英语趣味课堂：落网球-Net Ball

Dai: So Naomi, you’re from Wales and you’re eleven. So what does an eleven-year old girl do for fun in Wales?

Naomi: I do music. I play the piano and the violin and I play sports: netball.

Dai: Net ball? What’s that?

Naomi: Yeah, it’s like a basketball a bit, but mostly girls play it. You have to...you have two teams and you have to try and get the ball in each others’ nets.

Dai: Oh OK, so it’s just like basketball. You bounce it around and...

Naomi: Well, you don’t really bounce it that much. You can only bounce it once.

Dai: Oh really?

Naomi: Yeah.

Dai: Oh OK, I see. And you play it indoors then or...?

Naomi: Yeah mostly indoors - in the summer sometimes outdoors.

Dai: Oh OK, sounds good. Yeah so, you can only bounce it once?

Naomi: Yeah, there’s three different passes you can do. One is you use a bounce called “bounce pass” and you can only use a bounce once.

Dai: OK, to pass it to your teammate.

Naomi: Yeah.

Dai: OK, and what are the other passes?

Naomi: There’s “chest pass”.

Dai: And what’s that?

Naomi: It’s just a straight pass from your chest to the other person’s chest.

Dai: Oh OK.

Naomi: And “shoulder pass” which is sort of a lob.

Dai: Like a lob, you throw it over your shoulder kind of thing. And so, it’s just...well like basketball somebody throws it in the net and how many points do you get?

Naomi: It’s one point for every net - every ball that you get in the net.

Dai: Oh OK. and how long is a game of netball?

Naomi: Probably about an hour.

Dai: Oh really? So like half an hour each side or...?

Naomi: Yeah, I think so.

Dai: OK, and how many people are there on a team?

Naomi: Seven.

Dai: Seven?

Naomi: Yeah.

Dai: OK, nice.

Learn Vocabulary from the lesson

mostly

Mostly girls play net ball.

The word 'mostly' is similar in meaning to 'almost all'. Notice the following:

Football is mostly a man's sport.

That restaurant serves mostly chicken.

each other

You try and get the ball in each other's nets.

Here, we use the phrase 'each other' to talk about two teams. Notice the following:

The two teams do not like each other.

We gave each other present for the holidays.

bounce

You bounce the ball around.

When we drop a ball it bounces back up. Notice the following:

You must bounce the ball in basketball.

The ball took a big bounce after I dropped it.

pass

There's three different passes you can do in net ball.

To pass means to quickly give something to someone. In sports we pass to our teammates. Notice the following:

She passed the ball to her teammate.

The most difficult pass in netball is the shoulder pass.

lob

The shoulder pass is sort of a lob.

The word 'lob' means to slowly throw something, usually a ball. Notice the following:

We lobbed the ball to the baby.

When I get home I always lob my keys onto the table.