Let's Learn English! Topic: Nature Verbs! 🐝🍃🌩️ (Lesson Only)

Well, hello, and welcome to this

English lesson about nature verbs.

You might think it's a bit of a strange

lesson, but nature is something that I really enjoy.

I spend a lot of time outside.

I spend a lot of time outdoors.

And when I was outdoors this past week, I

noticed a lot of sounds and motions and actions.

I noticed that nature does things.

Sometimes it drizzles.

That's what we say when it's just raining lightly.

Sometimes you will see the earth erode after it rains.

I'll explain a bit more about that later in the lesson.

So I thought to myself, I think I can

put together a lesson about verbs related to nature.

Sometimes you'll hear water babbling or crashing against

the shore and other things like that.

So once again, welcome to this

English lesson about nature verbs.

I hope you enjoy it.

To rustle.

So the other day, it was windy outside, and I

was under a tree recording a video, and I noticed

that I could hear the wind rustling in the leaves.

Sometimes when it's windy, it

causes the leaves to rustle.

When we use the verb rustle, it

means when other things as well.

But in particular, when leaves are kind

of rubbing against each other in the

wind and it makes the rustling sound. I'm not.

I just realized I might have to do some sound effects.

I'm not.

It's like, that's not really rustling, but

it sounds a little bit like that.

You can see here that as the leaves move

in the wind, maybe this is a better.

Sounds a little more like that.

The leaves will rustle to flutter.

So if you have ever seen a butterfly

or a moth, you might see them flutter.

When we use the verb to flutter, it means

to fly, but not necessarily in a straight line.

If a butterfly flutters, it kind of lands,

and then it goes over here, and then

it flies this way and that way.

So it's kind of like the butterfly is flying randomly.

So it doesn't fly from point a to point b.

It kind of flutters over here, and it

goes over here and it goes over here.

So we have seen a lot of moths fluttering about lately.

I think all of the little worms that

were in our flower field earlier this year

have now turned into moths, and they are

starting to flutter around the field to howl.

So there's two ways to use this verb for me.

I always think of, well, either

a wolf or a winter storm.

Let me explain the two.

Um, so a wolf will howl like, ow.

That is a wolf howl.

That's my best impression of a wolf.

But sometimes the wind in the winter

blows so hard that it will howl.

So you might be laying in bed trying to sleep at

night, and you just hear, you just hear the wind howling.

Sometimes it keeps Jen and I up late at night.

When the wind howls all night, not, not

a very nice time at all to lap.

So if you ever go to the ocean, or

if you go to a lake where there are

waves, when really small waves hit the shore, um,

we say that they are lapping against the shore.

So they kind of go.

Sound effects are awful this morning,

but this is not a wave.

It's like a really, really tiny, tiny amount

of water hitting rocks on the shore.

And so we would say the water is lapping.

You know, if the wind blows a little

bit, it will make the water lap against

the shore or lap against the rocks.

So a very gentle, soothing sound.

I actually really enjoy the sound of water lapping.

I think it's a very cool sound to hear, to crash.

So this is the kind of the opposite of to lap.

When huge waves hit the shore, we

often use the verb to crash.

You can hear the waves crash against the shore.

If the wind is over 70 km an hour,

it will create waves that crash against the shore.

So this is kind of based on the sound and the action.

Okay.

You can hear waves crash against the shore, and

you can see waves crash against the shore. Both.

You can say both, and they both mean the same thing.

So you can see here, this wave, uh, has

crashed against this rock, to use the past tense.

And it's going to crash against the

other rock in just a moment.

So when waves crash against the shore, they, uh,

they hit the rocks, they hit the shore.

They make a loud crashing sound,

um, as they do that action.

Uh oh, the spitzer's not here. What happened?

Something's broken.

Well, the next slide is similar, so

to rib it and to croak.

I like the verb to ribbot.

Sorry, the picture's not here are

both sounds that frogs make.

So a frog will ribbit, ribbit, ribbit.

I can't, I can't do it.

A frog will also croak.

Like, I should have practiced my sound effects, but

when I go for a walk every morning, I

know I'm going to hear frogs ribbeting.

They're going to rib it when I walk by

and I know I'm going to hear bullfrogs.

It's kind of a bigger frog croak.

I think this is a bullfrog.

You can see this here.

Frogs and bullfrogs are both frogs.

But I will definitely hear frogs croak and ribbit

as I go for my walk each morning.

