Technology and Phones
Learn 20 easy A1 English words for technology and phones - password, battery, download, online, app - with examples, a story and a quiz.
This is the last lesson in the A1 vocabulary series, and it is the one you will use today. These 20 words cover the phone in your hand and the computer on your desk, plus the small prepositions that go with them – on the internet, search for something, call somebody with no to. Learn them, then meet my grandmother, who got her first smart phone last year and now knows more apps than I do.
20 words to learn
The 20 words
/fəʊn/
The thing in your hand. Short for telephone.
My phone is always in my pocket.
/kəmˈpjuːtə(r)/
The machine with a screen and a keyboard.
There are twenty computers in the school lab.
/ˈlæptɒp/
A small computer you can carry and open like a book.
I do all my work on a laptop.
/skriːn/
The flat part you look at.
The screen on my phone is broken.
/ˈkiːbɔːd/
The part with the letters that you type on.
She types without looking at the keyboard.
/ˈɪntənet/
The world network. Always the internet, and things are on it.
I found the recipe on the internet.
/ˈwebsaɪt/
One place on the internet with pages you can read.
Their website is very slow.
/ˈiːmeɪl/
A letter you send from a computer or phone. Also a verb.
I sent you an email yesterday.
/ˈmesɪdʒ/
Something short you write to somebody. Say MESS-ij.
She sent me a message at midnight.
/æp/
A small program on a phone. Short for application.
There is an app for everything now.
/ˈpɑːswɜːd/
The secret word or numbers that open your account.
I forgot my password again.
/klɪk/
To press a button on a mouse or a screen.
Click on the green circle to answer.
/ˌdaʊnˈləʊd/
To take a file from the internet onto your device.
You must download the app first.
/sɜːtʃ/
To look for information. Always search for something.
I searched for his name online.
/tʃɑːdʒ/
To fill a battery with electricity.
Do not forget to charge your phone tonight.
/ˈbætri/
The part that holds the power. Plural: batteries.
My battery is on four per cent.
/kɔːl/
To telephone somebody. No to after it.
Call me when you arrive.
/tekst/
To send a short written message by phone. Also a noun.
I will text you the address.
/ˌɒnˈlaɪn/
Connected to the internet. One word, no space.
I buy almost everything online now.
/tɜːn ɒn/
To make a machine start. The opposite is turn off.
Turn on the light, please.
Now read the story
Story · all 20 words
Teaching My Grandmother
Last year my grandmother got her first smart phone, and I was appointed the family teacher. My mother said it would take an afternoon. It has taken eleven months and it is not finished, and I would not give the job to anybody else.
The first problem was the password. She chose her wedding date, then decided that was not safe, then chose it again. Then she wrote it on a small piece of paper and put the paper inside the phone case, which she still considers a clever solution and which I have stopped arguing about.
The second problem was the battery. Nobody had explained that you have to charge it, so for three weeks she believed that the phone died every evening at about nine and came back to life in the morning by itself. She was not frightened by this. She simply accepted it.
Then we started on the useful things. How to call somebody. How to send a text, and then a message with a photograph inside it, which took two weeks and was worth every single minute. How to click the small green circle and not the small red one. How to turn on the kitchen light from her chair, which she demonstrates to every visitor and describes as magic.
She is now online considerably more than I am. She has an app for the weather, an app for the Qur’an, and one she has never once opened. She learned to search for things on the internet, and last month she found a website that sells the exact green plates her own mother had in 1961. She had to download something to see the pictures properly. She did it alone, and then she telephoned me to say so.
The only thing she refuses is email. She says letters belong on paper and that is the end of it. But when I put my laptop in front of her and opened the big screen so that she could see my brother in Germany, she sat completely straight, put both hands flat on the keyboard as if it might run away, and said hello twice, very loudly, to a computer. Then she cried. Then she laughed at herself for crying.
Small words, big mistakes. These four are worth memorising exactly as they are:
✓ I found it on the internet. ✗ in the internet
✓ I searched for his name. ✗ I searched his name (that means you searched his pockets)
✓ Call me tomorrow. ✗ Call to me tomorrow
✓ I am online. ✗ I am on line (one word, no space)
Down or up? You download a file from the internet to your phone, and you upload a photo from your phone to the internet. The direction is in the word.
Turn on / turn off can be split: turn the light on and turn on the light are both correct. But with it, only one order works: turn it on, never turn on it.
Pronunciation: message is MESS-ij, not mes-SAGE. And charge begins and ends with the same sound as church and jam: CHARJ.
The machines: phone, computer, laptop, screen, keyboard, battery.
The network: internet, website, online, app, password.
What you do: click, search for, download, charge, turn on.
Talking to people: call, text, message, email.
Describe your own phone in five sentences: what you use it for most, how many apps you have, when you charge it, the last person you called, and one app you have never opened.
This is the last lesson in the A1 vocabulary series. You now have 600 words across 30 topics – enough to talk about your family, your home, your day, your food, your body, your town, your work and your free time. When you are ready, the A2 series takes each of these topics one level further.
Now practise with the questions below.
Check your understanding
Answer the questions below. You will see instantly if you are right.
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