Let's Learn English! Topic: Common Sounds! 🚙🐕⏲️ (Lesson Only)

Well, hello and welcome to this

English lesson about common sounds.

Let's admit that we live in a loud world.

This is a world where you can't really go

through your day without hearing things all the time.

I even hear things when I don't want to hear things.

Earlier I gave the example of I was in the

middle of taking a nap when a dog started barking.

Those are the kinds of sounds

I'm going to talk about today.

The sounds of car horns, the sounds of

dog sparking, and those kinds of things.

I will try to do some sound effects along the way, but

mostly I will just talk about the sound, the name of the

sound, the word we use to talk about that sound.

And then as well, the phrase we use

to refer to that sound, the most common

way we talk about that sound in English.

So once again, welcome to this

English lesson about common sounds.

I think you'll enjoy it.

I think you'll learn some new words and phrases.

A phone ringing so this is

probably a very common sound.

I think that this was a sound you only heard at

home many years ago, but now you might hear this anywhere

and you'll hear a number of different ring tones.

So people set their phone to make

a different sound when it rings.

But if I was to say, oh, I was walking through the

mall and all of a sudden, all of the sudden I heard

a phone ringing or a phone started to ring, those would be

the phrases we would use to talk about that.

It's not very nice when you hear

a phone ringing in a movie theater.

That's my least favorite place.

I also don't enjoy hearing a phone ringing.

If I'm on a walk in the park when

I'm trying to relax, it's a very annoying sound.

But probably one of the most common sounds

that, that you might hear right now is

the sound of a phone ringing.

Water running.

This is my least favorite sound.

This means someone didn't turn off the tap.

This means someone brushed their teeth and

they just left the water running.

And I hear the sound of water running.

Oh, I haven't made any sound effects yet, have I?

The sound of water running is like, that's

not a very good impression of water running.

But I think you get the point.

I don't like to waste water.

Water isn't free for me.

Well, it sort of is because it comes from

the sky, like rainwater goes in our cistern.

But my biggest worry is when someone flushes a

toilet and the toilet is running through, that means

it hasn't closed and filled the tank again.

And that's not a nice sound because you hear

water running and you're like, what is that?

Oh, it's the toilet running through.

Go, stop it.

If I left the water running for a

whole day, we would empty our cistern. Not quite.

That's a bit of an exaggeration, but that could happen.

A knock at the door.

This is actually something I don't enjoy.

I don't enjoy hearing a knock at

the door when I'm doing something.

I don't mind when people come over.

I do like it when people call.

First, I like to hear my phone ring and then say,

hear someone say, hey, can I pop by in a sec?

I want to drop off something.

And then later hear a knock at the door.

Um, notice the phrasing on this. So you.

You might say, oh, I heard

a person knocking at the door.

But this is definitely how I would say it.

I heard a knock at the door.

I was having a nap, and then

I heard a knock at the door.

It was the mailman with a package for me.

So a knock at the door.

Obviously, I don't have to make the sound.

We all know what it sounds like, and

you could probably all do it right now.

In fact, if you want to remember the word, you say

a knock at the door and make a knocking sound.

A toilet being flushed.

This is my least favorite sound

when I am sleeping at night.

Sometimes when I'm sleeping at night, I will

hear someone use the washroom, and then I

will hear a toilet being flushed.

Um, you could, in English say, I heard the flushing of a

toilet, but that's not a very common way to say it.

Some of these sounds, I will say one way, and other

phrases go the other way, and I actually don't know why,

but this is the common, uh, thing to say, oh, I

heard a toilet being flushed in the middle of the night.

Who was up in the night flushing the toilet?

And what does that sound like?

It's like, that's the sound of a toilet being flushed.

Hopefully that sound effect came through better

than how it sounded in my ears.

An alarm clock going off.

So I don't have this style of alarm

clock that goes, I have the style of

alarm clock that goes, beep, beep, beep, beep.

It's a really annoying sound.

In fact, I actually prefer to wake up on my own.

I prefer to just wake up because it's

light outside and because I've had enough sleep.

I don't actually enjoy hearing

an alarm clock going off.

So at night, you set your alarm, in

the morning, your alarm clock will go off.

That's the phrase we use in English to talk

about the sound that an alarm clock makes.

I did not get up this early this morning.

I got up at 630, and right now it's 737.

So I've been up for a little over an hour.

I heard my alarm clock going off at 630.

I did hit snooze once, and then I did get up.

So I guess technically I got up at 637.

A door closing.

A door being slammed.

Slight difference here.

When you hear a door close, it just goes.

So it's just a slight sound if you

don't have the hinges oiled, and then you

just hear a little click at the end.

A door being slammed, though, sounds like,

like probably even louder than that.

People normally just close doors.

So you would hear a door closing because someone wanted the

door closed and they moved it until it was shut.

But sometimes people are angry.

