Technology, Devices and the Internet

Technology vocabulary changes fast, but a stable core covers almost every everyday situation, and the verbs matter more than the nouns.

Devices

laptop · desktop · tablet · smartphone · charger · cable · screen · keyboard · mouse · headphones · printer · router

The verbs that do the work

• turn on / off · switch on / off — power
• plug in / unplug — physical connection
• charge — My phone's charging. / The battery's dead.
• log in / log out — accounts (also sign in / sign out)
• download / upload — bring in / send out
• install / uninstall / update
• back up — copy for safety
• restart / reboot — the universal first fix
• crash / freeze — it stops working / it stops responding

Online

account · password · username · two-factor authentication · Wi-Fi · connection · browser · tab · link · attachment · cloud · storage · notification · settings · privacy

• What's the Wi-Fi password?
• I've lost the connection.
• Could you send it as an attachment?
• It's in the cloud.
• I'm running out of storage.

When things go wrong

• It's not responding.
• It's frozen.
• The app keeps crashing.
• It won't connect. (won't = refuses to)
• I'm getting an error message.
• Have you tried turning it off and on again?

"It won't start" is the natural way to say a device refuses to work — won't here means refusal, not future.

Talking about problems precisely

Vague: It doesn't work. Better: It turns on, but the screen stays black.

Naming what does work narrows the problem far faster, and in a technical conversation it is the difference between a useful report and a useless one.

Test yourself

The quiz below is mostly the verbs.