Free English Class! Topic: Fears! 🌩️🕷️⚡ (Lesson Only)

Well, hello and welcome to this English lesson about fears.

There are things in life that are awesome and there are

things in life that you might be afraid of. Things you might

be scared of. You might have a certain fear. You might be uh

afraid of dogs for instance. We have different names for these

things and we describe them in different ways. In this English

lesson, I'm going to go through about thirty or so different

fears. I'm going to talk about thirty things that people are

afraid of. And while I'm doing that, it's more than just a

vocabulary lesson. Listen closely to the phrases I use

when I'm talking about that and hopefully, this lesson helps

you learn just a little bit more English. So, there are a

few ways to talk about having fears. You can say that you

have a fear of something. Uh I put this shopping cart with

toilet paper because over a year ago, people had a fear of

running out of toilet paper. I'm not sure if you remember in

March of 2020 in many countries in world, you couldn't find

toilet paper in the stores because people, people had a

fear of running out of toilet paper. So, one of the ways you

describe something that you um have a fear of is to say you

have a fear of it. So, people had a fear of running out of

toilet paper. More commonly though, we would probably say

that we are scared of something or afraid of something. So,

let's say that you have a fear of cats. That's kind of a

formal way to describe that fear. I have a fear of cats. I

have a fear of um large animals. It's correct but we

will probably not we probably wouldn't use that um phrase to

describe it in everyday English speech. We would probably say

that we are scared of something or that we are afraid of

something. So me personally, I'm afraid of snakes. I'm

scared of snakes. If I was having a more formal

conversation, I might say, oh I have a fear of snakes. But

generally, I think I would use afraid of most commonly. I

would say I'm I am afraid of snakes. Which is true. I am

actually afraid of snakes. I should mention um oh let's move

on. We also call these phobias. So phobia a phobias is an

irrational fear of something. And I don't actually agree with

it being irrational. Um I don't think my fear of snakes is

irrational. When something is irrational, it means it doesn't

have logic. Um I'm just phrases and there's nothing irrational

about it but the general term is to call these a phobia now

here's something you need to know as we move on to the first

um term which is the dark a lot of people are afraid of the

dark or they are scared of the dark or they have a fear of the

dark the most common phrase would be to say that we have uh

that we are afraid of the dark I'm not going to give you the

Long scientific name for each of these things because we

don't actually know them or use them in English. People might

know a few. They might know things like agoraphobia um or

arachnophobia but generally we as English speakers don't know

that long scientific term with phobia on the end. We might we

might know two or three of them but I don't know what the one

is for the dark. Sun in the chat will probably mention it

um but I thought it would be a good challenge for someone to

find out what all of these are called officially and maybe

post that in a comment. It would be a lot of work.

Anyways, sometimes children are afraid of the dark. I think in

this instance, I would use afraid to describe it. They

don't like to um be in a dark room. Sometimes, we'll buy

what's called a night light. A night light is a very small dim

light that we leave on all night. Maybe in a hallway or

even in uh a child's room because they might be afraid of

the dark they might be scared that there's a monster under

the bed so um often times children will think that if

they hear a sound that maybe there's a monster under their

bed and so they are afraid of the dark when I was a kid I was

a little bit afraid of the dark I'm not afraid of the dark now

some people are afraid of snakes some people are scared

of snakes I personally do not like snakes um in I'm Ontario,

Canada, we do not have any poisonous snakes or is it

venomous snakes? I think it's venomous. Um our snakes are not

harmful. In fact, the only snake that lives around here is

about this long. It's very very tiny. It's called a gardener

snake um and there was actually one in our house 2 days ago and

I picked it up with gloves and I took it outside and let it go

in the field. Um so, I'm not afraid of little snakes but I

would be afraid of really really big snakes. I am not, in

fact, having this picture here makes me a little bit afraid.

So, I am afraid of snakes, spiders. So, spiders come in

all different sizes. And I'll tell you a story about this.

I'm not afraid of spiders. Many people are afraid of spiders

but when I went to South Africa in the place where I stayed,

there was a spider in the corner of the room and I think

it was this big. I had never seen a spider that big before.