I was happy that I was able

to find a graphic that shows this.

Sometimes people are angry and they slam the door.

They use a lot of strength, and they, they

kind of take out their anger on the door.

And then it's just like the door just slams

super hard and makes a really, really loud noise.

I like to close my doors.

If you were to be in the same building

as me, you would hear a door closing.

When I closed the door, you would

not hear a door being slammed.

Um, certainly not.

Besides, it kind of wrecks the door

a little bit if you do that.

A doorbell ringing.

So you can hear a knock at the door.

You can also hear a doorbell

ringing, or the doorbell ringing.

So I would say something like this.

I was washing the dishes, and

then I heard the doorbell ringing.

And it was the food delivery service with the food.

This actually never happens here because no one

delivers food this far out in the country.

But when you hear a doorbell ringing,

you go and you answer the door.

And a doorbell is usually like the typical ding dong.

Like, it's the typical one chime and then another here.

Like, I think I actually don't

have a doorbell right now.

When our doorbell was working, it

would be like, ding dong.

That would be the sound we would

hear if someone was ringing our doorbell.

And often when I would hear the doorbell

ring, it would be someone delivering something.

That was probably the most common situation when I

would hear that a smoke alarm going off.

Jen and I woke up once to a smoke alarm going

off, and it was not a nice thing, because when a

smoke alarm goes off, when you hear it, it's so loud.

It's a very loud, shrill sound.

It's louder than an alarm clock, so

it's like, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.

It's an intense sound.

It's shrill, and it definitely wakes you up.

We woke up once to the smoke alarm going

off, and it took us an hour to make

sure there wasn't a fire in the house.

So it's not just the fact that it wakes you up, it's

the fact that you have to get your children out of the

house, and you have to find out if there is a fire.

There was no fire.

We don't know why it went off.

We think it was just acting strangely.

We have a fire alarm or a smoke alarm on every floor

of our house, and we had an extra one, so we brought

the extra one into the same area, and it didn't go off.

So we think the old smoke alarm

went off simply because it was old.

No fire.

The house is still standing.

It's hard to get back to sleep after

you hear a smoke alarm go off.

And by the way, I use smoke alarm, fire alarm.

We kind of have two names.

I think there's a third name.

Smoke detector.

Yeah, that's another name for it.

The whir of a fan.

There's a fan running right here,

but you can't hear it.

But the whir of a fan would be like.

It's a very constant sound.

In English, we sometimes refer to it as white

noise because it doesn't go up or down. It's a.

It's just the kind of like a background sound.

Sorry, I just wanted to hear it.

So the whir of a fan.

When you turn a fan on, it starts

to make a slight sound, and it basically.

It's not an annoying sound.

In fact, I have a fan running in my room when I sleep.

Having a fan running helps me sleep at night,

I think, because the fan noise is somewhat pleasant

and it can block out other noises.

So instead of hearing someone flush the toilet

or hearing someone downstairs in the kitchen, I

just hear the sound of the fan.

And I think I said white noise.

White noise is simply a

constant noise that isn't annoying.

Kind of like a background noise.

So the whir of a fan, the car honking.

I can't do a car honking, but it's like that.

Okay, that's my worst one yet.

But a car honking is annoying.

You could say you heard a person honking the horn.

You could say you heard a cardinal. Oh, sorry.

A car honking.

You could say you heard the honk of

a car, but that sounds really cumbersome.

We wouldn't say it that way.

Like, if I was writing a story, I might write I was

walking down the street and I heard the honk of a car.

It sounds very, it's not informal enough.

Does that make sense?

So what I would say is, I was downtown today

and I just heard a car honking non stop.

I don't know what was wrong.

This guy was just laying on the horn

and I just heard a car honking the

whole time I was shopping at the store.

So a car honking, um, not a pleasant sound, unless.

So unless it's like a short, like beep beep.

So there's a difference between, which means I'm

annoyed with you and beep, which means hi.

So I will, sometimes when I drive by a neighbor's

house, I will do the beep beep and then wave.

Sometimes when someone cuts me off in traffic, I'll

do the, like, I'll lay on the horn. I don't know.

Did I use that phrase yet?

You can lay on the horn and honk

it to show that you are angry.

A clock ticking.

So this is less common now.

I do remember as a child when I visited my grandparents

every summer I would visit my grandparents and sleep over for

a few days, and they had a really loud clock.

And when I was trying to sleep, I would just hear.

And it drove me crazy because in my house, there was

no clock close to my bedroom that I could hear today.

In today's day and age, most people have digital

clocks, or they just have their phone or they

have their fitbit or I apple watch.

So this type of clock, the kind of clock

that ticks, has become a little more rare.

You don't see them as often, but I

used to have one in my classroom.

And if you stood underneath it, you could just hear.

And by the way the sound is called, you can

hear it like the tick tock of a clock, because

usually it's like, it's two slightly different sounds.

