Free English Class! Topic: Cleaning! 🧹🧺🗑️ (Lesson Only)

Well hello and welcome to this English lesson about cleaning.

I'm not sure this is going to be everyone's favourite topic.

I mean you'll probably enjoy learning the words. But

cleaning isn't something that everyone enjoys doing. Uh but

in this English lesson I'll teach you some words and

phrases that you can use to talk about cleaning. Um we

usually do cleaning a little bit everyday and then a lot

more on Saturdays so it'll be interesting to find out from

all of you when you do your cleaning. And if you're

wondering what I mean by cleaning I'm talking about

cleaning your house or cleaning your apartment. Um so that's

going to be the focus of today's English lesson. We'll

talk about the English words and phrases you need to to know

to be able to talk about cleaning your house or

apartment. So how do we talk about cleaning the house? Well

we use the phrase to clean the house. This is the general term

we use when we talk about picking up after ourselves.

Washing things. Getting everything tidy. Sometimes your

house gets messy and you need to clean your house. Sometimes

you need to clean the apartment. We clean our house

to a certain degree every day. And we clean it a lot better

every Saturday. But the time when we clean the house the

best is when we know people are coming over. When we know we

are going to have guests we do a really good job of cleaning

the house. But that's the phrase we use in English. We

say oh I need to clean the house. My mom is coming over

tomorrow. I need to clean the house. My brother-in-law and

sister-in-law are coming over tomorrow. And we usually do

this because the house is a mess. Um I'm not sure if you

are a messy person. I'm kind of a messy person. Um I try to

keep things clean but when I'm busy I'm definitely a messy

person and then the house is a mess. And this is how you would

describe your house or apartment before you clean it.

You say oh I need to clean my apartment. It is a mess. I need

to clean my house. It is a mess. So you notice we say the

house is a mess. You could also say the house is messy. That

would work as well. And if it's really bad we say the house is

a disaster. Don't come over right now Mom. The house is a

disaster. We need to clean the house first. Um if you have

little kids this is usually true. In fact after you clean

your house if you have little kids just wait a few hours and

then the house will be a disaster again so two ways we

describe a messy house as we say the house is a mess the

house is messy or the house is a disaster and again you can

use the possessive. My house is a disaster. Our house is a

disaster. Um during the summer our house is sometimes a

disaster because Jen and I are very very busy. And then when

you get to the specifics you might need to clean a specific

part of the house. For kids usually we say you need to

clean your room. Um I also have this room. This is my studio

and it's kind of our living room. And so we refer to this

as my room. So sometimes I'll say I need to clean my room. Uh

because I have a visitor coming over. In fact the person who

edits my videos visited in June. And so I said to Jen I

need to clean my room. Because I don't want my editor to think

I'm a messy person. But when your room is a mess when your

room is a disaster. You need to clean your room. And sometimes

your house isn't really messy. It's just a little bit messy.

And you just need to straighten up. So when you straighten up

it means like this person you put all the books in order.

Maybe there's a cup and a plate on your desk in your office at

home. You would bring that to the kitchen sink. Um maybe

there's just a few things on the counter in your kitchen and

you put them in the cupboard. But when you say up. It means

that your house isn't a total disaster. It's relatively tidy

and neat already and you just need to arrange a few things.

And we have another phrase we use tidy up. So you might just

need to tidy up a little bit. Uh this again means that maybe

there's a few books out. Maybe there's a couple things on your

kitchen table when you tidy up or when you straighten up it

usually only takes about five or 10 minutes. Maybe you put

all the shoes in the closet by your entrance way. Or maybe you

just put them all nice and straight. But sometimes you

know that people are coming over and you'll say don't come

right away. I just need to tidy up or I just need to straighten

up the house a little bit. And some specifics. And I'm trying

to put together phrases with verbs and the thing the verb is

modifying. So that you can hear an English speaker say it.

