Learn English: FOOTBALL Vocabulary

GOAL!!!!! In English, is the game called 'football' or 'soccer'? How do you tell someone who's winning and what the score is? Just in time for the FIFA World Cup, a sports vocabulary lesson! Are you supporting Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, or another country? Let me know in the comments! And take a quiz on this video here:

TRANSCRIPT

Hi, guys. What's happening? Right now, it's World Cup. Are you watching? I think the world is watching the World Cup.

Today, I'm going to teach you about football. Please, please, please, please, please do not call it "soccer". Let's go through this. In Canada and in America, people are quite stupid, including me. For some reason, people like to say "soccer". Let's imagine that we are playing a game with your foot and a ball. Well, I would call that "football". So one rule that I have if you ever meet me is please don't call it "soccer". It's "football". In kind of a slang kind of way, you can call it "footy". It's more British English, but you can call it that just as long as you do not call it "soccer". Please do not call it "soccer". Just to clarify this for you. The organization is called FIFA. What do you think the F stands for? It's not called "SIFA"; it's called "FIFA". It's called "football". So need I remind you; do not say "soccer". Thank you. Public service announcement is now over. Let's get into the game.

Maybe you are very excited to watch the game. You are not sure what verb to use in English because we have "look", "see", and "watch". This is easy. Because everyone's running and smashing and biting people -- don't bite people when you play football. You're going to actually watch the football game. So you can say to your friends, "Hey! Let's watch the game." And your friend says, "Yes! Let's do that. I'm excited."

So maybe you get to the game late, and the game's already started. So you can say to someone, "What is the score?" Okay? So if it's present tense, we want to use "is" because it's present tense. "What is the score?" Maybe the person will tell you, "It's 2-1 for -- let's say -- Brazil." Hi, everybody from Brazil. This means that Brazil is winning because I tell you the name of the country. I would never tell you the team's losing. Okay? We actually don't have a word for this little hyphen here when we talk about a score. So we say, "It's 2-1 for Japan." Okay? Or, "It's 3-2 for Algeria." If you want to find out the past tense -- maybe you missed the game entirely because you have a job. I have a job. I miss games. So I have to catch up at the end. So you're going to ask your friends or someone, "What was the score?" They will say the same answer except they'll say, "It was -- for example -- 2-1 for Mexico." Okay? Or you could ask the person, "Who won?" They're going to say the country. "Cameroon won 2-0." Okay? Again, we don't have to say this little hyphen thing. Whatever country is the winner -- can someone give me another country name? What's your country name? Is your country in the World Cup? Canada isn't, and I know why. Because in Canada, we don't even know the name of the game. USA was in the World Cup. They got shut out. So, "USA won 2-0." Whatever country's the winner, you have to use the past tense. This is present tense: "win". Past tense is like the number -- exact same way to say it. We say "won". I know the spelling looks strange, but it's actually the same way to say it.

What happens in the World Cup -- in the World Cup only -- is they have different groups: A, B, C, D. And when the teams play each other, groups get disqualified. So what happens is in each group, one country will advance. So for example, I can say, "In group A, USA advances." But they didn't, did they? History has been written.

If you are with a group of people and they're not wearing any team colors, you can say, "Who are you supporting?" Or, "Who are you going for?" This means, "Who are you cheering for? Who, like -- oh, come on! Go! Oh, I didn't get it." Do you get really excited when you watch your team play? I don't. I don't have a team. Canada doesn't even know how to say the sport correctly.

One thing that happens in the World Cup is there are many, many games in one day. Up to three games a day. So you can ask someone, "Who plays today? Who plays tomorrow?" I'm going to come back after I go have half-time and teach you some vocabulary.