Is it, though?

Yeah, I think it is. I can't remember.

I'll have to find an old clock

later today and listen to it.

A bird chirping.

So I can't do a very good bird chirping.

But it'd be like, that's not a bird chirping, is it?

Maybe the whistle is a better thing.

I don't know what kind of bird that is.

That's the bob, the canadian bird.

This can be a pleasant sound if you want to

wake up in the morning and your window is open.

It can be an unpleasant sound if you want to

sleep in and your window is open in the morning.

Here, Jen and I hear birds

starting to chirp around 05:30 a.m.

it's usually about when the sun is starting to get out.

Come up when it's starting to get light out.

We start to hear birds chirping.

Um, I find the sound of a bird chirping quite pleasant.

I do enjoy it.

Um, some people, as I mentioned, might not if

they're trying to sleep, but it certainly is nice.

So I can do like a morning dove.

Like that wouldn't really be a chirp.

That's more of a coo.

Like, we have a bird called a morning dove.

It's, it's like smaller than a pigeon and it's,

it's not white like a, like a regular dove.

It's, it's grayish brown.

And that's the sound it makes.

Footsteps on the floor.

Have you ever lived in an apartment building?

Some of you probably do live in apartment buildings and

sometimes you have a neighborhood who lives above you who

walks around and they have very heavy feet.

It's like, and you just don't know what.

Is this guy going to walk around all day?

I keep hearing footsteps on the floor above me.

Not nice.

Sometimes when I'm watching a baseball game in

the room downstairs, the kids will be walking

around upstairs and I'll hear footsteps on the

floor and I'll say, hey, quiet down.

I'm trying to watch the blue Jays game.

Stop slamming the door and stop running around.

I keep hearing your footsteps on the floor.

I'm happy that I don't live

in an apartment building now.

I have in the past lived in dormitories at university and I

have lived in a multi story house where my, my room was

on the second floor when I lived in Quebec City.

And thankfully I didn't hear my

roommate above me very often. They weren't very loud.

I didn't hear footsteps on the floor very often.

A chair creaking.

Is this the day my chair doesn't creak?

Yeah, a couple weeks ago the chair was creaking.

Oh, there it goes.

Hopefully that sound comes through on the video.

We'll have to see.

Oh, yeah, you can kind of hear

the chair creaking a little bit.

But yes, old chairs, especially

chairs that rotate and recline.

Oh, that was a good creak.

Can make a creaking sound.

A creaking sound is like creek. Creek.

It's like metal on metal, right.

You hear kind of this little creak.

Wood can also creak.

It's a slightly different sound.

I can't duplicate the sound,

but, yes, chairs can creak.

Other things can creak as well.

But I know I was teaching in a classroom last

year with older desks, and the desks would actually creak

if students moved a certain way, was very distracting.

It was not an enjoyable way to teach at all.

But a chair creaking, that is a sound.

You might hear a timer going off,

similar to an alarm clock going off.

Maybe you put some cookies in the oven,

and then eight minutes later, you just hear

a timer is something that you set.

So you set the timer for eight minutes.

You hit start, you put your cookies in.

Usually you put your cookies in first, and then

you set the timer, and then eight minutes later,

you hear beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.

Again, a very insistent sound, a repetitive sound,

usually a high pitched sound so that it.

It travels and you can hear it, so

that if you get distracted, you don't forget

because you don't want to burn the cookies.

Should I do a lesson on common smells?

Maybe I should do that next.

The smell of cookies baking, is that a

common smell in your house or apartment?

That would be a very fun thing to smell.

But a timer going off.

Beep, beep, beep, beep.

A car running.

So you could say you hear an engine running.

You could hear say that you hear

a car running or a truck running.

Um, we don't often.

You could say you hear an engine running. Yeah, I'm.

I'm just trying to think.

Like, I was sitting in my classroom and

I heard a car running outside the window.

Yeah, I would definitely say car.

I hear a car running.

When, uh, you put the key in a car, or

when you push the start button, the engine turns over,

and then eventually you have the sound of an engine.

So you hear a car running.

Exhaust comes out the exhaust pipe, and then hopefully

the person eventually drives away when it's really hot.

When you go to a mall or store,

there's often vehicles in the parking lot.

And you can hear that people have left their car

running because sometimes someone's sitting in the car still.

So sometimes a husband will drop off a wife, and

the husband will sit in the car with the car

running in order to keep the air conditioning working.

And I think what's more common is parents

sitting in their car with the car running,

waiting for their teenager to be done work

or to be done whatever they are doing.

A dog barking again, this can be a good thing.

If a stranger comes to your house,

you might hear a dog barking.

It might be your dog barking, because they

don't like the stranger and they want to

stop them from coming into your house.

But sometimes you're just trying

to enjoy a quiet moment.

