Vocabulary to talk about your feelings in English: anger, fear, and confusion

Hi. I'm Gill from engVid

and today in this lesson we're going to be looking at some moods,

emotions, feelings, and state of mind which means what your... What state your head is

in. Okay? Whether it's good or bad. But in this lesson it's all the not so good examples.

In fact, we're looking at three areas of feelings: Anger, fear, and confusion. So it's a little

heavy. We call that heavy.

Heavy, but it's important to know this vocabulary. And you

probably already know the basic words: "angry", "afraid" or "scared", "confused". But again,

it's useful to have a wider vocabulary for use in everyday life talking to people, to

friends, to other people. If you're taking exams, whether it's written or spoken, again,

it's good to have a good range of different words that mean the same things or similar

things. Okay, so...

And it's important. I mean, these are difficult subjects. Like, I say heavy. When we say "heavy"

it means it's a difficult subject to talk about, but it's important to talk about feelings

like this because say you're talking to a friend about it, it's helping you to understand

yourself and if you have a good friend who is a good listener, they will help you by

listening and understanding. So it's really good to be able to explain your feelings in

a very precise way, not just saying:

"Ah, I felt angry. I felt scared. I was confused."

But to be able to say more... More than that. Okay. In English. So, anyway, let's start

with the angry words.

So, anger: "angry". Okay? You probably know that word already. "Mad", that's a more colloquial,

informal sort of word but means angry. "Mad" can also mean someone who's, you know, they're

not very... Oh dear.

They have a problem in their mind. They're... They're not thinking

rationally. But in this meaning, this casual meaning, "mad" can mean angry.

"Oh, I was so mad with that woman. She was so rude to me. She makes me so mad."

It means the same as angry.

"Irritable". Now, if you're irritable it's just everything annoys you. Irritation.

Okay, sometimes it can be just irritation can mean something on your skin that you have

to scratch, that's a kind of an irritation. There's also people can irritate you by the

things they do, the things they say. And if you're feeling more irritated than usual,

then that's maybe because you're tired or something else has upset you earlier, or whatever.

So, "irritable" is just everything, everything makes you angry. Okay.

"Prickly" is a bit similar.

"Prickly", it means... Oh dear. There's an animal called a hedgehog. I don't know

if you know this animal, but I'm going to attempt to draw it.

People love hedgehogs.

They're so cute. They have a lovely, little face. But they also have very sharp, like,

needles sticking out to protect them. So, they have all these points sticking out, and

if you touch them it's probably: "Ouch", like touching the end of a needle or a pin. They're

very sharp. But they're called prickles.

These sharp things are called prickles. So if someone's

prickly, it's as if they got these sharp things all over them and if you say... You can say

anything to them and they will react in a bad way as if you've said something rude when

you had no intention to be rude. They just react badly. That person is prickly. So it

helps to be able to say:

"That woman I work with, she is so prickly. I can't say anything to her.

I've stopped talking to her because it's impossible."

"Prickly", okay.

"Touchy" is similar. You touch... To touch. "Touchy" means like "prickly", you just say one thing

to someone and they react badly as if you've touched them and it hurt or something. Okay?

Okay, we're back to something a bit more normal now. "Upset". If you're upset you're probably

about to cry. You're going to be crying any minute with tears if you're upset. Okay. "Upset".

"Furious" is a more extreme word for "angry". We have the word "fury".

"Fury", it's extreme

anger, so very, very angry. "Furious". I was furious when that woman said that to me. Okay.

And similar, now we're getting into some idioms. Here's an idiom. "Blowing your top". If you

blow your top... This is your top, your head, and if you blow your top you just shout very

loudly at somebody and lose your temper. Ah, there's another one: "lose your temper".

If you lose your temper you stop being a nice, calm person, and you get angry and you shout,

and all of that. So, "blowing your top" it's like if you think of a pressure cooker, something

that you cook things in and the stream comes out at the top when it gets hot or it explodes.

If something explodes, that's blowing your top. It's like an explosion.

Just exploding everywhere. Okay? "Blowing your top".

