Let's Learn English! Topic: Sound! 🎤🔉🕬

Well hello and welcome to this English lesson about sound.

Today we'll talk about one of the senses. We have a number of

senses. I think five taste, touch, sight, sound, or hearing

we would say. Um but we're going to talk about the world

of sound. Um I'm going to talk about everything that I could

think of yesterday when I designed these slides for this

English lesson related to the topic sound. I think it will be

a fun lesson. There are some pretty cool words and phrases

in this lesson. So once again welcome to this English lesson

about sound. Sound. When we talk about sound we're talking

about waves that come into our ear and our ear turns it into

information our brains can understand and then we hear

something. So as you go through life you can see things with

your eyes but you could also hear sounds with your ear you

probably hear sounds from the very minute you get up. The

first sound I hear in the morning is my alarm clock going

off. But this morning I didn't actually have to use it. I woke

up before my alarm clock. So the sound of my alarm clock

wasn't required this morning. I woke up all on my own. So that

sound is what you hear with your ears. We'll talk a little

bit more about that as well. This is how You hear sound. Um

you can sometimes feel sound in your chest if it's a very very

low sound. But ninety-nine point nine percent of the time

you hear sound with your ear. That is how you sense whether

there is noise or sound around you. I'm going to talk a little

bit about the difference between the verb hear and

listen. This can be confusing for some people. The best I

find to describe this is this. When you hear something you are

not choosing to do that. It happens to you. If Jen drops a

plate in the kitchen I will hear that. When I walk outside

if a dog barks I hear it. The sound is coming to me. I am not

choosing to hear that sound. It is happening to me. So when you

hear something you're describing a sound that is

happening to you. When you listen it changes a little bit.

When you listen you are deciding to hear those sounds.

I know I use the verb here and there but I have to do that.

When you listen to music you have decided to listen to

music. When you listen to someone talking you have

decided I'm going to listen to them. So the basic difference

is when you hear something it's happening to you. You hear a

dog bark. You hear someone drop a plate. You didn't side for

that to happen. Something has just happened and you hear it.

But when you listen to a podcast or when you listen to

my voice right now or when you listen let me see what else

would you when you listen to music you have decided that

that is something that you want to do. So hopefully that helps

you a little bit. When you hear something you have no choice.

When you listen to something you have chosen to do that.

Sound is made up of waves that move through the air. Now

remember this is not an a science lesson. I'm not going

to go into all the details. But there is something that makes

the sound and it actually creates waves in the air that

we can't see. They are invisible. And our ear then

starts to move at that same speed. Our eardrum. So again

not a science lesson but sound waves are how sound travels.

When I yell my my voice travels. I have created sound

waves that travel through the air and eventually they they

hit someone's ear and they can hear me. The main way we make

sound with technology is to use a speaker. You might have

computer speakers on each side of your computer at home or

maybe right now. If you're listening with earbud Oops.

Earbuds. There's actually a tiny speaker inside. When you

talk on your phone maybe the sound right now for you while

you're listening to me is coming out of one of the

speakers that is on your phone. So the speaker is just a little

machine or a little piece of technology that will create

sound waves based on the information it is getting. And

then of course this in front of me is a microphone. So as I

talk into this the sound of my voice moves something inside.

It's converted into electricity. And it gets sent

all over the world. And then at your end your earbuds or your

speakers recreate the sound of my voice. So the microphone is

what for lack of a better way takes sound in. And the speaker

puts sound out. Microphones and speakers are awesome. They are

what allow me to teach English like this on the internet.

Super fun. And then of course I mentioned earbuds but there's

also headphones. These are things that you put on your ear

or in your ear. Headphones go on your ear or over your ear

and they allow you to listen privately when you wear

headphones or earbuds which go in your ear. Other people can't

hear what you're listening to. So one of the ways to hear

sounds one of the ways to listen to some one or to listen

to music is to use a pair of headphones or a pair of

earbuds. We don't always add the word pair. You know in

English we like to shorten things right? So we use

headphones or earbuds. And there's a general term called

audio. We use the word audio to refer to many things in the

world of sound. You can buy audio equipment. You can be an

audio technician. Um you can listen to audio books. So it's

another I guess more formal way to talk about sound. Um you

have things like audio books were one of the coolest things

that I discovered when I was starting to perfect my French.

Audiobooks are really cool because you can listen to

someone Read the book to you. So audio is kind of a a more

formal general term for the things in the world of sound.

Um you can work at an audio visual department if you're at

a university. I did that when I was in university. I worked at

the audio visual department. So I worked with equipment that

was used for audio as well as for video. So sound because it

travels in waves has a speed. And the speed of sound at my

understanding is 343 meters per second. But I think that's at

20 ° Celsius. And maybe that's at sea level. Correct me if I'm

wrong. Again this is not an English lesson. But sound

travels at a certain speed. Um and so when you say something

it actually takes a split second for it to get to some

one's ear. You can hear this if you are somewhere where you're

yelling at someone far away. Um or if you see something happen

far away that's loud. You won't hear the sound immediately

because the speed of sound requires a certain amount of

time or that sound to arrive at your ears. But speed of sound

I'm not sure what it is in kilometres. I think it's over

twelve hundred kilometres per second or something like that.