Sometimes I'm trying to take a nap, and

then because I hear someone driving in, I

will also hear a dog barking.

One of my dogs barking.

They bark quite a bit.

And it's like, this is Walter. He's like.

He has, like, this really loud bark which wakes me up.

Oscar is a lot more like.

Like, it's just a.

It's like a sharp bark.

But Walter is definitely like.

He sounds like a hound dog almost, sometimes.

But the sound of a dog barking, annoying.

If you're trying to sleep, good.

If you're trying to keep strangers off your property

or from coming into your apartment, someone driving in.

So when you live in a house and if

someone is coming over, you will sometimes listen because

you want to hear if they are driving in.

When you hear someone driving in, you

hear their tires kind of like.

Like they go across the stones in

your driveway or even on pavement.

When we order something from Amazon, then the

next day, we listen for someone driving in.

We listen for the sound of someone driving in,

because then we know that our package has arrived.

A mouse screen.

So that's the sound. Like this.

Let me do it on the mic.

Let me see if that actually worked.

So it's very.

Let me.

I'm just listening.

Yeah.

I don't know if I can quite capture it.

I'll do it extra loud.

So the sound of a mouse screwing is not a nice sound.

It means you have a mouse in your house

to use a little bit of a rhyme.

Sometimes in the fall, we will hear a mouse

scurrying across our kitchen floor from another room.

Because in the fall, that's when mice

try to get into the house.

So we set mouse traps because we

don't like mice in the house.

But the sound of a mouse scurrying is the

sound of the mouse, like, running across your floor.

It's a very quiet sound.

It's very hard to hear.

And it's not a nice.

It's never a nice sound to hear.

A mouse scurrying across the floor.

Never nice.

A mouse clicking, on the other hand, is this sound.

Can't even see my finger move, can you?

When my son plays video games,

you hear a mouse clicking.

You hear it a lot.

You don't hear it too much when I'm doing

my lessons because I use the keyboard more.

So you hear someone typing more

often than a mouse clicking.

But when you use a mouse, you point at what you

want, and then you either click or double click the mouse.

So you might click or double click the

mouse in order to select what you want.

This is a common sound when you're teaching a

computer class, when you're teaching graphic design, because students

will often use a mouse to do graphic design.

In a normal computer class,

students just use the touchpad.

But yes, you might hear

a mouse clicking, someone typing.

This is how my head moves when I'm typing.

Can you guys hear the typing? Let's see.

But, yeah, I have a really loud keyboard.

Oh, yeah, you can hear that.

So this computer actually has an old keyboard

from one of my sons, which is a

mechanical gaming keyboard that they didn't need anymore.

So it's quite loud, actually.

But you might hear the sound

of someone typing in another room.

Maybe they're sending a message to someone.

Maybe they're a student and they're writing a paper

for a class and you hear them typing.

You hear them using their keyboard

to put words onto the screen.

A radio blaring.

I think the older you get, the more annoying this is.

But actually, yesterday at market,

someone had their radio blaring.

When you use the verb to blare, it's

like, it's louder than you would like.

So you might hear a radio playing at

the beach, and that might be enjoyable.

When you hear a radio blaring at the beach, it means

it's probably too loud and you don't like the music.

Sometimes young people drive their cars down the

street and they have the radio blaring.

They have the windows down.

Maybe they've installed a really loud radio in

their car and they have the radio blaring.

So it definitely, you wouldn't say blaring

unless you don't like the sound.

Like, that definitely means you don't like the sound.

Oh, my neighbor has their radio blaring all the time.

It's so annoying.

So basically a radio that is really

loud, we would use the word blaring.

I'm gonna do this sound effect.

I don't know if you'll like it.

It's not how I chew.

I chew with my mouth closed.

But sometimes people will take a bite of

something and you'll just hear this chewing sound,

and it's not a very nice sound.

I'm not sure what the custom is in your country.

In Canada, the custom is you chew with

your mouth closed, that is considered polite.

So you take a bite of food, you keep your lips

closed, and you chew your food with your mouth closed.

But the sound of a person chewing, I know it

sometimes takes a while to teach children to chew with

their mouth closed, but yeah, I know it drives jen

crazy if one of our kids chews with their mouth

open, she doesn't like the sound of chewing.

So I forgot to mention this when

we were talking about pleasant sounds.

I love the sound of rain.

This is probably one of the common

sounds that I enjoy the most.

I like the sound of wind rustling

through the leaves of a tree.

I like the sound of rain.

I like being outside when I can

hear one or both of those sounds.

The sound of rain is just nice. It's pleasant.

It's a little bit like the whir of a fan.

It's quite pleasant to listen to, and I quite enjoy it.

So the sound of rain.

So I love the sound of rain.

Maybe I should have put that as the phrase, like, because

you could say I hate the sound of a person chewing.

I like the sound of rain.