English Listening Practice: British English Podcast - Common Cold Vocabulary

You are listening to the English Like a Native Podcast,

a podcast for intermediate and advanced English language learners.

My name is Anna, and I'm not very well today, so I'm going to be teaching

you how we talk about having a cold.

Hello, welcome back to the podcast.

This is the podcast that's designed for lovers and learners

of the English language.

I'm your host, Anna and I am very, very groggy.

Today we're learning all about cold vocabulary.

Hello everyone.

You might be wondering what's going on with my voice.

Maybe you haven't noticed a difference in my voice, which is great, but if

you are wondering whether I'm wearing a peg on my nose, then the answer is no.

I'm not wearing a peg on my nose.

I do in fact have a cold.

I have a cold.

I'm not feeling very well, so I thought that this would be a perfect

opportunity for me to talk to you about describing common symptoms

associated with the common cold.

A cold is a virus or one of many viruses, and it's something that many of us

experience multiple times per year.

I can't remember the exact statistic, but I did see something that said the average

person will suffer with a cold, something like three or four times per year.

So, it's something we all suffer with and we all have to discuss in one form

or another, whether you are telling your friends or your partner how you

feel, whether you are explaining to a doctor how you're feeling or to

your boss because you need some time off work because you feel so bad.

Or if you are visiting the pharmacy and you're talking to the pharmacist

and you're in desperate need of some medicine to make you feel better, and

you're trying to describe what your symptoms are so that you can get the

right medicine to treat your cold.

So, rather than spend ages doing another podcast with a very strange voice, I'm

doing the Common Cold Vocabulary Podcast.

Okay?

So I have a cold, I'm suffering at the moment with quite a heavy cold.

Now we use heavy to describe a cold that's quite bad.

You could say I've got quite a bad cold or a heavy cold.

I don't know why we use heavy.

I guess that's because how you feel when the cold is bad.

It makes you feel quite heavy in your head and in your body.

It's like weighing you down, "Oh, I've got a cold."

So, I have quite a heavy cold at the moment.

And I can also say when it's bad that I am full of a cold, I'm full

of a cold, and this would suggest that the cold is affecting me from

my head all the way down to the tips of my toes, which is not the case.

A cold tends to affect you from your head down to your lungs, and then after that...

or sometimes a cold, I guess, can affect your digestive system, which would go a

little lower, but that tends to be it.

So, saying I'm full of a cold is unusual.

It's a metaphorical way of saying that my cold is really bad.

It's affecting me so much.

I'm full of it.

This got me thinking about the phrase to be full of something.

So, here I'm going to digress slightly away from colds and illnesses because to

say you are full of something, this is used in a handful of circumstances, you

could say that you are full of beans.

To be full of beans.

This is an idiom that means you are full of energy as if beans are bouncy

and energetic, which is unusual.

Are beans bouncy and energetic?

I don't think I've ever seen a bean bounce.

In fact, if you dropped a bean on the floor, I don't think it would bounce.

Maybe that's something I need to test out, but to be full of

beans is to be full of energy.

I could say that when I woke up on Sunday morning after a full night's

sleep, and I opened the curtains to see that the sun was shining, I felt full

of beans and ready to start my day.

Or I might say that Jacob is going to have a great day today because when I saw

him in the morning, he was full of beans.

So, I'm sure he's gonna have a great day and he's really excited about the birthday

party that he's going to this afternoon.

He's full of beans.

You'd also use full of to describe your general energy levels in a different way.

So, you could say full of beans, or literally full of energy.

"Oh, since, since cutting out sugar, I'm just full of energy.

Since improving my diet, I'm now full of energy.

When I get lots of sleep, I wake up full of energy."

You could also say that you're full of enthusiasm for something.

So, if you are very motivated and enthusiastic about something, then you

could say you are full of enthusiasm.

Sometimes we use this sarcastically because in the UK we do have quite a

sarcastic sense of humour which is where we say things that we don't really mean.

And so if I say to you, "Hey, I've planned a really awesome weekend.

We're going to go swimming and then we're gonna go hiking, we're

gonna go for a picnic and we're gonna end it with horse riding.

It's gonna be amazing."

And you say, "Uh, sounds really exciting."

Then I'd respond with, "Oh, you are full of enthusiasm".