Very common sound I will also hear.

I usually walk by a small stream

and I will hear the water babble.

It's under the bridge by my house.

There's a small stream.

If you think about water, there's like

a stream, a river, an ocean.

Like a stream is a really

small body of water that flows.

And if it goes over a few rocks, it will make

a nice, pleasing sound, similar to water lapping against the shore

when a brook or stream babbles, it's a nice sound.

It's like, I just could let that one sit there.

I should have actually found some real sound

effects, but you understand what I mean.

When water flows over rocks, it makes a beautiful,

soothing sound that people really enjoyed to rumble.

So last night I actually heard

clouds rumbling in the distance.

So it's kind of funny.

It refers to thunder, right?

There's lightning and then there's thunder.

And when you hear thunder in the distance,

we often use the verb to rumble.

You know, there's a storm coming and

the clouds are going to rumble.

Before the storm hits, you'll

hear thunder in the distance.

You will hear the clouds rumble.

Now, I'm saying the clouds are rumbling

and that is what we say.

But technically it's lightning creating

thunder and you're hearing thunder.

The clouds themselves don't really make any noise.

The rumbling comes after the lightning.

But yes, definitely if you were to see clouds

like this on the horizon, you would say, oh,

I think those clouds are going to rumble soon.

I think we're going to hear the some

rumbling in just a little while to crumble.

So notice it rhymes with rumble.

That's the direction I went.

If you look here, you can see

that the shore is starting to crumble.

Um, you can also use this to talk

about, like a cookie or something you're eating.

When you bite it, little

crumbs, little pieces will fall.

Little crumbs will fall.

And we also use it to talk about something like this.

The shore is starting to crumble.

Pieces are starting to fall off.

Pieces are starting to basically fall

down, and you're left with this.

So this is definitely not a safe place to be because

it looks like the shore is starting to crumble away.

It's starting to slowly disappear, and eventually

it will be gone to a road.

So you'll notice here that there's a lot of water in a

field and it has kind of carried away the dirt with it.

As water flows through soil and dirt.

It takes the dirt with it, and

eventually it will erode the soil.

The best thing to do to stop erosion,

by the way, is to grow plants.

Plants will stop erosion.

But whenever you see this, we would use the verb erode.

So the water has flowed, and the water, when

it flows, it's going to erode the soil.

It's going to carry the soil away

with it as it flows to drizzle.

This is what it's doing outside right now.

There are a lot of different

ways to describe rain in English.

Sometimes we just say, there's just a mist outside.

It's misting, it's drizzling.

It's a little harder.

It's raining harder than drizzling.

It's pouring, then it's really, really raining hard.

So to drizzle, sometimes you will just.

You'll say, oh, it's going to drizzle today.

Bring your umbrella, because it's going

to drizzle all day long.

By the way, it's a fun verb to say, isn't it?

It's going to drizzle all day long to gush.

It's a fun verb to say as well, to gush.

I guess this isn't a really natural pitcher, but

whenever water or another liquid comes out of the

ground or out of a cliff or, I guess,

out of a pipe, I know that's not natural.

We can use the verb to gush.

There are places in the world where

water will gush out of the ground.

Probably a great description or use of this word

would be when they first drill an oil well,

oil will gush out of the ground.

It'll just shoot into the air until they cap the well.

So you can see here, I'm not actually sure what

this is even a picture of, but the water, you

would probably say, oh, the other day there, um, I

was walking down the street, and I was able to

see water gushing out of different parts of the ground.

So when water comes like this, and it can come sideways

as well, we use the verb to gush, to wilt.

This is sad.

This is what happens to a plant

when it doesn't get enough water.

You could say to someone, if you don't

water your houseplants, they're going to wilt.

So when they wilt, the leaves droop down.

I think I might have used this picture to teach

the word or the verb to droop as well.

But when you have leaves and you can

see the plant's not happy, some of the

leaves are brown, it's obviously very thirsty.

So if you don't water a plant, it is going to wilt.

There's no question about it.

It will wilt and then it will eventually die.

By the way, if you watered this plant, I guarantee you

it would perk up, the leaves would slowly go back up

and it would look fine and be healthy again.

So when you see a plant starting to wilt, give it a

little bit of water and it should be okay to roar.

So I live near Niagara Falls

and you can hear the water. Sorry.

When you go to Niagara Falls,

you can hear the water roar.

So it basically, it's like, like you can just.

It's a constant loud sound.

