MULTIMEDIA-ENGLISH
Europe is a French country
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3:19
Video page URL
https://multimedia-english.com/videos/esl/europe-is-a-french-country-53
Description

They all say American people are not very good at geography, but... this terrible! An excerpt from an American TV show called Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? in which adults compare with children at school and try to beat them at some basic knowledge many of them have long ago forgotten. (And please, don't make easy jokes about blondes). By the way, this is Kellie Pickler, a celebrity participating for charity.

Transcript

- You ready? The 3rd grade world geography question is: "Budapest is the capital of what European Country?" Budapest is the capital of what European country? Nathan has already locked in.
- This might be a stupid question.
- I’m guessing it’s probably going to be.
- Okay. Like... I thought Europe was a country. Let’s see. Budest... Budapest! I’ve never even heard of that.
- Alright, here... here’s your options. I mean you could drop out with $10,000. But you got...
- Wait, I know they speak French there, don’t they? Like I wanna say, is France a country. I don’t know what I’m doing.
- You know what, let’s talk about your options.
- Can I just like... Okay.
- Kell, focus.
- I am... Like I’m listening to what you’re saying, but I only hear what I want to.
- That’s just called being a woman.
- Oh... Boooooooo! Well, we could just call this show "Are You Smarter Than A Man?" I’d win that one.
- Women don’t really want to hear a man’s opinion. They just want to hear their opinion in a deeper voice. That’s what they want when they talk to us. Let’s talk about this. I really want you to get the $25,000 because no matter what happens after that, you’re walking out of here with $25,000 for charity.
- Yes. It’s all about the charity, so I got to think what’s best for them. Let’s see. I am just going to ... copy.
- Copy.
- Come on Nathan.
- If you had to guess... if you had to guess... do you have a guess?
- I don’t think France is a country, but would’ve said that. I dunno... I don’t know. I’m just going to say France. I dunno.
- France is a country, I will tell you that.
- It is?
- If you had said France, you would’ve gone home with nothing.
- Whew...
- That’s not the right answer. The right answer is Hungary.
- Is what?
- Hungary.
- Hungry?
- Like I’m hungry.
- That’s a country? I’ve heard of Turkey, but... "Hungry", never heard of it.
- But the answer is Hungary. So if Nathan said Hungary, your charity’s got $25,000. If he didn’t, you walk away with nothing.
- You’re not smiling, Nathan. You’re not smiling. Awww.
- Kellie, look at the board. For $25,000, your 5th grade classmate Nathan said... Hungary!
- Ahhhhh! Great! You’re the best! Thank you! Yeah! You tried to trick me. He tricked me.
- He tricked you?
- I was looking at his face and he looked like uh ummm messed it up. I failed. But you got it right, yay.

Explanations

This is an excerpt of the TV show: "ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A 5TH GRADER?". A 5th grader is a child attending 5th grade, a school level where children usually are 10-11 years old. SMART usually means "elegant" in Britain, but often means "intelligent" in America, and that’s the meaning here. So in this TV contest, adults compete against 5th graders in questions about school subjects. In this case, a celebrity is competing for charity purposes.

3rd GRADE= for 8-9 years old.

LOCKED IN= in a TV contest like this, "to lock in" is when you push a button to show you know the answer.

GONNA= going to

I MEAN= one of those little phrases we very often use when talking. It’s used when you want to be more precise about something you said before, but it’s also often used just as a gap filler, without any meaning.

DROP OUT= abandon competition.

WANNA= want to (In AmE, T often disappears after N)

CAN I JUST LIKE...= the question is incomplete, but here LIKE is not the verb "to like" or the comparative preposition. It means "sort of", "more or less", to show you’re not being precise about what you’re going to say afterwards. So this sentence means "can I..."

FOCUS= concentrate, pay attention.

I ONLY HEAR WHAT I WANT TO= in this sentence, TO is a pro-verb. A pro-verb substitutes for a verb in the same way as a pronoun substitutes for a noun. So in this sentence TO means "to hear".

SMARTER= the comparative of SMART which, as we said, means "intelligent".

NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS= what happens is not important.

I GOTTA= I’ve got to (very common in colloquial speech, especially AmE)

YOU’D’VE= you would have (pronounced: /ju:dəv/).

HUNGARY= the name of this country, if we don’t pronounce it too carefully, has the same pronunciation as "hungry", that’s why she’s so surprised and that’s the reason why she mentions Turkey, a country with the same spelling and pronunciation as "a turkey" (a big bird often eaten at Christmas). So Hungary and Turkey both sound as related to food in some way.

LIKE "I’m hungry"= the word LIKE here is not the verb "to like", it is the comparative preposition and here it means "as in", "exactly the same as in the expression..."

GONNA= going to

YOUR 5TH GRADE CLASS MATE= "5th grade class" is here an adjective specifying who is "your mate" (mate= companion)

TRICK= deceive, fool.

MESS UP= do it wrong, not win, get a bad unwanted result.