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Free Rice dot Com    Time: 4:21    Accent: r Dictionary    Sound BrE    Explanations

Free Rice dot Com

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Description

www.freerice.com is a site who helps you learn English while feeding the hungry in the Third World. You can go to that website here: FreeRice.com

Transcript

Hey guys, what’s up?
Last night I saw a video by Ryan Dron 3-60. He was promoting a website called "free-rice-dot-com" and I’m going to do the same because I think it’s worth promoting. I'll respond to this video so that you can see that if you want.

So this website freerice.com, I hadn’t heard of it before, maybe you have. If so, please bear with me while I give a brief explanation for those who haven’t. The website itself is a simple vocabulary test. You’re given a word and then four options and you have to pick which one is a synonym. That's so very well and good, you’re improving your vocabulary and you’re given a score to see how you’re doing. But, the genius of the website is that for every answer you get right they donate twenty grains of rice through the UN World Food Programme to help end world hunger.

Now, in life I found positives often are bounced up with negatives:
Alcohol – hangovers
Summer – wasps
Youtube makes improvements to the site – all the improvements are sh**
Sleep with a prostitute – no, no, no, no, no, no. Cut that.

However, this website is the rarest of the rare. The hangover-free-alcohol, the negativeless positive. I’m pretty sure "negativeless" isn’t a word but I’ve used it and I’m gonna stick with it.

I know twenty grains of rice doesn’t seem like a lot 'cause, well, it’s not. But I played for a couple of minutes last night and I had well over a thousand. Still not a meal, but it's getting there. So I thought "if I can donate over 12.000 grains of rice without even trying, and I have, at the time of recording, 4,302 subscribers, if all of you go and do the same thing, then we'll've donated about five million grains of rice. I don’t even have enough rice in the house to cut to a shot of me holding 5,000,000 grains of rice. Not even close. And counting it out would just be absurd, so I’m gonna put this back. But I think you’ll agree that’s a lot of rice. I couldn’t finish it. I don’t need a visual aid to confirm that.

So I put it to you that as soon as you’ve done the rating and favouriting and featuring this video on your channel, you go to the link in the description, you learn some new words and you help feed some hungry people.

If you’re not watching this on Youtube there should be a link somewhere around. If not, "freerice.com" is not difficult. If you are on Youtube, that link will open in a new window, or should do, I think. So, when you’re done, you can close that window and I’ll still be here, like this.

This is apparently how I end my videos. So write a comment, tell me how many grains of rice you donated and, and, I guess, whoever gets the most can win a prize (I haven’t thought this through) uhm, I don’t know. S’ prize suggestions may be also in the comments. I could play your video, if you make videos, I could put that on my channel? Is that sought after enough to be considered a prize? We’ll think of something.

If you think you might win, take a screenshot of your score, because, otherwise, you can, someone could just come in and say "yeah, I got seven billion" and then it would just become a competition on who can lie the most, and that’s not getting us anywhere.

So, finally, go and spread the word. They have a page of HTML banners, which are also linked in the description, so you can send those ads in MySpace bulletins or put them on your website or wherever. You can share this video with your friends or put it on your channels, or even better, make your own videos and ask people to do the same.

[Kthx]

We may be a bad person if I put ads on this video? I’m not sure. [zomg devil eye]. I’m gonna consult the Vlog Brothers and if I find an ad on one of their charity videos then I’m gonna use that as my moral standard and go with it. So don’t blame me, blame the Vlog Brothers.

Hey, so that’s originally where I finished the video but I’ve sinced watched the news and the first thing I heard when I turned the TV on was "UN World Food Programme". I remember having used that phrase already today. The story was, obviously, the Burmese cyclone, so I just thought I’d add this on at the end to make you aware that that is most likely where your 20 grains will be going.

Ok, that’s cool.

[Manditory last bit...]

This website is the rarest of the rare. The alcohol-free-hangover. That doesn’t make sense. That'd the worst thing ever.

[Bye!]


