This is What’s Trending Today…
Apple’s virtual assistant, named Siri, can do all sorts of cool things.
She can help you search for a contact. She can look up Donald Trump’s biography on Wikipedia. She can play a sample of the songs on the top of the charts.
But did you know she can beatbox?
Beatboxing is what people do when they provide the background sounds for rap songs using only their mouths.
In the early days of rap, before people had special equipment, beatboxing was one of the only ways to create a good background track for a song.
Some people became famous for their ability to beatbox. There’s even a world championship of beatboxing.
Here are actor Will Smith and comedian Jimmy Fallon doing a beatbox skit.
So if you ask Siri if she knows how to beatbox, you might be surprised at the answer.
She says “here’s one I’ve been practicing.”
The she goes on to say “boots and cats and boots and cats and boots and cats and boots.”
That is because an easy way to learn how to beatbox is by repeating those words quickly, and close together.
Here is a YouTube video where a girl named Mya explains.
Maybe Siri learned from her?
The beatboxing trick was one of the trending topics on Facebook today after the website Mashable posted about it.
And lots of people got a kick out of trying it.
If you have an iPhone, try it out. Let us know what happens!
And that’s What’s Trending Today.
I’m Dan Friedell.
Dan Friedell wrote this story for Learning English. Kathleen Struck was the editor.
What happened when you asked Siri if she knew how to beatbox? We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.
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Words in This Story
beatbox – v. to use only sounds from your mouth to make the background sounds for a song
biography – n. the story of a real person's life written by someone other than that person