Which obviously you are not, but I say it in a sarcastic way.

Huh, you are full of enthusiasm.

Okay?

So full of beans, full of energy, full of enthusiasm.

You can also use this in a much more negative way and say that

someone is full of themselves.

So, to be full of yourself is to be like in love with yourself full of arrogance

and full of your own self importance.

So, you think that you are important and special and that everything you have

to say is valuable to everybody else.

We all know someone like that, don't we?

Someone who is full of themselves.

These people often aren't very well accepted in society, these people,

I don't know, maybe they are.

Anyway, to be full of yourself is just to think that you are wonderful.

So, you wouldn't really say that about yourself, that you are full of yourself.

So, I wouldn't say I'm full of myself.

Look at me.

I'm full of myself because I'm just putting myself down.

That doesn't really work.

But you would say it's about someone else who's being very arrogant.

So, if someone stands up in front of a room of strangers and

they stand up and go, "Hey guys.

Um, so my name is Anna and I'm really beautiful.

And I'm really clever.

I got a first in my degree and I'm really popular.

Everyone likes me and if you want to follow me on social media, you

can follow me because everyone else does, so you should too.

And I can teach you a thing or two about everything because I

know everything about everything."

Then everyone might think, "Oh, she is full of herself.

I don't think I'll be following her on social media.

She loves herself."

Okay, so to be full of yourself.

One that I didn't mention, and that's because it's not used as often,

but you might see it in creative writing, is to be full of woe.

So, this is kind of along the lines of being full of emotion.

So, being full of energy and enthusiasm.

You can be full of woe.

Woe is an older word that means sadness.

So if you're full of woe, you're full of sadness.

It's not something that I would say.

I wouldn't say to my partner, "Oh, Jacob was full of woe today."

It's a bit too poetic, but you will see it within poetry and within

literature to be full of woe.

In fact, every time I say full of woe, I get this little

niggle of a memory of a poem.

Poem, a poem that I used to hear over and over again, like maybe it's a A.A

Milne poem and I can't think what it is.

Oh, it's the child one.

So, Monday's child is full of grace.

Tuesday's child is fair of face.

Wednesday's child is full of woe,

Thursday's child has far to go

And it carries on like that.

I won't do the whole poem in case I get done for copyright, but yes.

There you go.

There's an example of it being used in literature that's quite a common poem.

I think it's called Sunday's Child.

Sunday's Child.

Look it up.

It's a nice poem.

Right.

So, to be full of woe and to be full of...

now this is a rude one and this is the last one.

If there are small children around, don't worry because I'm not going to say

the word, it's S-H-I-T to be full of.

If you are full of S H I T, then you are talking nonsense or you are telling

lies, or you are talking as if you know something when really you don't.

So, you are spouting off a whole bunch of facts that aren't actually based in truth.

So, if I say to you, "Oh yes, I'm a mechanic.

I know how to fix your car.

You just take a dumbbell and you bang the dumbbell against the engine.

Give it a few knocks.

If you don't have a dumbbell, use a hammer.

Just bash it a few times.

Oh, and instead of petrol, maybe try using cooking oil in your petrol tank.

That'll do the world of good to your car.

Yeah.

Yeah. Do that."

Then I am full of sh** I do not know what I'm talking about,

but I'm talking as if I do know.

Okay.

So, again, not a pleasant phrase, but a very common phrase.

Sometimes people would use that phrase with that meaning,

but not say the rude word.

Sometimes they say he's full of it.

"Oh, he's full of it.

Just ignore him.

He's full of it."

Okay.

Bringing it back to having a cold and being poorly.

So, let me have a look.

I'm just gonna bring my notes up to where I can see them.

Okay, so how do you feel when you have a cold?

Well, for me, with this particular cold, I feel very congested.

Congested.

Congested is a word that you will hear related to health,

but also related to traffic.

This could be vehicle-based traffic or people traffic.

So if there is a road or a walkway that's full and people can't really get to

where they need to go because everyone's in the way, then that is congestion.

Oh, hang on, I can't breathe, huh.

So, if it's a busy time for the roads, like between 4:00 PM and 6:00 PM when

everyone's leaving work, that would be a time of congestion on the roads.

So, you wouldn't want to drive in Central London around five o'clock

in the afternoon because there's going to be a lot of congestion.