So, I was a little bit um I was a little bit afraid uh of the

spider at that point in time. So, spiders are another thing

that people are sometimes afraid of. Heights. So, if

you've watched any of my other English lessons, you'll know

that I am afraid of heights. I am scared of heights. I do not

like going up really, really high. On my farm, I have two

large structures called silos. When I was a teenager, I would

climb up to the top cuz my dad would say, go up and fix

something and I would go up and I wasn't afraid of heights but

at a certain point in my life, I started to nod like heights

at all. I became afraid of heights. I think in my

twenties. I think I became afraid of heights because I

almost fell off a building once. I was helping build a

building and I was letting a rope down and as I was letting

it down, someone on the ground pulled the rope and I almost

fell off the building but I didn't. And I think in that

moment, I became afraid of heights. Um yes, I definitely

do not like being up high. I'm not sure what the person in

this picture is doing but I would never do that. So, here's

one where we do use the official term. Um

claustrophobia or being claustrophobic is a fear of

being in a small space. Some people don't like being in an

elevator because they are claustrophobic. Do you want me

to say that a few more times? They are claustrophobic. So,

when you have claustrophobia, it means you are claus

clastrophobic. It means you do not like small spaces. I don't

really like small spaces but they don't bother me too much

but I don't mind being in elevators and things like that.

I think sometimes when I'm in a really small car with lots of

other people, I feel a little bit claustrophobic because it

feels very, very crowded. And some people have a fear of

flying. So, some people are scared of flying or they are

afraid of flying. I love flying. I love the feeling of

getting pushed back in my seat when the plane takes off and I

love the uh the feeling of being in the air even though

I'm afraid of heights. I actually like flying. That's

kind of strange, isn't it? You would think that because I'm

afraid of heights, I would be afraid of flying but I'm not. I

actually really really enjoy flying. Thunder and lightning.

So, yesterday, there was a lot of thunder and lightning

outside. We got a lot of rain yesterday. In fact, the picture

I took the thumbnail for this uh video lesson is actually me

outside and there was thunder and lightning all around. So, I

quickly took a picture. I'm not afraid of thunder and lightning

but I do find it fascinating. I love to watch thunder. You

can't really see thunder. I love to watch lightning and

listen to thunder from a safe place, okay? But some people,

especially are afraid of thunder or afraid of lightning.

Uh Oscar is actually afraid of thunder. The only time that

Oscar will abandon Jen is if it starts to thunder. He'll come

to the house by himself and he'll kinda scratch on the door

to be let in. Um Oscar does not like thunder at all. So

sometimes Jen will be working on the flower farm and there

will be thunder in the distance and Oscar who is a little bit

afraid will actually come and scratch on the door and then

one of the kids uh or myself will let him in. Some people

have a fear of being alone. Some people really like being

around other people and they're they just do not enjoy being by

themselves. This can be especially common for people

who are getting older because they their friends start to

die. Their friends pass away. I once knew a man who lived by

himself in an old age home. I actually fixed his computer for

him. And uh he was 94 years old and everyone he knew in the

world that was around the same age as him had passed away and

he very much had a fear of being alone. So, what was

interesting is he often had computer problems and when I

went to fix them, they didn't really exist and eventually, I

thought, I think he's calling me once a month because he just

is afraid of being alone. He likes talking to me while I'm

there. So, I ended up fixing his computer for several months

for free and and then eventually, he did end up. He

did pass away. His name was Ernie. He was a really cool guy

but yes, I think he was afraid of being alone. His children

were still alive but they didn't visit him very often.

Ghosts. So, we just talked about ghosts. Ghosts would of

course be um an imaginary thing in my mind but ghosts are like

people who have died, who kind of come back and haunt the

earth or haunt a building. If you like horror movies.

Sometimes you might watch a horror movie that has ghosts in

it. I don't think ghosts exist. I must admit though, sometimes

when you hear strange sounds in the night, it makes you wonder

if they do exist. And I will go back to my previous statement.

I'm not afraid of ghosts. But if I did see a ghost, I would

probably be afraid. It would probably um scare me quite a

bit if I saw a ghost. Death So some people are afraid of dying

and I would say that probably most people are afraid of

dying. Um it's not it's not fun to think about life being over.