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Explanations

GUYS= colloquial word for "men" or "young men". It often may include women too (but the singular "a guy" is always masculine). Originally AmE is now widely used by young people in Britain too. In America they often use "you guys" as the plural form of "you" ("you are a doctor", "you guys are doctors").

WHAT’S UP?= another AmE expression getting popular among British youngsters. It means "How are you?" or "What’s happening?", "How’s life?", etc. In practice, it just means "hello!".

PROMOTE= give publicity to something.

WORTH + -Ing= if something is worth doing, it is good to do it because it is beneficial, or enjoyable, useful or the right thing to do.

BEAR WITH ME= be patient with me

PICK= choose

SYNONYM= a word that means the same as another word. For instance, "pretty" and "beautiful" are synonyms (though synonyms usually have some little differences in meaning, at least in some situations)

IMPROVE= make better

SCORE= the total points you get in a game or competition.

THE GENIUS OF THE WEBSITE= the great idea of the website

DONATE= to give away for free

UN= United Nations (also UNO= United Nations Organization)

HUNGER= the state of being hungry.

POSITIVES ARE BOUNCED UP WITH NEGATIVES= the positive things are linked to negative things or results that make them unattractive. (not too sure of the correctness of my transcription here, but that’s the meaning anyway)

HANGOVER= the terrible feeling you get the day after you got drunk. If you drink too much alcohol, the next morning you get up with a hangover: a terrible headache and muscular pain all over your body.

WASP= an insect with a poisonous bit that hurts a lot. Their body is very thin but they have a big swollen abdomen with black and yellow stripes (a bit similar to bees but thinner).

IMPROVEMENT= the noun related to the verb "to improve" (see above)

SITE= website

HOWEVER= Nevertheless, but.

RAREST= the most strange (rare= strange, odd). Yes, I know that "the most strange" is not too correct (it should be "the strangest"), but "the most strange" is clear for people with a low level and it is getting more and more acceptable in spoken English (with any short word).

NEGATIVELESS= an adjective he just made up (invented). The ending –LESS means "without", so "a negativeless positive" would mean "a positive thing without negative consequences".

I’M PRETTY SURE= I’m quite sure. In colloquial English (esp. BrE) "pretty" is often used with the same meaning as "quite, rather". Notice that "sure" is presently pronounced like shore".

GONNA= going to (coll.)

STICK WITH SOMETHING= keep it, not change it.

DOESN’T SEEM LIKE A LOT= "Seem" means "look" (referring to appearance"). LIKE here is a preposition of comparison. "Seem like" = "look like". In this sentence, "like" wouldn’t be used in more formal language.

'CAUSE= because (coll.). It may also be spelled: ‘coz, coz, cause.

A COUPLE OF MINUTES= literally "two minutes", but it often means "a little time", indefinite.

OVER A THOUSAND= more than 1000

IT’S GETTING THERE= it’s more and more close to it, it’s almost that.

4,302 subscribers= This video was originally posted on Youtube, and there, people can create a personal channel (where they post lots of videos) and people can subscribe to that channel, see all the new videos posted there, write comments to the videos, rate the videos (give them marks) and more things.

CUT TO A SHOT= a shot is a photograph (coll.), but in movies, a shot is a short scene, a piece of movie. To cut a shot means to film a fragment of the video.

HOLD= to have or carry in your hand or arms

CLOSE= near

COUNT OUT= count something so as to get the total amount of it.

I COULDN’T FINISH IT= here, "could" is not a past tense, but a conditional tense (= I wouldn’t be able to finish it, to eat it all)

VISUAL AID= an image that helps you understand.

I PUT IT TO YOU= I propose to you

THE RATING= the act of giving a mark to the quality of this video (you can rate it from 0 to 5; giving 5 points if you think it’s an excellent video)

FAVOURITING= adding that page to "your favourites" (the way Internet Explorer calls the browser bookmarks)

FEATURE= to feature a video is to show it, to display it.

TO FEED= to give food

WHEN YOU’RE DONE= when you finish

APPARENTLY= supposedly

WHOEVER= anybody who..., it doesn’t matter who...