You won't be able to move freely.

And if you are within a university building around the time when all

the class is empty or when everyone's going to class, then there's

going to be lots of congestion.

Excuse me, I'm just going to wipe my nose.

Because my nose is running.

We'll come back to that.

Oh it's a bit tickly now as well.

Right.

So, congestion, when we talk about congestion in our face, in our

nose, we have a congested nose.

Then we're talking about our nose being blocked, our airway being blocked.

We can't breathe easily through our nose because the airway is blocked,

either because of inflammation or because there's a lot of mucus.

Now we tend to just talk about the mucus in a more gross way.

We use the word snot more often.

You could say, "I'm quite snotty."

Oh, I'm quite snotty at the moment, although that feels to me like

that's a word that we use more with children than anything else.

So we rarely say the word mucus.

That's the technical term.

We would use the word snotty, although you can say that someone is snotty

to refer to an unpleasant manner.

So if you always see me in the morning and we always say, "Hey, how are you?"

"I'm good, thanks.

How are you?

You going to work?"

"Yeah."

"Anything interesting happening today?"

"No, not really."

"Oh, well it was lovely to see you."

"And you!"

"Right.

Take care.

Bye."

But then one morning you arrive and I see you and I say, "What do you want?"

"Oh, nothing.

Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine.

Just leave me alone.

"All right, just, I'll just sit down here."

"Well, can you not sit next to me please?

I just need some space.

Can you just go away?"

"Okay, fine."

Then that manner is very inappropriate.

It's unpleasant, you could say, "Anna was a bit snotty this morning.

Anna was quite snotty with me this morning."

And that has nothing to do with mucus that has everything to

do with an unpleasant manner.

So, be careful how you use that word.

So, to be snotty, what we would normally say is, I'm congested.

When I'm talking about the mucus in our nose, I'm quite congested.

Or you might say, I'm bunged up.

I feel quite bunged up.

A bung.

B-U-N-G.

A bung is something that blocks a hole.

So if you have, for example, a plug is a kind of bung, you bung a plug into

the plug hole to stop the water going down the sink or out of the bathtub.

So a bung, but we talk about being bunged up when we are congested in our

nose, when mucus is preventing our air to flow freely through our airways.

And right now I'm quite bunged up.

Particularly, in my sinuses.

So, your sinuses are the kind of air-filled cavities.

I always think of them as little tubes, but they're cavities that run

on either side of your nose and go under your eyes, kind of in that area.

So, when you are bunged up, you might get pain in your sinuses.

So, pain underneath the eyes, maybe more on one side than the

other, or equally on both sides.

And that's quite a specific pain.

Sometimes you get an infection in your sinuses, so you might need to go

to the pharmacist or the doctor and say, "I've got a lot of pain in my

sinuses, or I feel quite congested, and my sinuses feel blocked."

And then they will give you a decongestant, something to remove the

congestion, to take down inflammation and help to open up your airways again.

Or if you've got sinusitis, if you've got an infection in your sinuses,

you'll need some stronger medicine to help reduce that infection.

Okay, so if you do have congestion, your nose is blocked, then you

might be sniffing quite a lot.

That's a sniff.

Also, this is a sniff, so you might sniff a flower.

Or I might sniff myself.

Oh, I smell quite bad.

I think I need to put on some deodorant.

Oh, ugh, woo-fee!

I don't smell bad, at least I don't think I smell bad.

I can't smell anything.

I've lost my sense of smell because I'm so bunged up.

But we sniff things, to sniff is the same as to smell, but sniff describes

more the action, the short, sharp...

We sniff when we cry as well, don't we?

When we're upset, you might just hear someone sniffling.

Whimpering and sniffling.

So we play with this word a lot to sniff, to have the sniffles, to be sniffly.

Sometimes you might hear snuffly, have the snuffles.

It's very unusual, but it just means that you are doing this quite a lot.

I'm a bit sniffly and I'm sneezing a lot as well.

To sneeze.

Now, if you should, if you sneeze, you should use a hanky or a tissue,

and with that hanky or tissue you are going to wipe or blow your nose.

If you wipe your nose a lot, if you blow your nose a lot, then you can often

aggravate the skin around the nose.

