Ginormous
(Sounds of a busy Chinese city)
| Finn: | Hi, I'm Finn, and today in The English We Speak we're in Feifei's home country—China. |
| Feifei: | Welcome, welcome ... what do you think, Finn? |
| Finn: | Well, Feifei, there are so many ... skyscrapers. |
| Feifei: | Lots of tall buildings. Impressive, aren't they? |
| Finn: | Absolutely. Look at that one. It's gigantic! |
| Feifei: | Oh the Jin Mao Tower, yes it's pretty gigantic. |
| Finn: | And this one is really ... enormous! |
| Feifei: | Yes, it is. The Oriental Pearl Tower is enormous. |
| Finn: | And this one is absolutely ... ginormous! |
| Feifei: | Gi ... what? Finn, you just made that word up. |
| Finn: | No, seriously, ginormous is a word! It's very informal, and means, well gigantic and enormous. Kind of a combination of both. |
| Feifei: | Gigantic, enormous—ginormous. And you're right—the World Financial Centre is ginormous! |
| Finn: | Can we go to the top of the tower? |
| Feifei: | Sure. While we take the lift up, listen to these examples. |
| Look at that old mobile phone from the 80s—it's ginormous! | |
| Those carrots are ginormous! |
| Feifei: | Here we are. Wow, what a view! |
| Finn: | It's incredible, isn't it? Do you know how high up we are? |
| Feifei: | Hmmm ... I don't know. Let me guesstimate. |
| Finn: | Guesstimate? |
| Feifei: | Oh, you don't know that word—it's a combination of 'guess' and 'estimate'. |
| Finn: | Aha—I see! So how tall do you think this ginormous tower is? |
| Feifei: | About 500 metres? |
| Finn: | Pretty tall! We're high above all the 'smog'. |
| Feifei: | You mean a combination of smoke and ... ? |
| Finn: | Fog, yes. Actually Feifei, I'm really scared of heights. Shall we go back down? |
| Feifei: | Oh, you really are a ginormous coward Finn! |
| Finn: | Hey, come on, Feifei! Right, let's remind everyone to log on to bbclearningenglish.com for more phrases! Bye. |
| Feifei: | Bye! |
| (Lift announcement: lift going down) |