By the way, some animals roar as well.

A lion can roar.

I'm not going to do an impression of a

lion, but, yeah, when you go to Niagara Falls,

there are so many liters of water going over

the waterfall that it actually makes a loud sound.

You could hear it roar and it's pretty cool

to go there and to hear it roar.

It's probably one of the, one of the enjoyable

things about seeing Niagara Falls or any other waterfall.

It's fun to just, to hear

the waterfall roar, to glisten.

So after it rains or in the

morning, if there's a lot of dew.

Dew is when water forms in the

morning, you can see things glisten.

We use the verb glisten to talk

about something that's wet and shiny.

If it rains on your car, the

car will glisten a little bit.

Like it's brighter than normal.

If you look at this leaf,

it's, it's kind of glistening.

It's, it's reflecting lots of light

and it looks really, really cool.

So when you say that something is glistening, when

you say, oh, it's raining, the leaves on the

tree are going to glisten after the rain.

I wish I had a camera set up because

I could actually see the leaves outside glistening.

So a little hard to say, but rhymes with listen.

Like, you can listen and a leaf can glisten to buzz.

So I did earlier express that I do

not like the sound of mosquitoes buzzing.

I don't mind the sound of bees buzzing.

You can see this bee is hard at work.

If you were out there and

if the bees wings were really.

You would hear.

You would hear the sound.

The bee will buzz as it works.

So, yeah, I guess I'm.

I said I don't mind the sound of bees.

I don't like it when I hear wasps.

So we have a lot of wasps.

Bees usually just fly around and

collect pollen or whatever they do.

But wasps sometimes will attack, and then I

don't like hearing the sound of a buzz.

Like, if I hear a buzz and it's some

wasps, I run the other way to thrive.

When something thrives, it means

it is really, really healthy.

So you can see that these flowers are thriving.

If flowers and plants, if they get a lot of water

and if they're in good soil and they get sunshine, they

are going to thrive, they are going to grow, they are

going to produce flowers, they are going to be healthy.

The same with children and people.

If you feed kids well, they will thrive,

they will grow and be healthy and happy.

But definitely, you can see that the person

who's growing these plants took care of them

because they wanted them to thrive.

They wanted them to grow and

be happy and to be healthy.

They wanted them to thrive and

then, of course, to bloom.

So it's kind of fun because we have a

lot of flowers blooming on our farm right now.

So a plant will grow, there will be

a stem, and there will be green leaves.

And if it's a flowering

plant, eventually it will bloom.

Eventually there will be a bud.

And when the bud opens, we use the verb to bloom.

So you can see here, if you look at the

very far side, there's a sunflower that's closed, and in

a day or two, as a professional flower farmer, I'm

going to say in two days, it will bloom, it

will open, and it will look like these other flowers.

And just so you know, we also call that a bloom.

So the sunflower is going to bloom,

and then there will be a bloom.

Hopefully that made some sense.

Sometimes the verbs work as nouns as well.

To tower.

If you look in the distance, you'll see mountains.

In this picture, these mountains

tower over the town below.

Whenever we say something towers, we

mean that it's really, really tall.

Okay, so mountains can tower over a valley below.

Um, even large buildings can

tower over smaller buildings.

And you can sometimes have a tower, like, use

it as a noun and say that it towers.

So you could use the noun verb.

The CN tower towers over the Rogers

center where the blue jays play.

So hopefully that wasn't too confusing.

But to simplify, these mountains

tower over this little town.

So they're in the distance, and they're

really tall, and they're really, really big.

So they tower over the village below to pool.

So when it rains a lot, sometimes the water

will pool in places where it normally isn't.

What I mean by that is this isn't a pond.

This isn't a puddle.

This is someone's yard.

This is their lawn.

And it has rained so much that the

water has started to pool in this area.

Eventually it will go away.

But it's usually a sign that a

place has gotten more rain than normal. Okay.

Here, if it rains for two or three days, water

will start to pool in different places on our property,

you'll see water in places where it doesn't normally lay.

And so we use the verb to pool.

So if it rains a lot, water will start to pool.

And again, this isn't the same as a puddle.

A puddle is a place where, you know, if it

rains for ten minutes, there's some water in the puddle.

This is more like it rained for two days

and water is starting to pool in different areas,

sometimes not, not good areas at all to melt.

So obviously, when water is really cold

below zero degrees celsius, it will freeze.

And then if it goes above

zero degrees celsius, it will melt.