Sometimes you just need to sweep the floor. We sweep the

floor after supper every night in the kitchen. And we sweep

the floor in our entrance way and other places. Usually once

a week. But sometimes there's just a little bit of stuff on

the floor and you need to sweep the floor. Sometimes you need

to mop the floor. When you mop the floor you get some soap and

water. Some people use vinegar and water. Some people use

bleach and water. Some people use some sort of cleaner mixed

with water. But you will use a mop and you will stick it in

the bucket and get it wet. And then you will mop the floor. Um

after you mop the floor the floor is usually just a little

bit wet for a while. So when you sweep the floor it's a dry

activity. When you mop the floor it's more of a wet

activity. You are making the floor a little bit wet. As you

clean it. And then you might need to do the dishes or wash

the dishes. We do the dishes after supper every night. We

sometimes do the dishes after breakfast. It depends on the

Time of year. Yesterday I did the dishes three times. I did

the dishes after breakfast. I did the dishes after lunch and

I did the dishes after supper. Um and I didn't have any help

because Jen and the kids were all very very busy. But

sometimes you leave the dishes for a few days and then you

have to do two days worth of dishes. And that could be a

little bit annoying. Sometimes you want to wash the windows.

This is something I need to do in my house because for some

reason the windows are getting a little bit dirty. This isn't

something people do every week necessarily. Some people might.

Uh in our house we wash the windows once or twice a year.

And I'll be honest there's some windows in the second story

that we've never washed. But I should wash them someday. Um if

you haven't washed your windows recently you should wash your

windows because you'll be surprised about how much easier

it is to see through the windows, especially if you live

in the city. And sometimes you just need to shake out a rug,

shake out the rug, or shake out the mat. We have a mat. A a

welcome mat outside our front door. We also have a small rug

inside of our front door in our entrance way. And once a week

we will take out that little rug and we'll take it outside

and we will shake out the rug. Um and then we'll vacuum it

afterwards. But we usually shake it out outside first

because it has little pieces of mud or stone or other things on

it. So it's nice to go outside and shake out the rug. And

sometimes you need to clean the bathroom. My least favourite

job in the world is cleaning the toilet. Uh but when you

clean the bathroom you will clean the mirror. You will

clean the countertop. You will clean the sink. You will clean

the toilet. You will clean the shower. You will clean the

bathtub if that's what you have. So certainly when you

want to clean your house you will clean the bathroom. Uh you

might do the laundry. So part of keeping your house clean is

to regularly do the laundry. Or you could say wash your

clothes. I need to wash my clothes. The most common phrase

for me is to say I need to do the laundry. Um this means

getting all of your socks and underwear and pants and shirts.

And putting them in a washing machine and then washing them

using laundry detergent. Uh we do laundry quite often. In fact

we do laundry almost every other day. Um we do a load of

laundry because there are six people living in this house. So

there is a lot of laundry to do. And then you might put the

laundry in a dryer. You might have a dryer in your house but

we hang up the laundry. So we put the laundry outside on a

line. And it dries in the sun and in the wind. In the winter

we hang our clothes up. Uh we hang the laundry inside and it

dries in our house, inside of our house. And sometimes you

need to wipe the table. So the action you take when you clean

the table is you will wipe the table. You will get a damp

cloth. You might say wet cloth but usually you make a cloth

wet and then you ring it out so that it's only damp. You don't

want the cloth to be dripping water or soapy water. So you

wipe the table with a damp cloth. A few actions that you

take when cleaning. You might need to scrub when we use the

Word scrub we mean to use a brush and to rub something

really hard back and forth. This person is scrubbing the

floor. Uh you could scrub with a cloth as well. Sometimes

you'll get a face cloth and you'll scrub a kid's face if

they are really dirty or muddy. Um but usually you use a brush

or cloth and you make this action. You push really hard

and you scrub. Sometimes you dust so you will use a duster

in order to dust. This lady is dusting and she is using a

duster. So we have the verb to dust and then we have the

object to use the duster and I'll talk about that a bit

later. But yes as you go through time there's just dust

everywhere. Like there's dust on my computer right now.