I think because life is so full and rich. The thought of dying

is very troublesome for some people and some people are

afraid of dying. They might be afraid of dying because they

don't know they aren't sure what comes next whether life

ends or whether there's an afterlife. They might be afraid

of dying because they don't want to leave their loved ones

behind. So for instance, I'm afraid of dying. If I die

young, then Jen won't have me anymore. So, I'm afraid of

dying because I don't wanna leave Jen and the kids on their

own. So, there are many reasons to be afraid of death or afraid

of dying. This is not a happy topic. Let hopefully the next

one's happier Maybe, mice. Some people are afraid of mice. The

classic thing that happens in a TV show or in a movie is if

someone sees a mouse, they jump up on a chair, okay? Now, mice

can climb chairs. I don't know if people know that. I'm not

afraid of mice but I don't like mice. Um I'm certainly not

scared of mice but uh generally, uh if you're

watching TV, um if there is a mouse, someone on the TV show

or in the movie will jump up on a chair. Someone else might

grab a broom and and try to shoe the mouse out the door um

or maybe hit it with the broom. I'm not sure. Um we have mice

in our house and we do set mouse traps. Not because we're

afraid of mice. Um but because they're a little bit annoying.

I think a few people in my house might be afraid of mice

but I'm not gonna mention who. Um I'm not. Although if one ran

over my foot um while I was doing a live stream I might I

might I might scream. I would probably be like ah I mouse

just ran over my foot. So there's different kinds of dogs

if I saw this dog with his ball uh out playing I would not be

afraid of this dog but a friend of mine uh was out running a

few months ago and a dog bit her there was a large dog in a

yard barking and as she ran by that house the dog came out and

bit her and that certainly reminds me that I'm afraid of

big vicious mean dogs so when a dog is vicious, it barks and it

tries to bite you. When a dog is mean, it barks and it tries

to bite you. II do not like big, mean dogs. Actually, I'm

even a little bit afraid of small, mean dogs. I think I'm

afraid of any dog that barks a lot and tries to bite me. I

would be afraid of them but some people um are just afraid

of dogs in general. They have a fear of dogs. Sharks. So, I

think it's shark week right now um on Discovery Channel. I'm

not sure if you watch a lot of TV but uh shark week is a week

where there's a lot of shows about sharks. Some people when

they go to the beach, they are afraid of sharks. I actually

think everyone is afraid of sharks. Except maybe the

scientists who study them or the people who make nature uh

documentaries maybe are not afraid of sharks um but

certainly uh some people are afraid of sharks. Most people

are of sharks. I would not go swimming if I saw a shark fin

in the water. I would be very very afraid and there is no way

I would go in the water. That would just be uh too much. So I

didn't wanna find a picture with actual blood. Uh so I

found this picture of a potato stabbing another potato and

ketchup coming out. Um some people are afraid of blood. And

we actually have some people who will faint at the sight of

blood. Okay? So I actually when I was in uh a science class in

grade ten or eleven. So when I was sixteen or 17 years old. Um

we had to take a little sample of blood from our finger. We

had to poke our finger and put it on a microscope slide and

then look at it through the microscope and a friend of mine

who was this really tough guy he poked his finger and a

little bit of blood came out and he fainted. He just fell

over. Totally unconscious. So he passed out. So he was

someone who would you would describe him as fainting at the

sight of blood. So some people it's not that they're afraid of

blood. They have an aversion to seeing blood. And they might

faint at the sight of blood. Interestingly enough, that uh

friend of mine who uh fainted at the sight of blood, he

became a police officer. So, I'm not sure how he handles

that fear now but uh that is his current job. Some people

are afraid of water, more afraid of drowning. Drowning is

when you go under the water and you can't get up in time and

you die in the water. So, I would say people are actually

more afraid of drowning. Uh they're more afraid of drowning

than actually the water. So, my mom, for instance, doesn't

really like swimming very much because when she was younger,

she uh was out swimming in a uh a lake or a pool and she had

trouble getting back to the shore or the edge and it was

very traumatic for her. So, she has a little bit of a fear of

water, fear of swimming, fear of drowning. Some people have a

fear of going to the dentist. I'm kind of afraid the dentist.