And this is a bit similar and I think this is

a more recent term: "going off on one" just means getting annoyed about something and

just talking, and being angry, and saying things, and it continues for quite a long

time. You just keep saying how angry you are.

"Going off on one". I don't know what one

is, but it's sort of just you just start and you don't finish because you're so angry,

you just keep complaining. Okay, so those are a few terms for anger. Right.

So, let's move on then to fear. "Afraid" you probably know. "Scared". "Scared" is a bit

more colloquial, more informal, more casual. So, in conversation you'd say you were scared

about something, about an exam or something. "Frightened", you probably know that one.

These two: "timid" and "timorous", that's usually somebody who is always like that.

A timid person, someone who is always quiet and shy, and they're not very brave so they don't...

They don't complain to people in shops if they've been given a bad product

or anything. They're too timid. They're a bit like a mouse. People say:

"As timid as a mouse." So if you think of a mouse, and the way it runs away and hides, that's timid.

And "timorous" is the adjective. Okay? Oh, more extreme again:

"terrified". If you're really, really frightened, absolutely terrified.

This comes from the word "terror", "terror"

and "terrified". That is the more extreme version of fear. And if you're "spooked",

you may have seen a ghost or something, or something's frightened you and you don't know

what it is, but just totally spooked and you can't get back to normal for a while. So,

because "a spook" is another word for a ghost.

If you've ever seen a ghost, perhaps you were

spooked. I've never seen a ghost and I don't really want to. Okay, so that's fear.

So then finally, looking at "confusion", and this is your state of mind, how things are

inside your head. Okay? "Confused", maybe sometimes the English language you find...

You feel confused to do with grammar and all of that. And "puzzled". Puzzle.

You also get in newspapers and magazines there's often a puzzle or a quiz that you do. Like we have

the quiz on engVid, but a puzzle is usually something difficult that you have to work

out. So if you're puzzled, your mind is not understanding something. Okay.

"Muddled", and again, the noun is "muddle".

That is when things are sort of mixed... Just mixed up.

Did we put "mixed up"? No. So that's another one.

"Mixed up". Okay? If things are all mixed

up and you can't think clearly in one straight line, it's all mixed up in your head. Okay?

"In a muddle", "muddled", "in a muddle", it's all confused inside your head. You can't think

straight. "Mixed up", oh, it's there. Okay. Sorry. Now I'm "feeling stupid" because I

didn't see that there and I've written it again here. Feeling stupid. Ah, I feel so

stupid and I did it on camera, too. That's terrible. Okay. If you say:

"Aw, I'm feeling so stupid"

because there's something you can't understand, your head is so confused. Okay.

"Out of my depth", that's a useful idiom. Idiom. It's a little bit like if you're in

a swimming pool and you maybe... You go in at the shallow end where you can get your

feet on the ground and your head above the water, but if you start going towards the

deep end of the pool your feet come off the floor and you're sort of floating, and you're

trying to keep your head above the water but you can't put your feet down anymore. And

that means, you know, you're not tall enough to touch the floor of the swimming pool anymore.

That means you're out of your depth, the depth of the water. Okay? So if it's a new subject

that you... Or a subject that you don't understand very well... I mean, for me, it would be science.

I don't understand a lot about science, so with quantum physics I would be out of my depth.

Okay. So, right. You can say: "I'm lost" or "I feel lost". It doesn't mean you're

just out in the street and you don't know where you are. You're lost inside your head.

Okay? And: "My head is all over the place."

Oh, my head is all over the place. It's as

if all your thoughts are in different places, and you can't bring things together properly,

you can't think clearly. "My head is all over the place." "I don't know where I am." Again,

it's not in the street where you're lost and you can't find where to go. It can mean inside

your head you don't know where you are with a subject. You could say:

"I don't know where I am with the English language at the moment. It's all very confusing."

But I promise you:

If you keep coming to engVid and watching all our lessons, it will get less confusing.

Okay?

So, that's a range of vocabulary then on anger, fear, and confusion. I hope that's been useful.

There's a quiz on the website: www.engvid.com. Please go and give it a try.

And see you next time. Bye.