Learning Vocabulary: Crime

Introduction

Jack: Hello my name’s Jack

Rich: and I’m Rich and welcome to this week’s Premier Skills English podcast

Jack: Where we talk about football and help you with your English.

Rich: We recommend that you listen to this podcast on the Premier Skills English website because that is where we have the transcript, language examples, activities, quizzes and a discussion page to help you understand everything we talk about.

Jack: However, if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, you can leave answers to our questions in the review section. We do read all the reviews and would love to hear from you.

Rich: Don’t forget that you can also listen to our football English podcast called This Week at the start of every week.

Jack: In This Week we talk about the latest action from the Premier League and help you with football vocabulary. Take a look at our latest episode on the Premier Skills English homepage.

Rich: We talk about Jose Mourinho’s return to the Premier League and have some tricky football phrases for you to learn.

Jack: Let’s get back to this week’s podcast. This week we’re looking at vocabulary. We’re going to look at words connected to crime.

Rich: That’s right. Have you ever committed a crime, Jack?

Jack: I don’t think so. I might have crossed the road when I shouldn’t once or twice - what’s that called - jaywalking. A strange word. Erm … I might have taken a few things from my sister when I was little - but that’s not stealing, is it?

Rich: And there’s that jacket you’re wearing.

Jack: What do you mean? It’s new. I bought it last week.

Rich: Red and orange. It’s a crime against fashion! You should hand yourself into the fashion police for that!

Jack: You think so? Well, I quite like it.

Rich: Anyway, in this week’s roleplay we’re going to be talking about crime and we’ll have lots of phrases connected to crime for you to learn. We’ve already used a couple. Did you hear Jack use ‘stealing’ and I said ‘you should hand yourself in’. We’ll look at these later.

Jack: Great, but before you hear the roleplay and we look at crime vocabulary, we need to look at last week’s football phrase.

Last week’s Football Phrase

Rich: If you didn’t hear it last week we’re going to give you one more chance to guess now. We’ll give you the correct answer at the end of the show when we give you a new football phrase.

Jack: A big well done if you got it right last week - a few of you also wrote the correct answer on the Premier Skills English website.

Rich: Yes, well done to Luibomyr and Alex from Ukraine, Lakerwang and Fred Zhong from China, Idzingirai from Zimbabwe, and Elghoul from Algeria who all got the right answer.

Jack: And remember you can also write the answer on Apple Podcasts in the review section. Let’s hear the phrase one more time. Do you know what the answer is?

Rich: The football phrase is *** *** ****. This phrase is used to describe a manager’s position at a club. The position is often not very comfortable, especially when a team loses. Who would want to sit on a *** **** - you don’t want to burn your bum! The ex-Chelsea and Manchester United manager, Jose Mourinho, was named as the new man in *** *** **** at Tottenham Hotspur last week.

Jack: We’ll give you the answer at the end of the show and we’ll have a new football phrase for you to guess.

Introduction to roleplays

Jack: This week you’re going to listen to two roleplays. I’ve just had a game of football with Rich and a few friends and we’re on our way home.

Rich: While you are listening to the roleplay, we have a question for you to answer.

Jack: The question is: What do we find in the park?

Roleplay 1

Rich: That was a good game. We should all try to get together every week. I might be able to last more than 30 minutes in a couple of weeks. Ninety minutes is too much!

Jack: We can use you as an impact substitute! No, it was good. I’m not sure about playing that lot again, though. They were such a good team and that winger was so good.

Rich: He went past me every time … Hold on. What’s that?

Jack: A bag? Leave it. It’ll just be rubbish. Come on!

Rich: Wait, it’s a suitcase. That’s weird. I’m going to have a look … Oh my …

Jack: What is it?

Rich: Shhh! Come here.

Jack: Oh my …

Rich: Close it. Come on. Let’s go to my house quick.

…

Jack: Put it on the table.

Rich: There must be at least …

Jack: I know … enough for both of us, new cars, holidays in the sun.

Rich: What are you on about? We can’t keep it!

Jack: What do you mean we can’t keep it? We found it in a public place. Someone lost it.