I know the dentist is helping me. I know it's good to get

your teeth cleaned. I know that but I really don't like being

in that chair and having someone scrape my teeth with

that pointy thing. I'm a little bit afraid of the dentist. But

I overcome my fear every six to 9 months and I go to the

dentist and I get my teeth cleaned and they fix my

cavities. So, even though I have a fear of going to the

dentist, even though I'm scared of the dentist, I usually try

and overcome my fear. Needles. So, this is a pretty common one

right now. I'll tell you this about myself. I don't like

getting needles. I've gotten both shots now for my

vaccination and both times, they say, are you afraid of

needles? Or are you afraid of getting a needle? And I say,

no, but I'm not going to watch. Like, I don't want to see you

put the needle in my arm. In fact, right now, in Canada,

there are a lot of commercials. There are a lot of

advertisements encouraging people to get vaccinated and

they keep showing people getting a needle in their arm

and I keep going like, don't, don't show me that. I don't

want to see that. But some people are afraid of needles.

Some people are afraid of crowds. I wouldn't say that I'm

afraid of crowds. I don't have a fear of being in a large

crowd um but I do feel a little bit um yeah, I think I have a

bit of a fear of social situations. I don't mind being

at a concert listening to music in a crowd but I don't totally

enjoy going to uh an event where there's a couple hundred

people and I have to talk to a lot of people. That's not as

enjoyable for me. Um but some people don't like crowds. It's

kind of the opposite of being afraid of being alone. Some

people don't enjoy uh being in a crowd. Some people are afraid

to go outside. Um I do not have this fear. If you watch any of

my English lessons, you'll know that generally, this lesson, uh

the Friday morning live lesson is the only one I do inside. I

am not afraid to go outside. I actually like going outside to

do my lesson. So, uh tomorrow, hopefully, the weather is nice

and I will do the live question and answer lesson outside um

and if you watch any videos on my second channel or my on this

main channel, uh they're almost all done outside. It's rare

that I do a video inside. I only do that if the weather is

really really bad but some people definitely are afraid of

going outside. They like to stay in their house at all

times. Um So some people are afraid of pain. Um I definitely

am afraid of pain. Probably my biggest concern um when I was

having surgery um was that it was going to hurt a lot. Um and

then afterwards it did hurt a lot. This whole side of my body

hurt for a couple of months. And I didn't like that. So I

wouldn't say I'm afraid of pain. But I definitely um I

have an aversion to pain and I've used that word a couple of

times. When you have an aversion to something, it means

you don't easily choose to experience it, okay? But some

people are afraid of pain. Some people refuse to get surgery

because they are afraid of the pain that it will cause the

physical pain. So, there is something called the fear of

failure and a fear of failure is when you are afraid that if

you do something, you might not succeed. People sometimes have

a fear of failure because they need to do something that

people can see them doing and they don't want people to see

them fail. This is probably a good way to describe a fear of

having an English conversation if you're an English learner,

you might actually be afraid of failing. You're afraid that

when you have the conversation, you won't be able to think of

the words. You're afraid that when you have the conversation,

you'll say something dumb or you'll look silly um or any of

those things. So, hopefully, you're talking to someone who

doesn't make you feel like a failure. Hopefully, uh you

don't have uh a fear of failure and the way to get over a fear

of failure, one way is to recognize that failing is the

path to learning. You don't learn Anything without failing

and so once you get used to failing um you just get better

at it. In fact, here's a great example. I got a new camera and

I'm using it for all of my videos and the other day I did

a video on my second channel and it was over exposed. It was

way too bright. But I just said to myself, well, lesson

learned. Um I made a mistake. It wasn't a total failure but

it still was a small failure but I just uploaded it anyway.

People don't mind because they could still hear me but

sometimes fear of failure can paralyze people. Um what we

mean by that is It can make you not able to do what you want to

do. Some people are afraid of germs. They're afraid of

bacteria. They're afraid of viruses. They're afraid of any

place that isn't really really clean. Um I have a little bit

of a fear of germs. I like the kitchen counter to be clean. I

like everyone to use proper food handling uh when they're

in the kitchen. Like if you cut meat on a cutting board, you

shouldn't cut vegetables on the same cutting board. So, I have

a bit of a fear but I think it's a practical fear but there

are some people that, you know, are just really afraid of germs

and bacteria and they wash their hands a lot and they

clean a lot. I think I'm more afraid of germs and bacteria

than Jen um but uh that's a discussion for another day. I'm

trying to convince Jen to do another video with me in the

next month or so. It might not be till September, we'll see.