So sometimes you get a very red sore nose from all the sniffing and wiping

and blowing and it helps to put Vaseline on your skin, around your nose to

protect these little holes in your nose by the way, are called nostrils.

So you have two nostrils.

So yes, we blow our nose and funnily enough, my eldest son

Jacob cannot blow his nose.

He hasn't yet worked out the skill of blowing your nose.

He doesn't know how to blow air down one nostril, while holding the other

one closed and closing his mouth so the air doesn't come through his mouth.

We, we are trying to teach him how to blow his nose, but he

really struggles with the idea.

It just hasn't clicked yet.

He just hasn't cottoned on with how it works.

He'll get there.

But yes, blowing your nose, especially if your nose is runny.

If your nose is running, when the mucus dribbles down your face.

Ooh, yuck!

You have to get a tissue quick and wipe it away, and then blow your

nose to remove all the excess mucus.

There's nothing worse than having a runny nose, especially when you are

at work and having to talk to people.

Now, the congestion might also give you what is a very common

symptom of a cold, a headache.

A headache.

Now we'll often talk about where we feel the headache.

Sometimes you might say, I've got a headache above the eyes, across my

forehead, or I've got pain in my temples.

Which are the soft bits at the side of your head, either side of on

the outsides of your eyes, those soft little areas, your temples.

The areas like between your eyes and your ears.

I'm just thinking about those people listening might not understand what

I mean, but between the outside of your eye and your ear, there's this

soft little bit that's your temple.

We often rub our temples if we're feeling stressed or if we have a

headache, we tend to rub the temple.

You might have a headache all over, or sometimes I'll describe a headache as

being like a band around my head because I feel this tightness all the way around.

If you have horrendous headaches, really bad headaches, then you

might describe that as a migraine.

The kind of headache that stops you from functioning, that puts you to

bed where you can't even lift your head because it's just so bad where

you can't see sometimes because it's so bad that makes you feel sick.

That's a migraine.

And I hope that's not something you suffer with very often because it's

an awful thing to have migraines.

Okay, so we've talked about the head a lot.

Now we're gonna move down.

So often our throat is affected when we have a cold.

You may have a sore throat.

In fact, I start with a sore throat.

Often I know that I'm going to get a cold if I start with a pain in my throat.

You can also see when you look in the mirror that your

throat might be quite red.

Or inflamed, it might feel a bit swollen and tender.

The pain feeling sometimes is described as a scratchy feeling.

So, you could say, I've got a scratchy feeling in my throat.

When you feel like you've cut the back of your throat, like someone has

scratched the back of your throat, then you have a scratchy feeling.

Sometimes the pain's only there when you swallow, so you'd say,

I have a pain when I swallow.

My throat hurts when I swallow.

Now a sore throat may be worse if you have swollen tonsils.

I don't have tonsils anymore.

Many people have their tonsils removed if they suffer with

swollen tonsils on a regular basis.

I had my tonsils out when I was four because I kept getting tonsillitis,

which is infection in the tonsils.

However, I do feel like maybe some of the tissue from my tonsils was

left in my throat, like some remains in my throat because when I do get

a sore throat, I get these little swellings always in the same place,

just little lumps, and it really hurts.

And so I think perhaps that's tonsil tissue, but I don't know.

I'm not a doctor.

So if you do have swollen tonsils, you may have tonsillitis,

which can lead to laryngitis.

It could lead to you losing your voice and getting laryngitis, which is an

infection in the larynx, your voice box.

You might also lose your voice because you are coughing a lot.

This is always my concern when I'm suffering with a cold,

especially if it involves a cough.

Am I going to lose my voice?

Because when you cough, it makes your larynx or your vocal folds

swell, which impacts your voice.

So, with a cough, you might have a pain in your chest or a heaviness

on your chest, feeling like there's a weight on your chest.

Your chest might be tight.

So we talk about having a tight chest when you breathe, but it's hard to breathe.

If you have a cough, we can describe it in multiple ways.

You might say, I've got a chesty cough.

That's when your cough...

how would you describe a chesty cough, when it rattles in your chest when you

cough, rather than just being a throaty...

that's a throaty cough.

Yeah.

That's more of a chesty cough.

I don't know if you could hear that difference.

We talk about having a dry cough, and that's when there's no movement of mucus.

You're just coughing.

It's more throaty.

