Speaking English - Talking about pains and aches

Hey guys, thanks for clicking.

This is Alex.

Welcome to this beginner lesson on talking about health.

Today we will look at some common symptoms and conditions in health, okay?

So if you say, for example, "My head hurts."

This is a symptom, okay?

So what is the name of the condition when your head hurts?

Well, you say, "My head hurts.

I have a headache."

Some of you know this, headache.

I have a headache, okay?

Now for the pronunciation, some people will say headache, headache.

Some people pronounce it very quickly and say headache, headache, okay?

Similar to this one, "My back hurts.

My back.

I have a backache.

My stomach hurts.

I have a stomachache."

Okay, now with the word stomach, sometimes younger children have different names for

their stomachs, okay?

So young children might say, "Mommy, my tummy hurts."

Okay, my tummy instead of stomach.

So they might say that they have a tummyache instead of a stomachache.

If you are an adult, please say stomachache.

Never say, "Boss, I have a tummyache.

I have to go home."

Never, okay?

They will think you are a baby.

That's not good.

Okay, so if we continue, "My ear hurts.

My ear hurts.

I have an earache."

Now you see the pattern, headache, backache, stomachache, earache, "My tooth hurts.

My tooth.

I have a toothache."

Okay, so these are really the most common conditions where we can add the word ache

at the end to form one condition, okay?

So headache, right, headache, backache, stomachache, earache, and toothache.

Now we can say many parts of our bodies hurt, okay?

But instead of hurt, we can also say ache, okay?

So instead of saying, "My head hurts," we can say, "My head aches.

My back hurts.

My back aches.

My back aches.

I have a backache."

So you're using, instead of hurts as the verb, you're using aches.

Now with these being the most common conditions, headache, backache, earache, et cetera, there

are some words where we can say they hurt, but we don't say blank ache.

So for example, we can say, "My neck aches.

My neck hurts," but we don't say, "I have a neck ache."

Just don't say it.

You can say, "My elbow hurts," or, "My elbow aches," but we don't say, "I have an elbow

ache."

"My knee hurts," so this is your knee, if I can get it up there, and we say, "My knee

aches," or, "My knee hurts," but not, "I have a knee ache."

Not very common.

My shoulder hurts.

My shoulder aches, but not, "I have a shoulder ache."

So once again, if you go to the doctor, if you are speaking with your friends, and you

have some of these very, very common health problems, you will know how to speak about

them.

So to test your knowledge on these different medical conditions, health conditions, please

check out the quiz at www.engvid.com.

Good luck, guys.

Take care.