Cultured Learning

Britain’s Andy Murray has made it to the finals of the Australian Open on Sunday, and he’s the first Brit to have done so in 33 years!

Here are some words and phrases that you might hear in the match. So do the exercises below, practise the chants, and get in the mood to cheer on the Scotsman!

1. Tennis players put every effort into winning, and to show that, we often use expressions which describe how they’re playing with their whole soul, heart, or stomach! Can you name three stomach-related phrases which we use in the following situations?

a. He’s very sad.

b. That’s brilliant, fearless play.

c. Is he brave enough to survive?

2. Below are some more phrases you might hear from the commentators in the game. Can you match them to their meanings?

Phrases

A sloppy shot!

A piece of genius!

He’s on fire!

He wallops a forehand

He blasts the ball back.

Neither player is willing to give an inch

That left him scrambling for the ball.

The ball whizzes past him

A brutal back-hand.

Bang on the line

A gruelling match.

What a shot!

Definitions

He could have played that better (2 phrases)

Brilliant play (3 phrases)

The ball moves very fast (4 phrases)

Nobody wants to lose (1 phrase)

Very accurate play (1 phrase)

It’s very hard (1 phrase)

Here are some chants and phrases of encouragement!

• Great Scott! (This is an old-fashioned way of saying “that’s amazing.” But it’s also fun to use here, because Andy Murray is Scottish, and a Scottish person is called ‘a Scott!’
• Come on!
• Let’s go!
• Atta boy! (lit. That’s the way to do it)
• Gone on my son!

We love you Andy, we do

/wiː/ /lʌv/ /jʊ/ /ændi/ /wiː/ /dəʊ/

We love you Andy, we do

We love you Andy, we do

Oh Andy, we love you

/əʊ/ /ændi/ /wiː/ /lʌv/ /juː/

And if you want to get technical, you can think about why the pronunciation of “you changes” in the last line. But we think you’ll be too busy screaming at the T.V to care!

Answers

1. Your ‘gut’ or ‘guts’ is another word for stomach.
   1. He’s gutted
   2. That’s real, gutsy play.
   3. Has he got the guts to come through?

He could have played that better -

A sloppy shot! That left him scrambling for the ball.

Brilliant play -

He’s on fire! What a shot! A piece of genius!

The ball moves very fast

He wallops a forehand The ball whizzes past him He blasts the ball back A brutal back hand.

Nobody wants to lose - Neither player is willing to give an inch

Very accurate play - Bang on the line

It’s very hard - A gruelling match

1. In the first four lines of the chant “love you”, is linked and becomes “luv ya”, but in the final line, “you” is the last word of the whole song, so it needs to be emphasised and pronounce as “you.” So now you know!

Good Luck Andy!

• If a player has no points, it’s called “love”
• The first point a player gets is called “15″
• If a player gets two points, it’s called “30″
• If a player gets three points, it’s called “40″
• If both players get “40″ each, it’s called “Deuce” and a special two extra points are played.
• When one player gets another point after reaching “Deuce”, it’s called “Advantage”, but the game can go back to “Deuce” again if the opponent scored the next point.  The game can go on like this for a long time, but it’s very exciting”