Whereas if there's a movement of mucus when you cough, we'd

call that a phlegmy cough.

Or you might say, I'm coughing up phlegm.

If your cough produces mucus.

Which is a bit gross.

Also, phlegm has got a really unusual spelling, if I'm correct, it's

spelled P-H-L-E-G-M, when really it should just be spelled F-L-E-M.

That would be sensible, wouldn't it?

But no, a lot of medical terms are quite difficult to write, so you might

have a mucusy cough or a phlegmy cough, and some people will have a wheeze.

Or a wheezy cough to wheeze is this kind of extended escape of air sound.

It sounds like this...

So, if you're coughing...

Yeah.

Oh gosh. That's made me lightheaded.

Oh gosh.

Woo.

If you have a wheezy cough, it might be because you've got asthma,

oh, I'm really lightheaded now.

It may be asthma-related or it might just be the type of infection that you've got

is causing you to have a wheezy cough.

Now sometimes you feel the cough coming and it tickles you in your

throat or it tickles your chest.

And if it's not an appropriate time for you to cough, you might

try and suppress that cough.

You might try and swallow the tickle.

Oh, I've got a bit of a tickle in my throat.

Hang on.

I just need to have a drink of water because I've got a tickle.

But if you suppress that cough for too long.

You suppress that tickle, then it could end up leading to a coughing fit where

you've suppressed it, suppressed it, suppressed it, and then it just explodes

and people often go red, I start sweating and you're just coughing uncontrollably.

That is a coughing fit.

A fit in medical terms is usually a spasm or what's the word?

A seizure.

A seizure, it came to me a seizure.

So in medical terms, a fit would be a seizure.

So if you say I had a fit in medical terms, you'd often hear I had a seizure.

You wouldn't say I had a coughing seizure, because it's not really a seizure,

it's just uncontrollable coughing.

So we'd say a coughing fit.

The last symptom that you are likely to experience when you have a cold

is to be quite tired, but not in a way where you need to go to sleep.

Just that you are lacking energy.

A great word to describe this lack of energy is to be lethargic.

To be lethargic.

I feel lethargic or I am quite lethargic.

Okay, so to be lethargic is to lack energy to do things.

And yesterday I was really lethargic.

I really struggled to function and perform my basic tasks because

of how my cold was affecting me.

And last night I had a lot of trouble sleeping.

I couldn't fall asleep because I was too warm.

I had this pressure in my head, I had a headache, the congestion in my face

was making it hard to breathe and it was just very difficult for me to nod off.

Okay.

All right.

So what I'm gonna do now is give you how many, five nice phrases,

nice common phrases that you might use to describe how you are feeling

when you're feeling a bit rough.

Apart from the first one, which just describes that kind, of

kind of catch in your throat.

So if you start speaking and you're a bit croaky and you need to cough, to

clear away that mucus or whatever it is that's affecting your voice, that's

called having a frog in your throat.

Okay.

So you're just talking and then suddenly something comes in your, sorry, I

have, I have a frog in my throat.

I don't know what happened there.

So whenever there's mucus or something that impacts your voice

and can be coughed away, then you'd say, I have a frog in my throat.

Okay, the next phrase is to be a little worse for wear.

Oh, I'm a little worse for wear.

You can describe an object as being worse for wear as well as yourself.

If you are worse for wear this is when something or someone is in

a bad condition because of use.

So if I take an old phone case.

So if my phone case has been used, like my phone case is a little worse for wear,

you can see it's got a lot of marks on it.

It's got this circular mark on it from where I had something

stuck to it for a while.

The edges are a bit bashed.

I mean, it's not that bad.

This bit at the end doesn't stick in properly for you.

Can you see that this pops out?

It doesn't stick in properly anymore.

That's a dust, like, protector.

Oh, can't breathe.

Hang on.

Ugh.

Yeah, so my phone case is a little worse for wear.

It's not horrendous, but it's a little worse for wear.

I've used it a lot and therefore it's in a worse condition because of all the use.

Now, I describe myself as being a little worse for wear if I'd been working

really hard and I was tired for it.

But more often it's if I've been out partying.

So if last night I stayed out until three o'clock in the morning, not even drinking.

It's not even about being hungover.

This is just about, you know, I was out late, I didn't go to bed

when I should have gone to bed.

I was dancing.