So here you can see ice turning into water as it melts.

This is actually a bit of a

problem in the world right now.

As the world changes a bit, we are starting

to see things melt that normally don't melt.

So when water turns from ice to liquid, when it turns from

a solid to a liquid, we use the verb to melt.

It's really warm out today.

The snow or ice is going to melt later to emerge.

So when you put a seed in the ground,

and when you water that seed and when it

gets some warmth, if the soil is warm enough,

it will germinate, and then it will sprout.

It will emerge from the ground.

Sorry, let me get that, my facts straight here.

It will germinate.

So it will put out a little.

It'll start to grow as a seed under

the ground, which is the same as sprouting.

And then it will eventually emerge from the ground.

For me, as a farmer, this is my

happiest time after I plant a crop.

When the crop starts to emerge, when the plants start

to emerge from the ground, I'm very, very happy because

it means the seed got enough moisture and it was

warm enough that it started to grow.

And then eventually it pops out of the ground.

Eventually it will emerge from the

soil and start growing vigorously.

Hopefully it will then thrive to sway.

So trees can sway.

Um, grass can sway.

When something sways, it moves gently back and forth.

In fact, when you see, um, the wind blowing and it makes,

it causes the grass to sway, it can also rustle a little

bit like you can see the grass moving in the wind.

You know, a really cool place to see something sway is when

a farmer has a field of wheat or barley or oats.

When it's almost ripe and it's nice and yellow,

it will sometimes sway and make really cool patterns.

But, yes, to sway means to go

back and forth gently like that.

Sometimes when you're pulling a trailer behind

a car, the trailer will sway.

That's not a good.

That's not a good thing.

To ravage, to pummel, and to lay waste.

So, sometimes nature is quite harsh.

Harsh.

It can do damage.

So sometimes you'll hear them say,

the storm ravaged the town.

The storm ravaged the coast.

That means that the winds were

so strong that damage was done.

You can actually see here that the

dirt has eroded under the houses. Okay.

And the houses have started to crumble.

So when a storm ravages a city or coastline,

it means that it does damage the things.

The wind is so strong that damage is done by the wind.

Usually the wind.

The water does damage as well,

but it will ravage to pummel.

We use this to talk about, like, waves

can pummel the shore during a storm.

The rain can just pummel the building.

The wind can pummel.

When you pummel, it's like.

You can see me making a fist, right?

It's like nature.

It doesn't necessarily have to cause damage.

So that's the difference.

If you use ravage, there's damage.

If you use pummel, it means

it might eventually damage something.

But these waves, I would say, are bigger than normal

in this photo, and they are pummeling the shore. So the.

The waves are going to pummel the shore all day long

and maybe cause some damage and then to lay waste.

So this is when there is, like,

destruction, like, beyond just ravaging the coast. If I.

There's just all kinds of houses that

have fallen over because of the wind.

We would say that the storm laid waste to that town.

So you can see here, obviously, a tornado or hurricane

came through, and it laid waste to this area.

Everything is severely damaged.

So, again, sometimes nature isn't nice.

It can ravage, it can pummel, and it can lay waste.

I have not experienced any of those three.

I live in a fairly calm area.

We sometimes get windstorms and small tornadoes, but nothing

like other parts of the world to chirp.

We go quickly to something a lot more pleasant.

Sometimes in the morning, if my

windows open, the birds will chirp.

I can hear the birds chirping outside.

It's, um, sometimes it's enjoyable.

Sometimes when I want to sleep in, it's not enjoyable.

But usually I don't mind waking up

to the sound of birds chirping.

Uh, the birds?

Um, yeah, I'm just gonna, I'm thinking, I don't think

the birds are going to chirp today because it's raining.

The birds will probably be sheltering somewhere.

But when you hear a bird chirp, it's like.

Or I think I can do a morning dove.

That's more of a coo.

I guess birds can coo as well.

Anyways, chirp.

That's a bad sound.

When you go to Niagara Falls, the water will mist. Okay.

When you drive along Niagara Falls, there's an area where

there's just always moisture in the air, because as the

water hits and goes over, it will mist.

It will cause really, really small

water droplets to fly away.

So, uh, yes.

One of the fun things about Niagara Falls is that the

water will mist, and then you will have this nice.

So on a hot day, it's nice to go to Niagara Falls.

There's this nice, cool mist all the time.

Notice I'm using it as a verb and

as a noun, so it will mist.