PRIZE= a gift you get as a reward when you win a competition or do something very well.

THINK SOMETHING THROUGH= think carefully about it

S’= he was probably going to say "SO", but then he changed his mind or simply started a new word before finishing it.

SOUGHT AFTER= Seek-Sought-Sought (= look for, search). Something that is "sought after" is something very popular that many people want.

THINK OF= the verb "to think" can use the preposition "of" or "about" (but never "in")

SCREENSHOT= a photograph of the images that are on the screen. You can easily get a screenshot by pressing the key "print screen" at your computer keyboard. SCREEN= the part of a TV (or at your computer) where you see the images displayed.

OTHERWISE= if that doesn’t happen

BILLION= a billion is a thousand millions in most English speaking countries. In old-fashioned BrE it meant "a million of millions" (and that is still the meaning in the rest of the world)

THAT’S NOT GETTING US ANYWHERE= that doesn’t make any sense, that’s stupid, that’s no use, that’s absurd, that’s no good.

SPREAD THE WORD= tell other people so many people know about it

HTML= the name of the programming language used to produce web pages. This guy pronounces the letter H with an aspiration. As far as I know, that’s not correct.

BANNER= a picture or design (usually a rectangle) which is usually a link on the web page. It is often used for advertising on the web.

WHEREVER= anywhere, it doesn’t matter where

KTHX= an abbreviation for: "Ok, thanks!"

WE MAY BE A BAD PERSON IF I PUT...= This guy sometimes uses the pronoun "we" and sometimes "I" (it’s not strange in a situation like this). If my ear is not terribly mistaken, he started the sentence using "we", but then he changed his mind in the middle of the sentence to use "I" (things like this are not uncommon in oral language).

ADS= short for "advertisement", publicity

ON THIS VIDEO= notice that when we’re talking about moving pictures (TV, films, videos) we use the preposition ON. Also when we talk about the Internet or a website or a web page (on the Internet = on the Net, on my website, on that page).

ZOMG= a variation of OMG, which stands for "Oh My God!". The Z doesn't stand for anything; the word was accidentally invented by users intending to hit the Shift Key instead of Z when typing; and finally, this common mistake got accepted as a more emphatic form of OMG.

ZOMG DEVIL EYE= you can see this phrase flashing on the video for a split of a second. If you manage to freeze (stop) the video at that very moment, you’ll understand why he wrote this. The frozen image shows this guy with a strange evil spark of light on his left eye (the eye on the right part of the video), making him look like a evil (diabolic) person at the very moment when he’s thinking of not doing the right think (a coincidence?).

THE VLOG BROTHERS= a vlog is a "video blog" (if you don’t know what a "blog" is, it’s something similar to a web page but just for writing articles). "The Vlog Brothers" have a very popular channel on Youtube. I don’t know anything else about them but, according to what this guy says, they must do videos about charity projects or something like that.

DON’T BLAME ME= don’t think it is my fault

I’VE SINCE WATCHED= After that moment, I have watched.

CYCLONE= a very strong storm with strong winds that destroy everything. They’re called "cyclones" in Asia and "hurricanes" when they happen in the Americas.

TO MAKE YOU AWARE= to let you know, to make you conscious about something.

TO MAKE YOU AWARE THAT THAT IS...= the first THAT is a conjunction, the second THAT is the subject of the subordinate clause "that is where..."

LIKELY= probable (it ends in –LY, but it’s an adjective, not an adverb; many adjectives end in –ly too, like "friendly")

MANDITORY= a spelling mistake (kind of frequent). The correct spelling is "mandatory" and it means "compulsory". If something is mandatory, you have to do it, weather you like it or not, you have no option.

THAT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE= it isn’t logical, it’s something stupid, not rational.

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Positive Negative Votes: 0

FatimaB Spain - 09/11/2010 22:55

it's a very good idea
FatimaB
 
Positive Negative Votes: 0

martita10 Spain - 05/11/2010 20:43

that's a good idea i can't believe it!
martita10