Name: Understand REAL English: Fictional Characters in Everyday English
Uploaded: 2021-11-22T17:51:29.000Z
Duration: 14 min 43 s
Description: 【看影片學英語】數萬部 YouTube 影片，搭配英漢字典即點即查，輕鬆掌握單字發音與用法，長久累積看電影不必再看字幕。

Hi, everybody. Welcome to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam. In today's

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video, I'm going to introduce you to some very famous characters. Now, if you

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look at this board and you look at all these names, you should notice that

these are all fictional characters. And "fictional" means not real. They are

from movies, or from books, or just from legend; from myths, etc. from a

different... from different places. Okay. So, we're going to look at all

these people. Now, why am I going to introduce you to these characters?

Because these are so famous or so well-known that people use these

characters, they refer to these characters in everyday situations. And

when somebody refers to one of these characters, the person listening right

away understands what they're trying to say; what they mean when they're

describing somebody else or a situation, as the case may be.

So, for example, if we look at "Darth Vader" — "Darth Vader" was a character

in the movie... in the Star Wars movies, and he represents pure evil. So, when

you want to describe someone and you think they're really mean and not... or

not nice, or you really just don't like them, you can easily describe them as

"Darth Vader". So, for example, my friend got a new job and at the end of

his first week, I called him, I say: "Hey. How's your new job?" He goes...

And he says to me: "You know, my boss, he's... he's... I hate that guy. He's

like... he's Darth Vader. He's worse than Darth Vader." As soon as he says:

"Darth Vader", I get an image of somebody dressed all in black, and, you

know, like breathing through his mask and just being very, very mean and

killing everybody. So, not a very good boss. On the flip side, from the same

movie series, we have "Yoda". "Yoda" is somebody who's very calm, very quiet,

but very clearly focused on what he or she has to do, and very nice and trying

to help somebody. Right? So evil and goodness, basically. So, if somebody is

"Yoda" — somebody is very calm; not necessarily good, more about calm. "Very

Zen", we would say about this person. But, again, when you refer to these

characters, it's very clearly understood what you're trying to say about someone

else. So, we're going to look at a few more.

Let's look at "Tarzan". "Tarzan" was lost as a baby and he was lost in the

jungle. And some gorillas or monkeys — I don't know... exactly know the story

exactly — raised him. So, he grew up like an animal, but he's a man. But he's

very strong; he has lots of muscles, but not very educated. So, when we talk

about people who are, you know, like, maybe have very good body, but "not much

in between the ears", we would say: "Oh, he's like Tarzan." Right? We would

describe him as "Tarzan". And it's very popular in sports, especially football,

to say about somebody: "He looks like Tarzan, but plays like Jane." It means

he looks very tough, but he's actually very wimpy, very weak; not a very good

"Charlie Brown". I think everybody knows Charlie Brown, and Snoopy, and Lucy, and

all the gang there at the neighbourhood. So, when we describe someone as "Charlie

Brown", we're talking about somebody who's a very nice person, but very

mediocre. Nothing special. You know? Just gets by his life, does the things

he's supposed to do, tries his best, but somehow never really succeeds. So, let's

think about Charlie Brown. He goes to kick that football, and Lucy always

moves it for him, and he always falls on his head. So he means well; he just

can't necessarily do very well. And a very common expression people use...

they say to somebody is: "You're a good man, Charlie Brown." It means: "You

tried very hard, you meant well, you wanted to help, but somehow you landed

on your back and failed." So, people feel a little bit bad for you, but they

like you. Everybody likes Charlie Brown; he's just not going to get very far in

"MacGyver". Now, MacGyver was a TV show in the 80s, and I'm pretty sure they

started it again. Or, no, sorry. In the 90s. And they started a new series

called "MacGyver", but everybody understands "MacGyver" because it's

actually used as a verb. "To MacGyver something" means to make something out

of nothing. So, in this TV show, this character, MacGyver, always somehow got

into trouble or found himself in a situation where he had to help people.

And somehow, he always got trapped in a room, or a car, or a van, or a plane,

with like a... like a matchstick and a piece of tape. And somehow, he was able

to build a bomb, and blow up the whole place and escape every single episode.

Whatever little things he had, he was like... he was a very smart guy; he knew

a lot about science, and he was always able to make a bomb out of everything.

If you gave him a cube of sugar and a piece of lemon, he'll make you a bomb

somehow out of that. So, when somebody does anything, they tweak something, or

they build something, or they make some sort of contraption out of very

miscellaneous parts; out of whatever little pieces of things they found — we

say: "Wow, you really MacGyvered that whatever." If you fix your car, you

MacGyvered the car. You MacGyvered this, you MacGyvered that — you made something

out of nothing, or you got yourself out of a difficult situation by using your

"Captain Ahab" is from a famous book called "Moby Dick". Captain Ahab, he was

the one who had a wooden leg. And the reason he had a wooden leg is because a

white whale, Moby Dick, bit his leg off. And he spent the rest of his life

looking for that white whale because he wanted to kill that white whale. And

when we talk about somebody "being like Captain Ahab", we're talking about

somebody who's just obsessed with something; who can't get whatever that

thing out of their mind. So, they become a little bit crazy. So, when somebody is

like very, very stubborn or very, very obsessed about something, we will call

him "Captain Ahab" or just "Ahab" for short. Most people just say: "Ahab"

without the "Captain". So, we can also use that to describe somebody. Okay?

Then there's "Barbie". I'm not sure if there's an i-e or just "i", but Barbie

is a doll; she's a very famous doll. She has blonde hair, she has a perfect body

as far as plastic bodies go, and she's supposed to be the perfect woman. Right?

And her boyfriend, Ken, is the perfect guy. And the problem with Barbie is that

she is very superficial. And actually... actually, I'm pretty sure it is with an

"e": "Barbie" for the Barbie doll. So, when we talk about... when we describe a

woman as "being a Barbie" means she's very good looking, but she's plastic.

Right? There's maybe not much inside; not much personality. So, very, very

superficial. Very surface good looking; not inside good looking. And the same

for Ken. So, it's a little bit of an insult to call somebody "Barbie". Right?

So, just keep that in mind. But people refer to this a lot when they're

describing somebody. And if you're on Instagram, you'll see a lot of people

calling each other "Barbie" or "Ken", or whatever, because it's all fake; it's

"Forrest Gump" is a very famous movie. I'm sure most of you have seen it, or at

least have heard of it. So, Forrest Gump, this character — that's his name,

Forrest — he's very slow. He's, like, not... you can't say he's stupid; he's

just slow. He thinks very slowly, he speaks slowly, he acts slowly; but he

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Understand REAL English: Fictional Characters in Everyday English

obvious

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