Daily Dose of English 40
Windows
Daily Dose of English 40
Intermediate
Hey everybody, my name is Ben and you're listening to a Daily Dose of English. This is a short, simple podcast that you can listen to every day to improve your English. You can find the transcripts for all episodes and more on benslanguagelab.com. I'm glad you could make it today. In this episode, we're going to be talking about Windows. And when I wrote this topic down, I was actually thinking of windows that like look outside. So they're made of glass, right? And they're in your house or your apartment or your car or kind of any building, they have windows. But Windows is also the name of a very popular operating system or computer interface. Windows, like Windows 10, Windows 11. Most of you probably use Windows on your computer. And I want to really quickly talk about that just because I don't like windows. I find it so annoying and it's really difficult to work with. And if you also agree, I recommend that. Okay. Not necessarily. If you also don't like windows and. you are interested in trying something else out, look into Linux. That's all I'm going to say. It could also be a really fun activity to try doing in English because there's a lot of good content out there on Linux in English. And so it might be something that you would enjoy. However, I'm going to go back to the main topic of today, which is windows that like look outside of your house. Because windows are really important to living in a lot of ways. And it's another one of those topics that I think is sort of interesting to talk about, even though we don't really usually think about it. Because windows give us a look out into the real world, into nature in a way. They let us see what's happening outside and make a space feel bigger. I've lived places that don't have a ton of windows, and it's not very nice. I don't know if you also live somewhere with maybe one or zero windows, especially maybe a bedroom or something, and it's just a worse experience, right? You don't feel like you're connected to the outside. You don't have maybe fresh air. You can't open the window to get air inside, and it's darker. And I think that's the biggest thing that I really like about Windows is the light, excuse me. The natural light is often what we call it in like an apartment or a house. An apartment or a house has a lot of natural light. And that natural light is just really good for your space, your home feeling homey or feeling more like an inviting space to be. And I really experienced that with my old apartment because there were some windows in there was, I guess there was a window in the living room. However, it didn't really look out into anything. It looked out into the building. And so there was not really very much a light that came in. And so a lot of the light in basically my entire apartment was coming from lights, right? Like, uh, like bulbs that I, I, I put there. And it's a very different experience, right? You feel less connected to the world in a lot of ways because if it's early, right, it's the same lightness as if it's late in the evening or during the day, right? It's all the same. And so it's really important, I think, in my opinion, for a place that you live to feel inviting and happy and like a place that you wanna be. And so in that sense, windows are really important. Windows are also important because they let in or they don't let in sound. Because it's really common for walls to be relatively good at blocking sound because they're thick, right? Walls are often made of concrete, wood, lots of different kinds of things, whatever it might be. But it's a lot harder for sound to get through them, to penetrate them. However, a lot of windows are really, really thin or flimsy and sound can get in really, really easily. Especially here, lots and lots of windows are super thin and you can hear everything that's happening outside. However, in the past, probably a couple of decades, it's been more popular to have double paned or triple paned windows that also have some sort of insulation in them which helps the heat not escape, but also helps the sound not come in. And I'm pretty lucky that this place that I live now has one of those really nice windows that has a lot of sound blocking. Actually, I think it's a German design, which are the German windows are really nice and big first off, typically. They have a lot of that double pane, so a glass pane is one like sheet of glass. And so they've got like a triple pane, I think, or double pane, I'm not really sure exactly. But the sound doesn't get in, and it has a handle that goes, you can put the handle to the bottom, to the side, or facing upwards, or pointing upwards. And depending on where it is, it's a different sort of lock point. And so upwards, you can open just the top of the window, and that's really nice because you can let in a little bit of breeze, but the window is still mostly closed. If it's to the side, you can open the entire window. It sort of swings towards you like a fridge door might, like if you open your fridge. And when it's down, it's totally locked and silent, right? Sealed is the key part there. And so those windows are super nice, but they're also pretty expensive. And so I'm really glad that this place has one and I didn't have to pay for it. It was already here. But I'm a huge fan of those windows. I know they're fairly simple. It's a window, right? And so to a lot of people, it's like, okay, it's a window. What do you care? But I'm just a really big fan of those windows because they're nice. But yeah, I think a lot of newer constructions in at least the United States have those windows because they're also efficient. And as energy prices and go up and we're trying to be more careful with the planet, right? You want to have more efficient homes, right? Because if you're trying to heat your home or cool your home, if the outside world is doing the opposite, you're just losing money, essentially losing energy, losing money, losing effort to heat or cool a home. And so a lot of new construction has those nice windows nowadays. But there's lots of different kinds of windows, right? Cars also have windows, and those are made of a completely different material. They're often, in English, it's often called safety glass, which is a special type of glass that is really, really resistant. It's really hard. It's hard to break. But when it does break, it completely shatters into tiny little pieces that aren't sharp. And that's actually something that a lot of people don't kind of notice. But it's, you see it all the time, right? If you see broken car glass on the ground, right? It's in tiny little pieces because that's how it's made. It's actually pretty interesting to see a slow-mo video of a car window breaking because they're, like I said, they're really, really resistant. But then what happens is when a lot of pressure is applied to a small, small point, it causes a chain reaction in the glass. I don't really know how it works, but it causes a chain reaction that just shatters the entire thing. And the entire window will break in like a fraction of a second. It's so, so fast. Everything turns to tiny little pieces and then just falls to the ground. And it's, it's really, really, um, and it's just such a cool thing to see because. To us, it looks like normal glass, right? If you look out your windshield or you look out your window of your car, it looks just normal, but it functions totally differently, right? Cause, uh, glasses like, uh, that you drink out of are also made of glass, but they shatter in a totally different way. They're sharp and they look different, um, when it's broken and it can make really, really tiny pieces. and big pieces, all sorts of different kinds of pieces, rather than just uniform, small shattering, which is, I guess, an interesting thing. I'm not sure if anybody else cares. But there's all sorts of different kinds of windows. Airplanes have windows as well. Those are typically made of a plastic, not actually made of glass. There's little windows on all sorts of different things as well. Let me think of another place that has windows. Or like I said, in big buildings also have windows, so they're not necessarily in your apartment or house or in your car, but buildings can almost be made of windows. I'm not saying this very well. But I'm thinking of like the really tall buildings that have a ton of windows in them. The windows are all huge. Those sort of count as a window. And those are also made very differently because they have to be super resistant, right? They can't break just from being hit by the wind and the elements because they're up in the sky. And so those are thicker and they have different properties and all sorts of things. I don't know a ton about them, but they look really impressive on big buildings. However, I think I'm going to stop talking about Windows now. I don't really have a ton else to add other than the fact that I really like those German windows. So let me know down in the comments if you also are a fan of Windows or if you have any or you wish that you had more Windows or Maybe less windows. Is it, are they too noisy, too windy, or are they broken? Let me know what kind of windows you have in your life, but that's everything for today. I really appreciate you hanging out and listening to this episode and I'm going to see you again tomorrow for the next episode. All right. Have a good one. Bye bye.
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