 Today's Trending Topics from eslgold.com Now you can be part of the conversation. We're here to help you. Know what to talk about. Understand what people are saying. Bring your speaking skills to the next level. Okay, let's get started. What's everybody talking about these days? What's trending? What do you need to know about the topic? What do you want to say about it? How do you say it? Ready? Today's topic is... Da-da-da-da! Smart Speaker Who? What? How? What is it? A smart speaker is a device that plays your favorite music, provides answers from verbally introduced questions, and controls parts of your home using a built-in virtual assistant feature. Smart Speaker expands what we normally think of as a music playback system, from LifeWire.com. A famous brand of Smart Speaker is the Echo Dot from Amazon.com. Let's dig a little deeper. Vocabulary words you need to know to talk about this topic. Speaker This is the electronic sense. Smart also in the electronic sense. Device Features. These are special characteristics. Voice control or voice controlled. Command or commands. Virtual or digital assistant. Music playback. Stream or streaming. Wirelessly. Built in as part of the device. Let's learn more about these words. The word speaker has many meanings. A speaker can be a person who is talking. That's not what this means. A speaker here is an electronic device that supplies and amplifies sound. Speakers usually come in pairs. They're connected to other devices by cables or wires. Smart speakers can interact wirelessly or without wires with other smart devices. A device is an object, tool, or machine that performs a special function. What's special about smart speakers? Voice control. This means that you can activate the device by talking. Command means that you tell it what to do and it will perform the task. Command can also be used as a noun. It's something you say. In that way, it is a virtual assistant. Virtual means almost or not 100%. Even though it's not 100% real, it can perform functions that a real person, machine, or system might do. It's also called a digital assistant. Some famous brands are Alexa, Siri, and Cortana. Music playback and streaming. In the olden days, when you wanted to hear a song, you could buy the CD or recording and play it back on your home device or player whenever you wanted. That was quite expensive because you had to purchase the song or songs in a particular format and a machine to play them on. You could also wait for a radio station to play the songs and listen to them for free but you had little control over when and how the songs were played. With streaming, you don't have to purchase a stored recording of the song. The songs are held elsewhere and you access them one by one through an online service which sends or streams them to your device in real time. Think of a river or a stream that flows and brings you, in this case, information or music or media. Your turn. Let's have a conversation. Ready to talk about this? Here's a sample conversation. Guess what? I just got a new Apazot smart speaker. That's great! What does it do? Well, it streams music. I just tell it what songs I want to hear and it plays them. Wow! How do you activate it? It's voice controlled. It's a virtual assistant that follows my every command. What other features does this miracle machine have? It tells me the information I need and it has built-in functions to control the temperature and connect wirelessly to other smart devices around the house. Maybe I should get one. Okay, Spalexa, get my friend an Apazot. Watch your credit card number. Hey, now wait a minute. Make your own conversations about smart speakers and other electronic devices. Use some of the new words you've learned. Also, here are some phrases you can use to get you started. If we want to talk about a certain topic, sometimes we start the conversation with the phrase, guess what? This means I have something interesting to tell you. Normally, another person might say, what? Tell me. They don't always say that. Sometimes you just tell them the information. I just got a new device, whatever that machine or device is. Really? That's great! That's wonderful! That's amazing! What does it do? What can you do with it? Well, I can or it can. So this is a good way to start a conversation and continue it with your partner. It's your turn to practice. Talk to a partner, pretend you just got a new device and tell them about it. Pause the video and take as much time as you'd like to practice this. Conversation 2 Pretend you just purchased a new electronic device. Describe the device and its features to a group of friends. Convince them that they should buy one. For example, let me show you or tell you about my new device. Tell about what it does. Tell about some of the functions. It has tell about special features. It comes with tell about built-in elements of the device. Then another person might say, what about this? Or what about this particular feature? And then you respond to questions about your new device. Another person might ask information questions. Where? Why? How? Respond to them with more information. Feel free to pause the video and practice having a conversation with your friend or friends about an electronic device. Talk more about electronic devices. Take as much time as you'd like. Show and tell something about your device. Or just talk about a device that you're thinking about buying. Go ahead. Use some of the conversation strategies and vocabulary that you just learned. Have fun and talk for as much time as you'd like. Hope that was helpful. Remember to review the words and phrases you learned from this video. And if you liked this, give us a thumbs up in the comments section below. Don't forget to subscribe to our channel. Check out the links below for more information about these types of products. Thanks for watching. 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