There's a bit of dust. So I need to dust my office. And

vacuum So the verb to vacuum you get a vacuum cleaner and

you turn it on it makes a lot of noise and it sucks all of

the dirt and other things into it. And when you're done the

floor is clean. So you might say I need to vacuum the floors

in my house. Um and I need to take care of that. A few people

that do cleaning. So Jen and I don't have a house cleaner. In

my part of the world in English. A person who cleans a

house is called a house cleaner. Uh I know a people who

are house cleaners. They clean other people's houses and they

get paid for it. You might also see the word housekeeper or

made. We don't use the word house keeper in this area. Um

but they might in other English speaking parts of the world.

And we don't use the word made anymore. Um we tend to use the

word house cleaner or the term house cleaner. So this person

is probably someone who is paid to clean this house. This

person a house cleaner. I would love to have a house cleaner

but I think it's better for Jen and I and our kids to clean our

own house because number one, it doesn't cost anything and

number two, I think it's important for kids to learn how

to clean up after themselves. A person who works at a business

though could be called a janitor or a custodian. At

school, we have a janitor and their job to keep the school

clean. Um I don't know the exact difference between

janitor and custodian. Some people will call that person a

custodian. Some people will call that person a janitor. So

a person who cleans a business or a school or another

building. You might have someone who is a window washer.

Their only job is that they wash windows. They might wash

windows on skyscrapers. That would scare me. You need to go

really high up on the air with ropes to clean the windows. Um

you can also see this person is using what's called a squeegee

and I'll talk about that in a little bit. But the person who

cleans windows is a window washer. You can also have your

carpets clean. So you can have a person who's called a carpet

cleaner come and clean your carpets. They will use a

machine called a carpet cleaner and they will use a product

called carpet cleaner. So I thought this was kind of funny.

Sometimes people will have their carpets professionally

cleaned. They will pay a company to come with special

machines called carpet cleaners. Um so the carpet

cleaner will come with a carpet cleaner to clean your carpet.

You can also rent a carpet cleaner. You can go to a rental

store. They even have these at the grocery store and you can

rent a machine called a carpet cleaner and you can use it to

clean your carpets. And you will use something called

carpet cleaner when you clean your carpets. So if you use a

machine like this you might actually have this as well.

Let's talk a little bit about the things you use to clean and

I'm going to go rather quickly through this section because I

think it's fairly straightforward English

vocabulary. This is a mop. You use a mop with a pale and with

some soapy water to mop the floor and we talked about this

earlier. So a mop is a wet way to clean the floor. When you

use a mop you might use a bucket or pale. We use either

word. I need a bucket. I need a pale. I'm going to mop the

floor. Where's the bucket? Where's the pale? You might

wear cleaning gloves. I usually don't wear cleaning gloves when

I clean. I usually just use a cloth and clean but when I

clean the toilet. Sometimes I wish I had cleaning gloves. In

fact I might buy some. Some people will wear cleaning

gloves whenever they clean. They will wear cleaning gloves

to keep their hands clean while they clean. And you might have

a vacuum cleaner. A vacuum cleaner again is used to vacuum

the floors. So this is a vacuum cleaner. In fact this is one of

the vacuum cleaners we have at school. I'm not sure why his

name is Henry. Uh but this is a vacuum cleaner. And the vacuum

cleaner will have attachments. Depending on what you are

vacuuming you might put a small attachment or a a nozzle

attachment or a small brush attachment. There are lots of

different attachments that you can use when you are using the

vacuum cleaner. You in the vacuum cleaner, there is a

filter so you might need to change the vacuum cleaner

filter. Although someone mentioned earlier something

called a Dyson vacuum cleaner, we have a Dyson vacuum cleaner

and there are no vacuum cleaner bags or filters that you have

to worry about. It's kind of cool. You might use a duster

and we saw a picture of someone dusting earlier. So again you

will use a duster to dust. So you will dust using a duster.

It's nice to get all of the dust off of everything. When

you do dishes you will most likely use a dish brush. Some

people will use a cloth when they do dishes. Some people

will use a dish brush. Some people will use a sponge when

they do dishes. So when we do the dishes we use a dish brush.

