The Language of Transfers - 16/17 ep.4

Welcome

Rich: Hello my name’s Rich and welcome to this week’s Premier Skills English podcast.

Jack: Hi everyone. I’m Jack and every week we talk about football and help you with your English.

Rich: We’re going to be talking about the latest action in the Premier League and the main language focus is on words we use to talk about football transfers.

Jack: Of course, the transfer window closes on Wednesday night at eleven ‘o'clock in the UK or closed on Wednesday night if you are listening after Wednesday.

Rich: We will talk more about transfers later. What else do we have for you in this week’s podcast?

Jack: We have some pronunciation practice for you, news of a bad week for our Premier Skills Fantasy Football team and a new football phrase for you.

Rich: Let’s start by talking about what’s been happening on the website this week.

Social

Jack: We’ve got a new player article on the website. It’s all about the Manchester Utd striker, Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Rich: He’s had a very interesting career and has played for some of the world’s biggest football clubs.

Jack: And he’s one of the most famous people in Sweden - where he’s from. He’s even had his picture on postage stamps in Sweden!

Rich: He must be really famous in Sweden. In the UK, it’s usually the Queen on stamps and she was the only living person allowed on stamps until recently. But, in recent years,  they’ve started to put famous people like the Beatles and Olympic medal winners on stamps, too.

Jack: We asked you in the article if Zlatan is the most famous player in the Premier League and some more questions about the Man Utd striker.

Rich: Learn more about Zlatan and tell us what you think. I’ve added a link to the article on the side of this page.

Jack: We didn’t have a great week in Fantasy Football last weekend. We only got 32 points which was below average.

Rich: The main problem was that our most expensive players - Zlatan and Sergio Aguero failed to score for the first time this season.

Jack: We asked you last week to choose a defender and a midfielder for the team and we had a bit more success here. You chose Manchester Utd’s Antonio Valencia and Hull City’s Shaun Maloney to join our team.

Rich: Maloney only got one point but Valencia was our top scorer last week - he got 2 points for playing, 4 for a clean sheet and maximum bonus points for a total of 9 points.

Jack: Well done to everybody who picked Valencia for our team and well done to Robotics from India who is the new leader in the Premier Skills League.

Rich: That’s great! The page for Gameweek 4 of Fantasy Football is already on the website. There is a link on the side of this page. We speak about Fantasy Football in more detail and want to hear about your teams and let us know what to do with the Premier Skills team this week.

Latest news

Jack: What happened in the Premier League last weekend, Rich?

Rich: There are now just 3 teams with a 100% record in the Premier League - Manchester City, Manchester Utd and Chelsea. Chelsea and Man City had comfortable wins against Burnley and West Ham but Man Utd needed an injury time winner from Marcus Rashford to beat Hull City 1-0.

Jack: Injury time is the time that the referee adds on at the end of the match. It was quite exciting and the Manchester Utd fans and players celebrated like crazy at the end of the match.

Rich: I watched this match on TV. Marouane Fellaini, the Manchester Utd midfielder was bit of a hero. When Man Utd scored, the players ran to the fans and the fans ran to the players. There was bit of a crush and a woman was trapped in the crowd. Fellaini noticed this and helped the woman out of the crowd and got stewards to help her.

Jack: Some quick thinking by Fellaini. Sometimes a big crowd can be a dangerous place, especially after a goal is scored. So Manchester Utd are top?

Rich: Actually, they are third but the top 3 are only separated by goal difference.

Jack: Goal difference is the difference between the goals a team has scored and goals a team has conceded. Man Utd have scored six goals this season and only conceded one so they have a goal difference of +5.

Rich: That’s right. The only other unbeaten teams in the Premier League are Everton, who beat Bournemouth, Middlesbrough who drew with West Brom and Tottenham who drew with Liverpool.

Jack: And Arsenal got their first win of the Premier League season beating Watford 3-1 and Leicester, too. They beat Swansea 2-1 - Jamie Vardy got his first goal of the season.

Language Focus

Rich: The transfer window closes on Wednesday night in the UK or if you are listening after that, then the transfer window has already closed.

Jack: And in this week’s podcast we’re going to talk about the language of transfers. First of all, what is a transfer?

Rich: This is the word we use to describe a player moving from one football club to another and it can be a noun or a verb. We can say ‘On Saturday, Watford’s Roberto Pereyra scored his first goal for the club since his transfer from Juventus’ or ‘Roberto Pereyra scored his first goal for Watford since he transferred from Juventus to Watford.’

Jack: And the transfer window is the period of time when clubs can make transfers. There are two transfer windows. One in the summer and the other in January.

Rich: Usually, clubs have to pay a transfer fee to sign a new player. The transfer fee is the amount of money that one club pays to the other to sign the player.

Jack: This summer’s biggest transfer fee has been the amount of money Manchester Utd paid to Juventus for Paul Pogba. This was a world record transfer fee.

Rich: But all players don’t cost as much as Pogba. Zlatan Ibrahimovic didn’t cost anything!

Jack: He didn’t cost anything because he was a free agent. A free agent is a player who has finished his contract at one club so can sign for another for free. This is different from a free transfer.

Rich: Yes, a free transfer is when a player is still under contract but a club allows him to move to another club for free.

Jack: This might be because a club doesn’t want him and doesn’t want to continue paying his wages.