Don't quote me on it. Um oh yeah Would be wouldn't it? No.

1, 200 kilometres an hour. See again not a science lesson at

all. There's something called the sound barrier. So when an

airplane goes faster than the speed of sound they need to get

through the sound barrier. The faster a vehicle usually an

airplane because they're the only things that really go that

fast. When a vehicle or when an airplane gets close to the

speed of sound the sound waves start to compress in front of

it and it's kind of like a barrier. And once they get

through it I think it's There's less turbulence. I don't know

all the details but I do know that for a long time airplanes

never broke the sound barrier. But eventually I think it was

Chuck Yeager. Maybe Brent's here in Cantelli's. Um

eventually they were able to break the sound barrier. They

were able to design a plane. Um that could go faster than the

speed of sound. Sound check. Testing one two. Testing 123.

Or check one two. Check one two. Check one23. A sound check

something that people do before they start using a microphone.

So when I am about to start my English lesson I sometimes tap

my mic. And then on my screen I can see that the mic is

working. So it's a very subtle sound check. I don't do this. I

don't go testing testing 12three testing. But that is

something you might hear if you go to a show early. You might

see a sound technician or an audio technician do a sound

check and they'll go check testing testing 123 and they

might tap the mic a little bit. Does that hurt your ears? Sorry

if you have ear earbuds on and that makes too loud of a sound.

But that is called sound check. Let's describe sounds for a

little bit. When there is a sound that almost hurts your

ears you would say it is loud. When an airplane takes off it

is loud. When you go to a rock concert it is loud. When the

volume is really really high on your television. We say that

the TV is too loud. Uh when people yell it is loud. So when

you are loud you are making noises where the volume is just

really really high. And then of course the opposite is is

quiet. When you're quiet you these girls are whispering to

each other. So when you are quiet the volume is very very

low. You're talking quietly you're talking softly. There's

a few ways to describe it in English. But Certainly if you

imagine when a cat walks by it's very quiet. If you listen

closely you can hear its feet. But because its feet are padded

it's very quiet when a cat walks by. Um when our dog

Walter runs by it's not quiet. It's very loud. He's a big loud

dog. So quiet and loud are opposites of each other. And

that's because of what's called pitch. And I'm not going to get

into all the details. But because sound travels in waves

there's a different frequency. There's a different size of the

wave. When the wave is longer and has more amplitude again

not a science lesson. You have a lower pitched sound. So when

I talk like this the waves coming out of my mouth are much

longer. And when I talk like this the sound waves Coming out

of my mouth are much more like the one that says higher pitch.

So that is what pitch is. It's a change in the an in how the

sound wave looks and then our ears interpret that in a

different way. Uh let's see here. So dogs can hear high

pitched sounds. There's actually sounds that are so

high pitch that humans can't hear it. Um but dogs can. So

sometimes your dog will be looking around because possibly

they hear a sound that is outside of the range of human

hearing. By the way humans can hear from I think 20 to

20thousand hertz or something like that. 20 hertz to 20, 000

hertz. Uh I might be getting the actual description wrong.

Someone who's more scientific can contribute that

information. So we have when we talk about high pitched and low

pitched sounds. We also sometimes refer to them as bass

and trouble. So bass again is something referring to the low

sounds. Often when you listen to music you might turn up the

bass. Sometimes you'll hear a cargo by that has really large

speakers in it. So it can create really good bass sounds

when it plays music. And that person might turn up the bass.

Um in or for you to hear it. So when you hear a car go by and

it's like when the car goes by you can really hear the bass in

the song they've probably turned up the knob that says

bass and then treble if you hear a song and you really hear

the cymbals or like if you hear all those really high sounds

it's possible that they have turned up the treble. So on a

piece of audio equipment on a radio you might have a knob to

turn up or turn down the bass or turn up or turn down the

treble. And then sound is measured using something called

the decibel scale. We usually say that sound is a certain

amount of decibels. If you look here you'll see that you know a

heavy metal concert has very high there's a lot of decibels

in the sound. The sound is very very loud. And it's actually

can be damaging to your ears. When I worked in construction

there were certain tools we would use that where we would

where hearing protection because they put out too many

decibels. They were too loud for the human ear. This live

stream this English lesson is probably more at around

conversation level. If you look in the orange in the middle on

the scale. It's at conversation level. So decibel is the unit

of measure for measuring how loud sound is. And we also have

what's called a sound effect. Sometimes I do sound effects.

Sound effects when you do a sound effect you are recreating

the sound of something else. A long time ago when they were

making movies and if they needed to create the sound of

horses let me see if I can do it here. I don't have coconuts.

