Using English at Work：33 Having Computer Problems(5)（在线收听）

The computer sometimes stops working for no reason, but the computer tech always makes me feel guilty, as if I had done something to break the computer.

When the computer tech arrives, she sits down at my computer, meaning that she sits on a chair in front of my computer, and asks me a lot of questions to find out what the problem is.

I tell her about the problems I had and she asks if I had any problems while working on my word processing program.

A "word processing program" is a type of computer software that lets you make written documents by control the size, the style, and the color of the text among other things.

Microsoft Word is the word processing program that most people use, in the United States anyway.

I say that everything was fine when I was working with the word processing program, but that I did have some trouble formatting one of my files.

"To format" means to change the appearance of a document, usually by changing the spacing between the lines, or changing the size and style of the text, perhaps adding a border or a line around the paper.

For the first page of the report, some people like to format the title so that it's in the middle of the page, for example.

I was formatting my report when I started having computer problems.

Next, I got an error message.

An "error message" is a short message that appears on your computer screen when something has gone wrong, or when the computer is no longer working properly.

"Error" means mistake; in this case, there's some problem with the computer.

Sometimes error messages say things like "A fatal (or deadly) error has occurred," and then when you click "OK" the program shuts down and you lose whatever document you were working on.

"To shut down" means to close down, to no longer be operating on your computer.

The opposite would be "to open up a program."

This time, I got an error message while working on my spreadsheet program.

A "spreadsheet program" is a type of computer program that lets you enter numbers and perform calculations, such as adding, subtracting, and other math formulas.