12 Ways to Talk About Crying in English | Advanced Emotional Vocabulary You Need to Know!

- Hey, everyone, welcome back to "Crying with Becky."

Today, I'm crying over my boyfriend, Kyle.

He got a haircut and it looked so bad.

So today I thought we would do a little cry.

This one's called the sob.

- Becky, what you doing?

- I'm filming content, get out!

- Every time I come in here, you're bawling your eyes out.

Why?

- Because that's my TikTok channel, "Crying with Becky."

Why don't you make her TikTok, "Being Boring with Maria?"

I'm sure everyone will love it.

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I only recently realized that crying is seen differently

depending on the country, on the culture,

and obviously the individual.

So how is it for you?

Do you see crying as a weakness?

If your friend is crying, what's your reaction to them?

Today's vocabulary lesson is going to give you

all of the words and expressions and phrases and idioms

that you need in order to answer those questions.

You can get extra, extra practice with this,

and many other lessons in my ebook.

The link is in the description.

So here in England,

we have this expression which I think

explains a lot about why you think British are so cold

and emotionless.

What are you doing?

No crying.

Come on, stiff upper lip.

The full expression is to keep a stiff upper lip

but no one says "Keep," they just say, "Stiff upper lip."

And you say this as a suggestion

when someone is full of emotion, like if they're angry,

they're sad, they're about to cry.

Hey, be strong.

Suppress all your emotions.

Stiff upper lip.

It's very healthy.

Literally make your upper lip stiff, hard, and don't cry,

don't get angry or sad,

just keep your emotions in because we are British.

I don't know why.

Honestly, these days only super old-fashioned people

actually say it.

Or you might see this in a movie or a TV show

like "Downton Abbey" maybe.

Similar to that, "Come on, chin up."

Again, the full expression is, keep your chin up.

People just say "Chin up."

It sounds kind of patronizing.

And again, it's not really helpful.

More specifically, it means, hey, I know things suck,

I know you are sad, but don't be sad.

Try and be happy.

This one you still might hear in regular, in daily life,

in movies and TV shows.

So I want to know, do you have a similar expression

in your language, in your country, with either of these?

Of course, be careful using these.

Let's say someone died and they're really, really sad,

they wanna cry, don't say,

"Come on, stiff upper lip," or "Keep your chin up."

It will sound very inappropriate.

So don't say that.

This is more like, "Oh, you got fired.

Don't worry, chin up, something else will come."

Honestly, I think these suck as expressions,

but you might hear them so it's good to know them.

I think if you wanna cry, go ahead, my dude.

Honestly, it'll make you feel better.

And feeling better from crying

is our next bit of vocabulary.

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When you express a very strong emotion,

like crying or shouting loudly or whatever,

you feel like, ah.

All that stress, all that tension gone.

That moment, that feeling, yeah,

you can say it felt so good,

But specifically that situation,

the relief from strong emotion,

we say cathartic.

The stress is here, thar, cathartic.

Probably in Latin languages it's the same word, cathartic,

but if it's not the same in your language

that's what it means.

Ah, I just had a huge cry

and honestly it felt very cathartic.

Okay, now we need to describe crying.

We need some verbs and nouns.

This water that comes from your eye.

What's the name of it?

You can count them.

They are called tears.

The pronunciation isn't so strict.

Sometimes you'll hear it tear, like it's one flat sound.

And other times you might hear tears.

It might have those two sounds.

Te-ar, tear, doesn't matter how you pronounce them

everyone understands it.

Just be careful not to pronounce it like tear.

Yes, it's the same spelling, it's the same word,

but the pronunciation is different.

Tear.

(mimics crying) Tear.

When you feel like this, you're about to cry,

but you can control it.

You can make sure the tears don't come to your eyes.

We say, "You hold back the tears."

Now, if it's more difficult, if it's really emotional,

you really want to cry,

but you try very, very hard to not cry,

you might want to change that verb to fight.

So a full sentence could be,

I'm fighting or I'm holding back the tears.

For example, I just watched "A Star is Born."

I'm fighting back the tears.

It's so emotion, you didn't cry?

You're a robot.

Personally, I'm not good at this.

If I feel like I'm going to cry, then I'm gonna cry.

But there are levels of crying, right?

So let's start small.

When your eyes do this, when the tears come, you say this.

To tear up to well up.

Pronunciation.

We have connected speech right here.

Tear up, tear up.

As a sentence, I'm tearing up.

I'm welling up.

And it just means the tears come to your eyes slowly.

They haven't come down your face yet.

At this point someone might try to make you feel better.

If your friend is sad you want to comfort them,

to help them feel better.

Maybe you want to say, "You're not alone.

I'm here for you."

The verb for this action is to console.

Again, the stress is here, console.

So that first syllable is a schwa, ca, console.

She is consoling him.

Question for you in the comments.

Let me know if this is your friend

how would you try to console them?

How would you try to comfort them?

If you can't control it, you can't hold back the tears,

it comes out in an explosion of tears.

We say, "You burst out crying."

To burst means to explode.

So it's literally an explosion of crying.

You burst out crying, or we could all so say,

"Burst into tears."

The meaning is exactly the same, an explosion of crying.

Of course, there are different types of crying, right?

So this, we could call it crying, that's general,

but we wanna be specific.

So a big cry, the verb bawl is very good.

Pronunciation is the same as a ball, bawl.

For example, for me, I was watching "Crash Landing on You"

on Netflix.

Most episodes, I was bawling.

It's really good, but it's very emotional.

Now she's crying too.

For this we could say she is sobbing or weeping.

Weep, however, is more general

and doesn't give the image of this.

It's just more like a general cry.

And be careful the past tense of this is wept.

Weep, wept, wept.

Sob is a regular verb.

Sob, sobbed, sobbed.

Love regular verbs.

They're the best.

She is sobbing.

She's weeping, but he is bawling.

Ooh, a good expression you can use with bawl,

to bawl your eyes out.

Let's make that question better.

Which movie made you bawl your eyes out?

For example, I was watching "Toy Story 3" last night.

I was bawling my eyes out,

and you know exactly the part I mean.

Now it's more than just a cry.

You are on the floor.

No one can console you.

You can't fight back the tears.

In this case, you break down.

We use the same phrase or verb for a car that won't work.

Kind of the same for you.

You can't function.

You can't do anything.

You're not hungry.

You don't want to have fun.

You just want to cry.

You break down.

So yeah, this one is a big one.

But what made you break down?

Why are you crying?

Dude, why are you crying?

Ally called me stupid.

And honestly, it got to me.

When something gets to you, it makes you emotional.

Maybe it made you angry, sad, maybe it made you cry.

Someone does or says something that affects your emotion,

it gets to you.

So you might hear the expression,

don't let those stupid guys make you sad.

Whatever they did, whatever they said,

don't let it get to you.

Okay, let's practice.

Use today's vocabulary in the comments.

It'll help you remember, I promise.

Question one,

when was the last time you cried

and what kind of cry was it?

Two, if your friend cries, do you console them?

What's your reaction?

Do you tell them to keep your chin up

or some version of that from your language?

Let me know in the comments.

Ooh and three, yeah.

How is crying seen in your country, in your culture?

Is it a weakness or how is it seen?

I'm curious, let me know in the comments.

Also, and I know, I hate this expression too,

but please like this video and subscribe

if you haven't already.

It really helps me.

And if you're learning English, this is where you wanna be.

Remember you can get this,

and many other lessons to get extra,

extra English practice in my ebook.

The link for this is in the description.

And I'll see you in the next class.

Bye.

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