Sam: I'm Sam.
Neil: And I'm Neil.
Sam: It's nice to see you, Neil, [smiley face], [high five], [fist bump]!
Neil: What's this, Sam?
Are you saying hello with... emojis?!
Sam: Yes, I am!
In this programme, we're entering the world of emojis –
the small characters people use to show emotions in texts and emails.
Do you have a favourite emoji, Neil?
Mine's the [crying tears of laughter] emoji.
Neil: I like the [smiling face with hearts] one,
and with over three thousand emojis to choose from,
there's one for every occasion.
It's one of the reasons why emojis have become so popular over the last twenty years –
they let people put back some of the human emotion that's missing in written texts and emails.
Sam: We'll be finding out more about emojis,
and learning some related vocabulary, soon...
but first I have a question for you, Neil.
It's about the word 'emoji' itself,
which was invented in 1999 in Japan for the first internet-enabled mobile phones.