00:10
Alright, so you have just introduced me to this new New York Times puzzles about 30 seconds ago,
so do you want to explain what that is? I mean, the puzzles are fun, but yeah, this one is like a
new... could it be a new wordle? Yeah, I mean, I guess the answer is no, because I don't know
if it's as popular as wordle, but it hasn't taken off quite far, but and I think it's probably
because, and I mentioned this, right, wordle is shorter, this game doesn't have a time limit,
and also you might end up spending quite a lot of time on there, because there isn't, I guess,
like a clear one answer, there are many. But yeah, so in terms of like sort of this idea of
puzzles, and I think I was connecting it to, you know, we are studying and we're trying to learn
like a language, right, so you're trying to learn English, and you need some repetition to help
embed those words into your brain, but there will be many words and many phrases
that are just difficult to actually access like every day, right? There are words that I do not use.
You just simply don't say, I don't know, anthropomorphize every day. Yeah, I was trying to come up with a
word, and then I felt like if I come up with a word, I will make the word more common than the
words I'm talking about, right? Like the other, it's those other ones in between those words,
right? So yeah, the SAT words, yes, that you never remember, the, you know, not the five dollar
words that you used on high school papers, but the twenty dollar words you try to use to sound smart.
And so, like, if you want to stretch into that, and you want to sort of find different ways to
make words appear to you, like to come up in your brain without having to immediately think about
that word with these phrases, games might work, right? Things that ask you questions that you
aren't going to come across in daily life, or in, that's like the crossword puzzle, right? That's
like one of those, you know, you might get more social, political, popular, relevant stuff in
there. Yeah, crossword puzzle is a classic. Yeah, I suck at those. I think I suck at those mainly
for the lack of my pop culture knowledge. Yeah, yeah, that's, yep, yep, it's a killer.
But like you said, right, there's Wordle, which for anybody who doesn't know, I guess right now
we're talking about New York Times specific puzzles. Yes. There are other puzzles like this,
03:01
you can find them by searching the Google wide web. And the Wordle is super popular as a five
letter, you know, word guessing game, right? You have five or six chances. I wonder if they sort of
by now hit the limit of five letter English word. That's a good question. Like, I mean, how long has
it been going on for three years ish? Yeah, it has. I feel like it started in the middle of COVID,
right? Yeah. Yeah. Because everybody was addicted. So 356 times three. Also isn't that five years?
Oh, has it really been five years? Okay, well, COVID be screwing with my time perception.
But my trusty calculator says that it's 1780 days. So well, that's not nowhere near the limit,
I guess of the five letter word that exists in English language. But it probably covered
at least like the more common ones that people know. Ah, yeah, that word exists. Right? Like,
I think we're getting to the point of like, I have never heard that five letter word before
in my life. And I've lived for 70 years in English environment. Yeah, this I'm wondering,
I'm wondering if they're allowed to repeat. So for example, I did one the other day,
and I won't say what day it was, just in case this spoils it for anyone.
But the answer was harsh, which isn't all that uncommon. Right? Like, but but it's, you know,
maybe it's uncommon in terms of like, I don't know how they chose words, I guess to begin with,
right? Because the other one I found was also brass, which like is not one that you would
usually, you know, hear, like a big brass band, you might hear, you know, if they're playing a
bunch of, you know, brass instruments, but yeah, unless like, you're a welder by profession.
Yeah, exactly. Like, you're maybe not dealing with metals in this way. So there's it's got to
be some of those. But yeah, anyway, so yeah, they've got five letter words. There's some
type of limit. I don't know what it is. They seem to keep going. They also even have a Japanese
version. Really? Okay. Yeah. Well, hell, I guess I should be trying to use that. It's actually
harder to do five letter Japanese words. I feel like it would be. Yeah. Yeah. I think four syllable
Japanese words are way more common than five. Yep. So I don't know if it's five or if it's
four for Japanese or maybe like different number of syllables. But I do remember my colleague
showing me like, did you know that there's a Japanese version? I was like, what? Of course,
06:00
there is. That's so crazy. But what is this other puzzle? Sure. So the other one, which I had just
shown you, is something that could take a little longer. And it's called spelling bee. So it's not
your grammar school spelling competition. No, it is not. It is not your grammar school. It is not
your your regular, you know, school competition for spelling things. However, if you're really
bad at spelling, this could maybe not be the game for you. Same with Wordle. I think it's good
practice. That's precisely why it's a good English practice. Yeah, I think so. So spelling bee,
spelling bee is a game in which you have to attempt to make as many words as possible with
the following rules. So the following rules are that you have one key letter. So it's one letter
that's in the center of this sort of hexagonally shaped grid here. And that one letter, it's colored
yellow, needs to be in the word you make. So it doesn't matter what word you make right now,
but that letter has to be involved in there. It can be involved once or more times, but it has to
be in there. Then around that hexagon shaped, you know, letter pads that you click, if you're on
your phone, you have, was it six? Six, yeah. Six, right? Because that's a hexagon. One in the center.
Yep, with one in the center. So there are six letters around that center letter, and you can use
any but only those letters. So you can use, you know, some of them. You could use all of them.
You could use some of them twice or three times. It doesn't matter. The key part is that that center
one definitely gets used. You can only use the letters that are presented to you. And the word
must be four letters or longer. So you're working in this space of longer words than just and,
and a, and the, right? So yeah. And then you do as many as you can. And the more you get,
you know, it has a little scoring system, but the score is based basically on how many words
are possible from that combination. Right. So yeah, that's it. I've really, I've enjoyed it.
Makes you really grab for words that you don't usually use in order to try and fill out all of
the, you know, the point categories. So if you're looking for sort of like a bite-size way to judge
up your vocabulary game, or you want to kind of get acquainted with words that you don't typically
use in your daily conversations and have fun while doing that. These kinds of word puzzles
09:08
could be a good way to keep in touch with your vocab games. I think. Yep. I think that's exactly
the case. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. So regarding vocab learning though, because I think there are
sort of two stages in English learning where vocab enhancement, when I say vocab, I'm talking
vocabularies. Enhancement is like the key to unlock your next level. And first is like very,
very beginning when you have just learned ABCs, you have like learned how to make like a question
form, uh, commanding, uh, imperatives, like, like things like, like those like super basic
things, things that you've done in maybe chuichi, chuuni, kudai, like present tense, kakoke,
other things like that. And you're not happy just passing in English class. You want to do
like, you want to excel in these English classes. What sets you apart from fellow classmates
is probably how rich your vocabularies are, which is going to come in play when you're writing essays.
And I remember as a student in Japan, uh, flipping through tango, you might've seen
those in your high school when you're teaching high school kids, they have like a little, uh,
flip cards that are like bound with a ring and they flip around to like front is English word.
The back is Japanese meaning, or maybe sometimes English definitions on it. And then, you know,
go back and forth with it. Um, I remember doing that myself. Uh, I think it helped me
to a certain level, like, because I think, um, you do need to start somewhere, right? Like you need to,
there's only so many different kinds of words that your textbook is going to expose you to. And,
um, if you want to do better than your textbooks, you need to find words elsewhere. And,
and, um, so that's, that's like, that's your level one. You are comfortable with your basic English
sentence construction skills and you want to up your game. Um, so, so that's when you sort of need
12:01
a vocab enhancement. And the second time is, uh, for me personally, that's it for the show today.
Thanks for listening and find us on X at Eigo de Science. That is E-I-G-O-D-E-S-C-I-E-N-C.
See you next time!