I was just like jumping around and being very silly with my body,

and this morning I feel rough.

I feel tired.

My body's sore.

I'm really aching from all the movements and everything I was

doing, and I've got a headache.

So if you ask me how I'm feeling this morning, I'd say, "oh, I'm a

little worse for wear to be honest."

"Why?

What were you doing last night?"

"Well, I was out very late, so I was being very silly.

I was at a party and then I couldn't leave, so I'm a little

worse for wear this morning."

Okay.

The next phrase is very common.

This is a phrasal verb to be run down, to be run down.

If you are run down, then you are just generally feeling unwell or

extremely tired and not so great.

Like your energy levels might be down.

Maybe you've got a few symptoms and ailments.

It doesn't mean that you're ill.

You're just not feeling your best.

So for example, when I work too hard and I don't get much sleep and I'm

stressed, then I get quite run down.

And when I'm run down, I get spots on my face.

My skin is bad.

I tend to have headaches maybe because I'm not drinking enough water

because I'm busy and I'm stressed.

I tend to get ulcers on my tongue.

And, you know, I sometimes get like patches of psoriasis, so dry skin patches

and things, and these tend to pop up when I'm stressed or overworked or tired.

And so in that case, I'm not ill, but I am run down.

I'm not at my best, my energy levels aren't good.

A few little symptoms and ailments are creeping in, and it's because I'm

not looking after myself very well.

So I'm a bit run down.

If you go to the opposite end and you are really poorly and you really

don't feel very well, then you could say that you are at death's door.

That you're knocking at the door of death saying, I think I'm ready to come in now.

I think I'm ready to die now.

We often use this actually to say that someone isn't that bad, so you say

"she's not at death's door or anything.

She's ill, but she's not at death's door."

Or you might use it to suggest that you feel bad, but it's not something

that you would use, like if someone is literally at death's door, if someone's

literally about to die from an illness that they've got, then it wouldn't

be appropriate to say, oh, maybe it would actually, maybe at a point later

down the line when they've recovered.

So if I, let's say I'm involved in an accident and I lose a lot of blood, and

I'm literally at the point where I might die because I've lost so much blood.

And then I get a blood transfusion and My condition improves and I survive.

And now I'm okay and I'm telling the story.

"Oh, well, I mean, when I had the accident, I was really at death's door."

"I was at death's door.

I nearly died from blood loss, but luckily I survived."

But if someone's like just about to die, it wouldn't be very appropriate to

say that they're at death's door, maybe because it just feels a bit lighthearted.

But if I have a bad cold and I'm in bed, I could say, "oh, I'm at death's door."

So, it's one of those funny phrases.

A funny old phrase used in different ways.

All right, last one is to be in a bad way.

To be in a bad way.

You can use this to describe your emotional health as

well as your physical health.

So if you've had some bad news and you're not coping with that

bad news very well, because we all cope in different ways, don't we?

Sometimes we deal with bad news better than other times.

So if you're not dealing with it very well, if I ask you, are you okay?

You say "no, I'm in a bad way, to be honest.

I'm really struggling.

I'm in a bad way."

Or if I come off my bike, I'm cycling to work and I fall off my bike and

I've really bashed myself quite badly.

I've broken my ankle, I've damaged some nerves in my elbow, and I've

got some cuts that required stitches.

Then I could say, "Yeah, I came off my bike and I'm in a bad way.

I didn't come out of it very well at all.

I'm in quite a bad way.

A lot of injuries.

I'm struggling."

Ah, okay.

Well, I'm glad to report that I'm not in a bad way right now.

I'm on the up, I'm improving.

Hopefully this congestion will clear soon and I can start recording

podcast episodes where I sound normal.

So just to recap very quickly those phrases.

We had a frog in the throat, to have a frog in your throat, to be a little worse

for wear, to be generally run down, to be at death's door or to be in a bad way.

I do hope that you are feeling okay and that you're not listening to this

while blowing your nose and sticking your head over a, a steamy bowl of

hot water, feeling sorry for yourself.

And if you are, then I hope you feel better very soon.

Okay.

If you found this useful, then it would be wonderful if you

could give it a rating or review.

Remember to subscribe so that I can tickle your eardrums again in the

future with a better voice, hopefully.

Until then, do take care and goodbye.