I know I've been other people's houses where they use something

called a sponge when they do the dishes. All of these things

are great little tools to use when you are trying to keep

your house clean. When you sweep you use a broom you might

also have a dustpan to go with the broom. So you sweep the

floor with the broom and when you have all of the stuff that

you've swept up in one spot you get a dustpan and then you

sweep it into the dustpan. So different than a mop. A broom

is used it's a dry way to sweep to clean the floor. So you

would use a broom put everything in dustpan and then

dump the dustpan into the garbage or another place.

There's another thing called a swiffer. We do not have a

swiffer but this has become very common in a lot of

people's houses. A swiffer. I'm not sure if you can see it.

That's not the greatest. But it's kind of a mop but it has a

built-in container of cleaning solution and you can pull the

trigger and squirt it on the floor then sweep it up. It's

kind of like a modern mop I guess I would call it. Um I

think that using a swiffer would be cool but we don't have

one. We just mop the floor. That seems to work best for us.

I've mentioned squeegee a couple of times in this lesson.

I had to check five types if I was spelling this correctly.

This is how you spell squeegee. A squeegee is a thin probably

rubber tool with a handle that you use when you're cleaning

glass or a mirror and it helps you to wipe away the water and

soap. So that is a squeegee. Squeegee. It's probably a hard

word to say for some of you. But when you clean windows it's

nice to have a squeegee. Sometimes you'll just use a

cloth. You might just call it a a a a kitchen cloth a cleaning

cloth but it's usually we just say cloth. I'm going to use a

cloth to clean the counter. I'm going to wipe the table with a

cloth. Maybe you'll just use rags. Jen and I keep rags in

our bathroom cupboard. Usually our rags are from old T-shirts.

When we have a T-shirt that gets a hole in it. We'll cut it

up into rags and we will use the rag to do some cleaning. If

I was going to wash my car I might grab a few rags to wash

my car. So rags usually are just old pieces of clothing

that you use for cleaning. Sometimes you might use paper

towels. So we have paper towels in our kitchen. We don't use

them very often. But if someone spills some milk or spills some

orange juice we will grab a paper towel and we will wipe up

the spill. And then we usually put the paper towels in the

compost because they are compostable. So we don't throw

them in the garbage if we use them. And we just have

something called cleaner. This is the general term for

anything you use to clean. You might use water. You might use

soap and water. Or you might use something like this. This

is Mister Clean or see it must be a Canadian package. Mister

Clean. Um this is a product that has some cleaning

chemicals in it and it usually smells like lemon. I think you

can see the lemons on the front of the container. Yes, right

under his face are some lemons. Um but yes, you will use a

cleaner to clean your house. Um I forgot to mention toilet

brush when I was talking about things you use. A toilet brush

is a special brush that you use to clean the toilet. So, we

have a toilet brush beside each toilet. We have two toilets in

our house, two bathrooms. And we use the toilet brush to

clean our toilet and we use toilet bowl cleaner to clean

our toilet so this is a special type of cleaner so you might

have a general purpose cleaner or an all-purpose cleaner but

this is a specific cleaner made for cleaning toilets and this

is exactly the kind we use. We usually buy a pack of four and

it takes us about a year to get through them but we use toilet

bowl cleaner to clean our toilets. Um when you wash your

car you might use a car brush. A special brush designed for

cleaning your car. Um we don't usually wash our vehicles. If

we do we actually go to a car wash in town. Not the kind you

drive through though. This is a car wash that you drive

through. Or it pulls your vehicle through. We go to a car

wash where they just have some car brushes and some pressure

washers. Some special hoses that you can use. But again we

don't wash our vehicles very often. Sometimes we go down a

muddy road and we might go and wash our car after that. Uh so

car wash and then last slide here. What we all love even if

we don't like cleaning. I think everyone loves a house that is

neat and tidy. I said this a couple times in this lesson. I

don't like cleaning. But I love the feeling I get when I'm done

cleaning. I like a house that's neat and tidy. When my desk

where I work is neat and tidy I'm happy. When the kitchen is

neat and tidy I'm happy. Uh so like a like yesterday I worked

really hard to keep the kitchen neat and tidy all day because I

knew I had to make breakfast, lunch and supper for my kids

because Jen was gone. And so I kept it neat and tidy.