Rich: Nobody lost it. Someone’s just hidden it in the park and they’ll be looking for it. They’ll be looking for us. We need to hand it in.

Jack: Hand it in to the police? You’re joking. This could set us up for life.

Rich: Think straight for a minute. It’s not some guy who’s just forgotten his suitcase in the park. It’s probably connected to organised crime or something.

Jack: There was a break-in at the bank on the high street last week. The police were asking witnesses to come forward. It could be from that, but ...

Rich: Yeah, and this money is the evidence. We would be suspects.

Jack: We haven’t done anything wrong.

Rich: Nobody else knows that. We could get arrested and end up in court and that’s if the police catch us first.

Jack: What do you mean?

Rich: The owner of the bag! The robbers or whatever. We’d probably get beaten up or worse.

Jack: We could go on the run! It’s a lot of money - Brazil is nice this time of year.

Rich: Hold on. I’ll just go and get my mask. No, we’d never get away with it. We’d be committing a crime and if we got caught we wouldn’t be let off with a fine or something - we’d get a prison sentence.

Jack: Let’s just think about this for a minute …

Introduction to Roleplay 2

Rich: Did you get the answer to our question: What did we find in the park?

Jack: The answer is a lot of money and I’m talking hundreds of thousands, maybe millions.

Rich: Calm down about the money - it’s just a roleplay. Now, you’re going to listen to our second roleplay and we have another question for you.

Jack: The question is: What do we decide to do with the money?

Roleplay 2

Rich: Good afternoon. I’m Detective Moon. They said at the desk that you’d like to hand something in to us.

Jack: Yes, that’s right. Well, I was with a friend. We’d just finished football and on the way home, we found this.

Rich: A suitcase?

Jack: Yes, a suitcase full of money.

Rich: It looks like this may be some of the money from a break-in at a bank. It was good of you to bring it in. You found it in the park you say.

Jack: That’s right. Next to the football pitches.

Rich: Do you have an alibi for the night of the 25th of August? The night of the robbery.

Jack: Er … I’m not sure. I think I was watching a match with friends.

Rich: I’m just joking. Thank you for leaving this with us. The bank had even mentioned a reward for the return of the cash so I imagine someone will be in touch soon.

Jack: A reward? Well, two of us found the money together ...

Language Focus: Crime

Rich: Did you get the answer to the question we gave you? What did we decide to do with the money?

Jack: Well, in the end, I listened to Rich and we decided to hand the money in to the police.

Rich: A bit disappointed that they didn’t mention a reward though.

Jack: Oh, yes, we need to talk about that later. Now, let’s look at some of the words and phrases we used about crime in the two roleplays.

Rich: Let’s start with the word crime. A crime is an action that breaks the law in a country. In the roleplay, we spoke about robbery, which is an example of a crime.

Jack: Robbery is the crime of stealing money or other items from a person for example in the street or a place like a bank.

Rich: A couple of collocations you often hear are bank robbery and armed robbery which means using a weapon like a knife or a gun.

Jack: Another more idiomatic phrase is daylight robbery. We use this when we think something in a shop or a service is far too expensive.

Rich: A hundred pounds for that ticket! That’s daylight robbery!

Jack: There are lots of collocations with the word crime. In the roleplay, we spoke about committing a crime. Someone doesn’t do a crime, they commit a crime.

Rich: We also spoke about organised crime. Organised crime is committed by groups of criminals or gangs. We often think about the mafia or something similar when we think about organised crime.

Jack: There are many other collocations with the word crime. The crime scene is the place where a crime happens. A crime wave is a big increase in crime over a short period of time.

Rich: Petty crime is less serious crimes like taking small items from shops or vandalism which is breaking public objects or doing graffiti where you shouldn’t.

Jack: And, unfortunately, we sometimes hear about hate crimes which are attacks on a person because of their race, religion, gender or sexuality.

...

Rich: Let’s have a look at some more of the phrases we used in the roleplay. We used quite a few phrasal verbs when we were speaking.

