It's time to use the force and learn some English.

[Star Wars music].

Hey, everyone. I'm Alex. Thanks for clicking, and welcome to this lesson on

learning English with Star Wars. So, I am very excited

because Star Wars, episode seven, The Force Awakens,

is set to come out in theatres all across the world. Maybe it's already out at the time

that you're watching this. If you're watching this years from now, maybe Star Wars episode

seven is out, episode eight is out, episode nine is out, and we say that they're awesome,

maybe they're terrible. Who knows?

Anyway, what I thought that I would do in preparation for the movie is go back, watch

the original, and teach you guys some English. Those of you who don't know, Star Wars is

a very famous space fantasy film.

"A-ahem." Yes, Emperor Palpatine?

"I thought Star Wars was science-fiction."

Well, Emperor Palpatine, that is a common opinion and a common misconception.

You see, science-fiction means that it takes the technology, pushes it into the future

to its most extreme. Now, Star Wars is closer to, like, Lord of the Rings, or, you know,

a fantasy where there are creatures that simply can't exist.

"Oh. Hmm. Carry on."

Okay, so now that that's clear, what I'm going to do is tell you about the story and the

characters of the original Star Wars, and I'm going to go through the movie, from beginning

to end, and talk about some of the key dialogue, key vocabulary with you guys. And at the end

of this, don't forget to check out the quiz. Hopefully, you'll have learned something.

So, let's get on with it and learn English with Star Wars.

Okay, so the story of the original Star Wars.

In the beginning, there is an evil galactic empire that is spreading across the galaxy.

What they're doing, what evil things they are accomplishing, we don't really know.

They don't say, we just know they're bad.

There's a small rebel group that is fighting back, and they're trying to take down this evil

empire, and this rebel group has recently stolen some plans for a powerful weapon.

Now, this weapon is being designed by the empire, and they call it the Death Star.

And now, the Death Star is this big, round, globe ball battle station in the movie, and the rebels

need to destroy it. They figure that if they have the plans, maybe they can find a weakness

in the Death Star and destroy it. Will they destroy it? Wait. You'll find out later.

And, again, at the beginning of the movie, the empire is chasing a small rebel ship, because

they think this ship has the plans, and they're trying to get them back.

So, that is the beginning of the movie.

Now let's look at some of the characters. We have Luke Skywalker.

Luke is a farm boy

from the planet Tatooine, and he's the main hero, here. He's the one who's going to learn

how to use the force and save the day.

We have Princess Leia. She is there at the beginning

of the movie on the small rebel ship, and what she's going to do is give instructions

to R2D2, the little robot, to find Obi-Wan Kenobi.

So, Princess Leia.

We have Han Solo and Chewbacca.

Han Solo is the pilot of the Millennium Falcon. Chewbacca or Chewy is the

guy who just sounds like this: [Roaring noise].

He doesn't actually say anything, but somehow,

Han Solo can understand him, based on a roar.

It was the '70s, you know, people believed these things.

C3PO and R2D2... C3PO and R2D2, they kind of just carry us through the whole movie.

They're always present, they're two robots, two droids. C3PO is called a protocol droid,

whatever that means. And again, R2D2, another person, like Chewbacca, doesn't speak English,

just speaks in: [Bleeping noise], in little bleeps and bloops. Okay?

Darth Vader, everyone knows Darth Vader.

"Alex."

Yes, Emperor?

"I know Darth Vader."

I know you know Darth Vader.

Let me continue.

And we have Obi-Wan Kenobi. Obi-Wan Kenobi is a wise, old Jedi who teaches

Luke all about the force, and he's also enemies with Darth Vader. They have a lightsaber battle

at one point in the movie.

"A-ahem."

Yes, Emperor Palpatine?

"Where am I in this?"

You're not in this movie.

"Oh, that's right. I'm in the second one."

Yeah, you're in the second one.

Okay, now that we know the story, now that we know some of the characters,

let's go and look at the dialogue.

So, at the beginning of the movie, C3PO, R2D2,

they're running around the rebel ship, and C3PO says:

"This is madness! We're doomed!"

So: "This is madness!" Not: "This is Sparta!"

"This is madness" means, like, this is crazy, this is insane. I don't understand what's

happening. "We are doomed" means that we have no chance, we're dead. Okay?

So if you have a difficult test coming up, you could say:

"I'm doomed. I'm dead. I'm done." Okay?

Next, yes, yes, yes, yes. Then Vader comes on to the rebel ship, and he starts asking

questions. He starts pushing people around, he picks up one guy, he throws him against

the wall, and he asks:

"Where are those transmissions you intercepted?"

So, again, some of this vocabulary, you know, they are in space,

there are spaceships communicating with each other.

"Transmissions" are just communications that you intercepted. When you intercept something,

it means that you catch it before it gets to where it needs to go.

For example, the most common interception I think of is in football.

If a quarterback throws the ball and another player from another team catches it

before the intended receiver, the person

who is supposed to get the football, he intercepts the football. So, Vader is saying:

"We know that you got some of our messages.

We know you know that we're making a weapon, and I want those plans. Give them back."

All right, Vader then instructs his team, his commander, he says:

"Tear this ship apart until you've found those plans."

So, "to tear something apart", think of "tear", it means

[tearing noises],

to rip. Okay? So, "to tear apart" means destroy everything. Take... Doesn't

matter what you do, just destroy everything until you have found those plans. And then

he speaks to Princess Leia, and Princess Leia, she plays like she's stupid. She's like:

"I don't know what you're talking about. Plans? What plans? I am, you know, just a diplomat,

a politician. We're going to Alderaan, which is my home planet, and you know, I would...

