it means. It doesn't mean the king is dead.

Marco: No, it doesn't mean that he's dead, it means that he's been taken.
And so over time, the Persian word went into Arabic, and Arabic became French and English, and then now we say checkmate.

Catherine: Checkmate, okay, interesting.
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 say jaque mate.

Marco: Jaque mate.
Right, so I guess like jaque is something's in check, it's in danger, and then mate, kind of like kill.
So maybe it's probably not translated properly, because as you mentioned, it should mean defeated or captured, not killed.

Catherine: So listeners, why don't you let us know how you say checkmate in your language?
Come to our website, englishpod.com.

Marco: And also tell us if you have questions about the things we talked about today, or if you want to share some stories of your own chess victories.
Please get in touch with us on our website, otherwise you can email us at englishpod at praxislanguage.com.
But until then, have a great day. Bye, everyone.