Jack: Let’s start with to hand something in. When we were speaking about the suitcase full of money, Rich was saying that we need to hand it in to the police.

Rich: To hand something in means to give something to someone but usually to someone important. We handed the money into the police, you hand in your homework, things like that.

Jack: When talking about crime you might hear the phrase to hand yourself in. This is when a criminal goes to the police voluntarily.

Rich: The next phrasal verb is to break in. This means to enter a place by force. The robbers broke in through the window.

Jack: We can also use this as a noun. In the roleplay, we said there was a break-in at the bank.

Rich: Another phrasal verb we used in the roleplay was to come forward. We said that the police were looking for witnesses to come forward.

Jack: A witness is someone who sees a crime and to come forward means to give information to someone. The police want witnesses to contact them.

Rich: In the roleplay, I was worried that I might get beaten up. To beat someone up is another phrasal verb. It means to hit or attack someone physically.

Jack: If they knew we had the money, they’d probably beat us up.

Rich: Jack said we could keep the money and go on the run. To go on the run is an idiom which means to escape and avoid being arrested by the police.

Jack: Rich thought going on the run to Brazil wasn’t such a good idea. He said we’d never get away with it.

Rich: To get away with something is another phrasal verb and the way I used it in the role play was to mean doing something wrong and not being punished for it.

Jack: The last phrasal verb we want to look at is to be let off. In the roleplay, Rich said we wouldn’t be let off with a fine or something, we’d get a prison sentence.

Rich: To be let off means to be not given a punishment for doing something wrong. We actually hear this one in football a lot, too.

Jack: You might hear a commentator say ‘he’s let him off with that one but I think he’ll get a yellow next time’.

Rich: Yeah, we’d hear that after a foul. We could also use ‘to get away with’ to talk about football. We could say ‘he got away with that’ if a referee didn’t see a foul or ‘he’ll never get away with that’ if there is a blatant or obvious handball.

Jack: Right, there were lots of other words connected to crime in the roleplay and we look at some of these on the website.

Rich: That’s right. We’ve got more examples and activities so you can practise the language we’ve been looking at in this podcast.

Task

Jack: Your task this week is to tell us about a crime you’ve seen on TV in a crime series or a film.

Rich: Everyone has watched a police drama on TV or a crime thriller or drama at some point.

Jack: We want you to tell us the plot - the story - of the crime, what happened and what were the consequences.

Rich: We’ve got some questions that will help you think of some ideas and to use the vocabulary we’ve been looking at in this podcast.

Jack: What’s the TV show or film? Who are the criminals? What’s the crime?

Rich: Do the criminals get away with the crime? How? Do they go on the run? Where?

Jack: Do they get caught? Do they get punished or do they get let off?

Rich: Don’t forget it’s your job to try and use some of the vocabulary that we used in the roleplay.

Jack: Write all your answers in the comments section on the Premier Skills English website. You’ll find the page for this podcast on the homepage or under skills>listen>podcasts>learning vocabulary: crime.

Football Phrase

Jack: OK, it’s time for this week’s football phrase.

Rich: It’s my turn this week.

Jack: Difficult?

Rich: I think so but I’ve connected it to this week’s topic to make it easier.

Jack: Is it to kill the ball dead.

Rich: No, but that’s a great phrase. It means to control a ball perfectly so it stops as soon as you touch it.

Jack: I know - so let’s hear your criminal football phrase.

Rich: This week’s football phrase is ***** **********. The phrase is used when fans complain about the decisions made by the person in charge of a game of football - usually because decisions don’t go in their team’s favour. The first word in the phrase means bad or dishonest and is quite informal. Fans might say ‘the match was ruined by some ***** **********’ if they think decisions didn’t go their way.

Jack: We also use this word to describe business deals sometimes when they are a bit suspicious and maybe not very honest.

Rich: Right, that’s all we have time for this week! Don’t forget to write your answers to our questions and make a guess at our football phrase in the comments below. If you get it right, we’ll announce your name on next week’s show.

Jack: Before we forget, if you’re still thinking about last week’s football phrase - the answer was the hot seat.

Rich: Bye for now and enjoy your football!