Weekly English Words with Alisha - Common Phobias

Welcome back to Weekly Words. Welcome back to Weekly Words. My name is Alisha, and this

week I’m told we’re gonna do a thing that is a little different. Alright. Let’s, let’s

start. Common phobias is the theme for this week. Uh, “phobias” means “fears.”

Let’s go.

The first word is “acrophobia,” a fear of heights. Uh, if you don’t like going

up into tall buildings, for example, you can say, “I have acrophobia.” I don’t like

going into skyscrapers. You don’t like to see things far below you. Uh, yeah.

The next word is “arachnophobia.” “Arachnophobia” means a fear of spiders. You might have seen

a movie called “Arachnophobia,” that had a lot of spiders in it, as you might be able

to guess. In a sentence you could say, “Ew, will you please kill that spider for me? I

don’t want to go near it. I have arachnophobia.” K.

The next word is “claustrophobia.” “Claustrophobia is a fear of small spaces. So, if for whatever

reason, you find yourself in a cramped train, for example, you feel really uncomfortable

and you want to get off the train. That’s called “claustrophobia.” In a sentence,

you might say, “Ooh, I don’t want to take the rush hour subway. I have claustrophobia,

and the commute makes me really, really nervous.”

Next is “agoraphobia.” “Agoraphobia” means, um, “a fear of going outside.”

Someone who prefers to just stay inside, to stay at home more often than not might be

agoraphobic. “My cousin has agoraphobia, and he refuses to leave the house no matter

what we say or what we do.”

Keep in mind that some of these words, um, are not commonly used in conversations, ah,

but rather, what they represent is fairly common, like fear of heights, and so on. The

fears might be very common, but the words themselves are not.

Oh my! “Ophidiophobia.” “Ophidiophobia” is a fear of snakes. I have ophidiophobia,

to an extent. I did go hiking once. I was hiking, and I was actually near a Buddhist

temple at the time. It was in the middle of a forest. They were doing a ritual of some

kind. You could hear like “a-eh-ooh-ra” like in the forest. And then as I was walking

up the hill, suddenly there’s this snake, like I saw it at the same time that it saw

me. The snake was like, “Oh my god, a human!” And I screamed an expletive. I said, “Oh,

a snake!” And it echoed through the forest. And I was like, “Oh my god, did the Buddhist

monks just hear me?” In a sentence, uh, “I was on a hike and I saw a snake and I

screamed because I have ophidiophobia and they terrify me.”

Onward. End! That’s the end. So maybe, um, these were some pretty common phobias I think.

If you can’t remember the specific word for your phobia or your fear, don’t worry

about it. You can just say “fear of heights,” “fear of spiders,” and so on. But if you

want to sound really smart, you can try to remember these and use them in your conversation

the next time you want to talk about your fear. Thanks very much for joining us for

Weekly Words again this week. We’ll see you again next time for more fun information.

See you!