FEELING ILL: Learn British English

we've all been there you wake up in the morning and you feel dreadful you don't

want to get up and you certainly don't want to go to work

so you could say I'm unwell I'm ill I'm poorly I'm under the weather I'm sick

you could also say I'm feeling unwell or I'm not feeling well I'm feeling poorly

I'm feeling ill I'm feeling sick now I'm feeling sick is a little bit different -

I'm sick if you say I'm sick it suggests that you're poorly or generally unwell

but if you say I'm feeling sick that may suggest that you're feeling nauseous and

might want to vomit or throw up so be aware of that

difference I'm sick in general I'm feeling sick work if you're feeling

really unwell then you may feel that you shouldn't go to work in which case you

would have to call in sick or phone in sick hi

yeah it's Anna I'm not feeling very well today I don't think I can come in

sometimes people pretend to be sick in order to get a day off work this is

called pulling a sickie and it's very naughty I've never done it

ever ever ever let's talk about the symptoms of illness so the signs that

you're sick firstly you might have a pain in your head we call this a

headache or if you have a very serious headache

you call it a migraine oh if you have a pain in your ear we call that

Eirik if you have a pain in your teeth then we call that tooth ache toothache

and if you have toothache you would normally see the dentist not the doctor

other symptoms in your head might be a feeling of dizziness so you might feel

dizzy this is when you feel unbalanced

you might even faint which means you will become unconscious or lose

consciousness lots of people at this time of year suffer with a cold or the

flu and a cold has many typical symptoms like oh hazard he would have got a

tissue oh thank you coughing if when you cough stuff comes up out of your throat

this is called phlegm phlegm and if you go to the doctor with a serious cough

they may ask you what color is your phlegm if you have the flu and you might

have the shivers I just can't stop shaking

some people know that unwell because they have a high temperature this means

that they're very very hot more hot than normal and if you're running a

temperature that's very high you may have a fever this of course can result

in sweating some people feel unwell in an emotional way so they could have mood

swings or feel very very down the word for feeling down is to be depressed if

your mood changes regularly then we might say no mood fluctuates or you have

mood swings you hmm if your muscles tense up really

tight and you're not trying to make them tense then this is called crap so you're

getting muscle cramp and some people talk about getting abdominal cramps when

they get pain in the muscles in their tummy oh I've got terrible cramps

sometimes you might have a problem with flatulence which is also known as wind

or gas part of me oh I don't know where was it coming from

that wasn't me if the gas can't escape via the mouth or the bottom then you may

have trapped wind which can be very uncomfortable and a similar feeling to

trapped wind is to feel bloated if your nose is blocked up and you have a pain

here this is called congested to be congested and people who are congested

tend to sound like this because the air can't pass from the dogs

so this aren't very dazzle and it's very hard to understand what they're saying

with these holidays oh I'm very congested sorry scuse beep so if an area

of your body fills with fluid you'll have swelling so if you twist a joint

the joint might swell so you say to the doctor I have a swollen joint a swollen

knee many people go to the doctor because they get some form of rash and a

rash is unusual coloring spots on the skin sometimes they're itchy sometimes

they are very red and blotchy sometimes it weeps and gives off a discharge this

means that fluid comes out of it talking about fluid you may have to say that

you're bleeding in some way you might be bleeding from your private areas you

might be bleeding from the from the mouth from the ears and when

you bleed you bleed blood one of the most unpleasant symptoms is to have

diarrhea also known as the runs this is when your stools or your poo is very

runny sometimes it's like water it's very very uncomfortable the opposite to

diarrhea is constipation this is when you can't go to the toilet at all maybe

for days and days days days which is very unhealthy so when we're ill what do

we do the first thing we do is look for sympathy we tell the people around us

that we're not feeling very well and hope that they will look after us or

take care of us this means that they will make us tea bring us food and in

the UK we tend to bring grapes when people aren't feeling well and if you're

really poorly someone might renew flowers to cheer you up

a phrase that we often use when giving sympathy is oh dear oh dear it's just a

sympathetic expression oh dear that's not very good oh dear that's not very

nice at all and this is used for everybody men women and children oh dear

I'm sorry to hear you're not well we would also wish the person a speedy

recovery so we'd say I hope you're feeling better soon get well soon

sometimes we might send them a get-well card to wish them receive you recovering

and say that we're thinking about them on the other hand we could be

completely unsympathetic particularly if someone who is a little bit under the

weather is putting it on or laying it on thick these phrases mean that they're

being melodramatic they're making out like their illness is much worse than it

actually is for example one phrase that we sometimes use when we'll ill is ah

I'm dying I'm so ill I'm dying when in fact they only have a cold I

mean come on there is also a phrase in the UK we use

when a man is being melodramatic about his cold and that is the phrase

man flu so if a man has a cold a little bit of a sniffle which means he's got a

runny nose we say you've got man flu have you meaning it's not nearly as bad

as they're making out they're just being melodramatic no I don't think Steve's

coming tonight yeah he's out he's got man flu our packet exactly the next step

if you're not feeling very well is to go to the pharmacy to buy some medicine now

the medicine you can buy at a pharmacy without a prescription from your doctor

is called over-the-counter medicine and these are things like painkillers which

include paracetamol ibuprofen you can also buy anti-inflammatories and

decongestants things like that if you need a stronger painkiller or another

type of medicine like antibiotics to fight off an infection

then you have to see your doctor in the UK we have the family doctor the local

doctor which we call a GP this sounds their general practitioner GP of course

if your illness is serious then you may have to take a trip to the hospital if

it's a real emergency then you may even have to dial 999 and call and ambulance

the ambulance will take you to a and E this stands for accident and emergency

well that concludes this video I hope that none of you are feeling unwell