Rich: Wages are, of course, another thing for a football club to think about. A player’s wages is the money a club pay the player every week. It’s the same in any profession. A school pays a teacher's wages or a hospital pays a doctor’s wages.

Jack: This is also sometimes called your salary. You can talk about your monthly or annual salary that is paid by your employer. The player is the employee and the club is the employer.

Rich: We are talking now just before the transfer window closes and there will be lots of last minute deals.

Jack: A deal is a business agreement or transaction. For example, I’ve just read that West Ham have signed Simone Zaza on loan from Juventus.

Rich: When you get a player on loan it means that you have the player temporarily - for a short period of time - for example a month or just one season. When the loan finishes the player returns to his original club.

Jack: There will be a lot of loan deals and last minute transfers this week. It’s a very exciting time in the Premier League and this is what we want you to speak about this week - trying to use some of the vocabulary we have used in this section.

Rich: We want to ask you about the best transfers of the summer. Are you happy with your club’s new transfers? Are you happy with the players that your favourite team have bought and sold?

Jack: Which club has made the best deals in this summer’s transfer window?

Rich: Do you think the transfer window is a good idea or do you think clubs should be able to buy new players whenever they want to? What do you think about the money that players earn and clubs spend?

Pronunciation

Jack: this week’s pronunciation focus is on how we say regular verbs in the past simple.

Rich: You probably know that when we use the past simple, regular verbs end in -ed. Like played, danced, watched, closed, opened, the list is very long. But, did you also know that there are three different ways to say verbs that finish with -ed?

Jack: That’s right. An -ed verb can finish with a /t/, a /d/ or an /id/ sound. Let’s look at some of the examples from what Rich said earlier in the podcast. Can you say the sentences again Rich?

Rich: OK.

I watched this match on TV.

The top 3 are only separated by goal difference.

The transfer window has already closed.

Jack: So, the verbs, in the present, are watch, separate and close. All of them are regular verbs and all of them finish with -ed but all of them have different sounds. Listen to Rich say the sentences again and think which one finishes with a /d/ sound, which one with a /t/ sound and which with a /Id/ sound. Say them again, Rich.

Rich: Here they are again.

I watched this match on TV.

The top 3 are only separated by goal difference.

The transfer window has already closed.

Jack: OK, did you hear that the first verb, watched used a ‘t’ sound - I watched the match, I watched the match on TV. So, watch uses a ‘t’ sound in the past simple. Other verbs that use a ‘t’ in the past simple include; ‘helped’, ‘looked’, ‘laughed’ and ‘danced’.

Rich: The second sentence used separated and separated uses a ‘id’ sound with an extra syllable. The top 3 are separated, the top 3 are separated by goal difference’. Other verbs that use a ‘id’ in the past simple include; ‘wanted’, ‘decided’, ‘ended’ and ‘needed’. The only time you need to use an extra syllable is when the verb ends with a -t or a -d.

Jack: The third verb was ‘closed’ which uses a ‘d’ sound - has closed, the transfer window has closed. Close uses a ‘d’ sound in the past simple. Other verbs that use a ‘d’ in the past simple include; ‘play’, ‘love’, ‘call’ and ‘try’.

Rich: Sometimes it can be difficult to hear the t and d sound unless they’re followed by a vowel. Listen to these sentences.

Jack: I walked in the park. I played in the park. Can you hear the difference?

Rich: Try to think of a sentence that uses all three types of ending and then try saying it. Have a go at this one:

Yesterday, I watched Man City against West Ham. I wanted West Ham to win but City played very well and I loved Raheem Sterling’s goals!

Football Phrase

Rich: Have you got a football phrase for us this week?

Jack: Yes, I have, but first last week’s football phrase. It caused a few problems for some of you. The phrase was nil - nil draw. The word nil means zero and it’s used in football more often than zero. You can say Man Utd beat Hull one nil or West Brom and Middlesbrough drew nil-nil. It was a nil - nil draw.

Rich: I hope we don’t see too many nil - nil draws this season they can be a bit boring!

Jack: You’re right. This week’s football phrase is connected to this week’s topic - player transfers and the phrase is to **** *** a club. It means a player officially agreed to join a new club. The player can only play for his new club when he has written his name on a contract. What verb do we use when you write your name on something? Simeone Zaza has ****** *** West Ham, Paul Pogba ****** *** Manchester Utd.

Rich: A useful football phrase to know - especially when talking about transfers.

Prediction

Jack: Last week’s prediction was Hull City against Manchester Utd and I’m a little bit disappointed.

Rich: Why’s that, Jack?

Jack: Well, I went for a draw and Manchester Utd got the winner in injury time so I was very close to being right.

Rich: But not close enough. I’ve got three correct results out of three this season - I’m doing very well.

Jack: Yes, you are Rich, well done. Our Premier Skills listeners also predicted a Manchester Utd win but like you failed to predict the right score. You went with a 3-0 win and our listeners a 2-0 win.

Rich: So, in our prediction league I’m on 3 points our listeners on 2 and JAck you have yet to trouble the point collectors!

Jack: I know, but it’s 2 points for a correct score which I will try to get this week.

Rich: No, no you want. There are no Premier League matches this week so we’ll have our next prediction next week.

Jack: OK, well let’s finish for this week. Don’t forget to write your answers to our questions and the football phrase in the comments below. And remember to take a look at our Fantasy Football section and join in the discussions!

Rich: Bye for now and enjoy your football!