I don't know what you're talking about."

So, Vader says:

"Leia, I know, I know. You are part of the rebel alliance, and a traitor."

So, "a traitor" is a person who does not do,

you know, what you want them to do, who does not follow, who is not loyal to a specific

cause. So, in, you know, the world of Star Wars, in this galaxy, Vader is expecting that

everyone follows the empire, listens to the empire. If you do something that is against

the empire, you are a traitor. Okay? In any country. You know, if you do something against

your country to betray them, you are a traitor. So, let's continue to the next scene.

So, Princess Leia actually lied to Darth Vader. What she did was put a copy of the plans into

R2D2, and she said, you know:

"Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope."

So what happens on the rebel ship is R2D2 and C3PO

go inside and escape pod, and they get blasted off to

the desert planet of Tatooine. Now, C3PO, he's not happy, you know, he doesn't like

adventure, and now he is very angry at R2D2. R2D2 is set. He really wants to get these

plans to Obi-Wan Kenobi so that Obi-Wan can help Princess Leia

to defeat, you know, the evil empire.

So, they get to the planet, C3PO complains, he complains a lot. He says:

"I've got to rest before I fall apart."

He's a robot. Why do robots need to rest? Who knows?

"Before I fall apart. My joints are almost frozen."

Before I fall apart, "to fall apart" is to,

again, think of [breaking noises]

parts just falling off completely. So, a car can fall

apart. Something mechanical can fall apart. You can also say that you are falling apart

if, you know, your energy is not the same as it was before.

"My joints are almost frozen."

So, your joints are these parts of your body that connect, for example, your... One part

of your arm to the other part of your arm. Okay? So, if he says:

"My joints are almost frozen", this means

I can't move because my joints, these parts are almost frozen. Okay?

And he tells R2D2, because R2D2 wants to go in one direction in the desert, and C3PO wants

to go in another direction. He says:

"I've just about had enough of you."

So, if you say: "I have had enough", this means I have no more patience for you, I have no more tolerance

for you. I'm done. Okay? So, leave me alone. And he said to R2D2:

"Don't let me catch you following me."

So if you catch someone doing something, this means you see them doing something

they are not supposed to do. So, C3PO starts walking, looks behind him, he says:

"Don't let me catch you following me." All right?

And then C3PO starts talking to himself, he says:

"That malfunctioning little twerp."

If something malfunctions or is malfunctioning, this means it is not working properly. So

you could say, you know: "My laptop is malfunctioning.

My phone is malfunctioning." Anything, basically

mechanical could malfunction, means not work properly, or "break down" if you want to use

the phrasal verb. And "a little twerp", not a very common word in this century, but a

twerp, think of like a jerk, someone who is not nice.

"A-ahem."

Yes, Emperor Palpatine?

"I think you're a little twerp."

Thank you for that opinion. All right, let's continue.

So, eventually, C3PO and R2D2 get caught by these funny little people called Jawas, who

don't really speak English very well, and the Jawas sell C3PO, sell R2D2 to Uncle Owen

and Aunt Beru who are Luke Skywalker's aunt and uncle. Finally, we meet Luke Skywalker.

And, you know, Luke is told to clean up the droids. He says he doesn't want to, because

he was going to Tosche Station to pick up some power converters.

And C3PO, R2D2, they're

with Luke, he's cleaning them up, and the message, you know, comes up. Luke sees Princess

Leia, and C3PO tells Luke eventually that, you know, R2D2 kept babbling on about his

mission. So, "to babble on" means to talk without stopping. If you're babbling, you're

[babbling noises],

not making a lot of sense, sometimes, but just speaking, speaking, speaking,

speaking, speaking. There's actually one of the first famous translation sites on the

internet was called BabbleFish.com, and again, BabbleFish.com means you could trade, you

know, one language and translate it to another language by putting any word you want in English,

and you could see it in French, or in Polish, or in German, whatever. Okay, and C3PO then

mentions that, you know:

"We will have no more of this Obi-Wan Kenobi gibberish."

talking to R2D2. Now, again, "gibberish" is language that does not make sense. So, if you say that

something is gibberish, it means that you do not understand. Like, if I just say:

Cat go down... That actually makes sense, cat go down, but any combination... I'm just too

trained to say words and sentences that make sense; I can't speak gibberish. But if you

say something that makes no sense, and you're like:

"What's...? I don't understand what you're saying",

you say: "That's gibberish." You know? Like, computer language could be

gibberish to someone who is not a computer programmer. So, that's gibberish to me,

I don't understand it. Okay?

And eventually what happens is Luke meets Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he trains him a little

bit, tells him about the force. And Luke says:

"What is the force?"

And Obi-Wan Kenobi says:

"Now, the force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living

things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, binds the galaxy together."

Yes, I have memorized that line since I was like 16 years old.

So... Because I wanted to know what the force was.

So, again, here we have three important words that I'm going to focus on.

"It surrounds us",

so if something surrounds you, it means it covers you on all sides. So, for example,

if there is a criminal and he's inside a house and the police want to catch the criminal,

they will surround the house or surround the building. So, Obi-Wan says:

"The force surrounds us. It's all around us."

Penetrates us, so to go inside of us, essentially, it breaks

through our skin, gets inside our souls and our hearts. Okay? And binds the galaxy together,

so when you think of the word "bind", think of something coming together. A police officer

will bind the hands of a criminal, or you can bind someone to something. So to tie together