Uh they would pretend these are coconuts. And then they would

go like that does not sound like a horse but they would use

coconuts or two coconut halves to kind of recreate the sound

of a horse. When I was making the sound of a cat purring I'm

making a sound effect. It's not the original sound. It's just

an attempt to make the same sound again. So sound effects

are one of the ways they recreate sounds for movies or

for podcasts or for English lessons like this.

Mute. So there is a mute button on my mic. I'm not going to

push it. But a mute button is a button you push to stop all

sound. When I'm watching TV my remote control for my TV has a

mute button. If the phone rings I'll hit the mute button. Um

and then immediately the television will stop making

sound. When you are watching a YouTube video if you click on

the little speaker at the bottom you will mute the video.

The video will keep Playing but it will stop making sound. So

the mute button is what you use to do that. To stop something

from making sound. Or when you talk about a microphone to stop

it from hearing you or listening to you. Um sometimes

when you are in a Zoom meeting it's polite if there are lots

of people in an online meeting to mute your microphone so

people don't hear what's happening around you or in your

house. Sound panel. A sound panel it can actually refer to

two things. But normally a sound panel refers to foam

panels we put on the wall to dampen the sound and to reduce

echo. Echo by the way is when you're like hey hey hey. Like

if you're in a big room and you yell and your voice comes back

to you that's an echo. It's like hey hey. So if I was in a

cave you might hear an echo. Sound panels are used to stop

sound from reflecting. It absorbs the sound or deadens

the sound. Um but a sound panel can also be the board with all

the knobs that they use at a recording studio. We might call

that a sound panel as well. Um Volume. So this knob goes to

eleven. This is a secret joke. If you've seen a certain movie

you'll understand the reference. But volume refers to

normally how loud sound is. Specifically when you're using

equipment. When you're using a radio or a TV or when you're

listening to music with your your phone and your AirPods we

would have volume. You can turn the volume up. You can turn the

volume down. So when I'm watching TV sometimes I turn it

up. If I can't hear it. If it's too quiet I'll turn it up. And

if it's too loud I will turn it down. So once again the plus

sign on the remote control. Turn it up. Make it louder. Um

turn it down. Make it quieter. So sometimes when I am watching

something I have to turn it up. And Jen sometimes says it's too

loud. Um by the way this is from I think the movie Spinal

Tap. He has an amplify for his guitar. And he thinks it's

louder because the knob instead of going to ten goes to eleven.

It goes one more. Muffled. Sometimes sound can be muffled.

Recently we all wore masks a lot. Uh right now we wear masks

sometimes in Canada. But last year I had to teach wearing a

mask because of COVID. And so my voice was muffled. Um I

don't have a mask here. Oh, I do have a mask here. What I

noticed is when I wore a mask I noticed that my voice sounded a

little bit different. It was muffled. When your voice is

muffled it's it's harder to understand what someone's

saying. Here I'll give you a better example. If I talk like

this my voice is kind of muffled. So you can hear the

sound doesn't come out clearly. I didn't like I liked wearing a

mask because it protected me. But I didn't like wearing a

mask because it was hard sometimes for my students to

understand me and I had to talk louder and I would keep getting

a sore throat. But yes when your voice is muffled it sounds

like this. It's just hard to hear exactly what the person is

saying. So we talked about this earlier when someone has

troubled hearing. We say that they are experiencing hearing

loss. Or that they have hearing loss. As people get oh they

sometimes have hearing loss. They can't hear things as well

as they used to. When you're young and your ears work really

well you could hear a lot of things. But as you get older

and sometimes for other reasons you start to experience hearing

loss. You start to have trouble hearing things properly. And

sometimes you need to wear a hearing aid. A hearing aid is a

device that people wear in their ear to amplify the sound

and that helps them hear even though they have some hearing

loss. By the way this is an older style hearing aid. I

chose this picture so that you could see it really well. But

newer hearing aids are actually a lot more discrete. They're

harder to see. My friend has a hearing aid and it's very small

behind his ear and there's just a small little wire that goes

in. So you can hardly tell that he wearing a hearing aid. And

then of course we talked about when you completely lose the

ability to hear you are considered deaf. Deaf is the

term we use to talk about someone who can't hear. Um so I

did some research on this because I wanted to use the

correct terms. There are ways to refer to people who have

trouble doing certain things that are not appropriate. But

my understanding is that describing someone as having

hearing loss is the acceptable way and that you can describe

someone as being deaf if they cannot hear. So when you are

deaf you are unable to hear. Or you at least have significant

hearing loss as well. And then there's something called

ultrasound. This is a cool one because there are sounds that

are so high pitched we can't hear them. But dogs can hear

but we can also use them to do things like we can see a baby

inside of a mother's womb using ultrasound when I was having

heart problems they would use ultrasound to look at my heart.

They would send really high pitch sound waves in and I'm

sure they reflect or bounce off or something magical happens

and they can create an image from the sound waves. So

ultrasound is a very cool way to to C. Isn't that

interesting? We use sound to C.