Um but we'll talk, maybe we'll talk about our fears or

something like that. But yeah, definitely people are afraid of

germs. By the way, germs, uh it's just another term for

bacteria, okay? So, when you don't clean the kitchen

counter, there's lots of germs on there and it's another word

for um you know, when you spread illnesses, like people

get their germs on you. Right now, everyone wears a mask 'cuz

we don't wanna get our germs on each other. Public speaking.

So, this is something that Okay, I'm not afraid of public

speaking if you mean teaching my class or talking in front of

people who I regularly talk in front of, but if I need to

speak somewhere in front of 100 or 200 people that I don't

know, I would get a little bit nervous but I would still be

able to do it. I don't mind talking in front of people. But

for some people, public speaking, um they have a

debilitating fear of public speaking. When your fear is

debilitating, it means you just can't Do it. You're you're just

so afraid of that thing that you will not do it. So I don't

have that. I have a normal amount of nervousness if I have

to talk in front of people. But remember I've taught for over

twenty years. So my job is talking. So going up and

talking in front of people is a little easier for me. Still not

totally easy though. Some people are afraid of being

touched. These people are probably very happy right now

in our current world. Um but some people love hugging and

kissing. Some people love high fiving and shaking hands and

some people would just prefer that people don't touch them,

okay? Um I, myself, I'm not afraid of touch. I'm not a

huggy person though. Um what I mean by that is I don't go

around hugging people if I haven't seen someone for a long

time. I usually say hi but I don't usually hug them but I'm

not afraid of people touching me but some people are. I don't

have this. This was one of the ones I found while I was

researching this lesson. Um some people are afraid of large

things. Um I think when I see an elephant at the zoo in a

cage, I'm not afraid of it. Um but when I, if I was out in the

wild, um I I would be a little bit afraid. They are enormous.

I did see elephants at Krueger Park in South Africa and I was

a little bit afraid of them. They're really big especially

when you see a whole herd of elephants. Birds. Um these are

Canadian geese. Um the Canada goose is not a nice animal if

you get close to it. They will try to attack you. They kinda

come at you and make a funny sound and they get their wings

out. Um so even though in a lot of my videos there's Canadian

geese across the river and they're nice and it looks like

beautiful nature. Um I am actually a little bit afraid of

them. Especially if you go to a park where they are very

familiar with humans. Okay? So Canadian geese that are used to

humans when people feed them all the time sometimes they can

get a little bit um Ornery was the word I wanted to use. They

start to squawk and honk and run at you and flap their wings

and their mouth is open. You can tell I'm describing from

real experience. Fire, some people are afraid of fire. Um I

actually enjoy fire when it's a campfire but there was a time

many years ago where um if you look in my videos, if you see

the field along my river, there was a time where that grass was

dry about 20 years ago and I accidentally lit the field on

fire and the fire department had to come and help me put it

out. That was very terrifying. And so I would say this, I am

definitely afraid of fire that is out of Troll. I love having

a little campfire. I light candles although usually we use

electric ones now. So I'm not afraid of fire in that sense.

When it's a controlled fire that someone is having. But

certainly when my field was on fire, it was terrifying. I was

certainly afraid of fire at that time. And then technology.

Some people are afraid of technology. I find generally

older people are afraid of technology. It can be very

challenging. Um if you are over the age of sixty-five or

seventy to learn how to use new things. And I'll actually admit

that for me it's even hard to learn new things. I never

thought I would say this in life but I think I used to

learn things quickly. I find now it's harder to learn new

things all the time. Mostly because I have less time. I

don't think there's anything wrong with my brain. I think

it's hard for me to learn new things because I have less time

and that can be a little bit frightening, right? I'm a

little afraid of a year where there's so much new technology

that I can't learn how to use it fast enough to use in my

classroom.