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The English we speak from BBCLearningEnglish.com welcome to the English We Speak.
I'm Fei Fei and hello, I'm Rob.
Hey, Fei Fei, listen to this.
Ok, interesting.
Has your ready meal finished cooking in the microwave?
Well, yes actually, but I wanted you to name that sound.
Erm, well, it's a ping sound.
Obvs.
So what's that got to do with today's piece of authentic English?
Well, we can use the word ping to describe something else.
I know that, Rob.
Ping is a short, sharp sound like a microwave makes to alert you that the food in it is cooked.
But the word ping is also an informal way of describing sending an email or a text message.
So if I ping you an email, I basically send you an email?
Exactly.
And.
Oh, someone's pinged me a text message.
It says, let's have some examples.