ENGLISH PRACTICE: The Coronavirus Pronunciation / Vocabulary / Phrasal Verbs that you NEED

Hey guys.

Well, I did have a regular video queued up, scheduled for you, ready to go.

But it just felt weird putting it out today, what with everything that’s going on in

the US and elsewhere with coronavirus.

So instead, today we’re going to talk a little bit about what’s happening, that

current event.

And as I talk about it, we’ll make sure that we’re addressing interesting or strange

pronunciations or vocabularies, phrasal verbs, that kind of thing, that might come up.

First let’s talk about the phrasal verb I used, queued up.

I said I have a video queued up.

If something’s ‘queued up’, that means means it’s ready to be used next.

I had a video that was all ready to go for today, but it seemed strange to post it and

not acknowledge that we’re in the middle of this pandemic.

As some of you know, I live in Philadelphia.

And what’s happening here is something that has been going for weeks, or even months,

in other places in the world.

I’ve been watching that.

I have some students in China, and they were telling me what life was like for them.

“I can’t find toilet paper.”

“I’m working from home, I don’t see anyone all day.”

And now that’s happening.

I ordered toilet paper from Target and my order got canceled because they couldn’t

fill it up.

So, I did go to the grocery store today and get some toilet paper.

But. We’re starting to feel some of those same things.

Um, so.

I, I guess I knew it was coming, and now it’s here.

And now we’re figuring out what to do about it.

And of course the virus I’m talking about is called the Coronavirus.

It’s also called COVID-19.

Those are, I think, the two official terms.

Or maybe just COVID-19 is official.

Um, but, there it is.

One thing that I was thinking about was a word that you may have been hearing a lot

if you’re following this in English.

Wait.

Before we get to that.

Corona virus, it’s pronounced just like the beer, Corona.

COVID.

We’re pronouncing that with first syllable stress and the OH diphthong.

Co-. COVID. Nineteen.

How is ‘nineteen’ different from ‘ninety’?

First, the stress.

‘Nineteen’ has second-syllable stress.

Also, we have a True T there.

In ‘ninety’, it’s a Flap T. Nineteen, COVID-19.

One thing that I was thinking about was a word that you may have been hearing a lot

if you’re following this in English, is the word ‘stock’.

And, it’s being used in a couple of different ways.

So, first of all, there’s the stock market.

And we call that ‘stocks’.

Stocks have plummeted, they’ve plunged, they’ve really lost value.

They started to go up a little bit at the end of the week.

But, that’s the stock market or stocks.

But maybe you’ve also heard the time ‘stockpile’.

And this is what you do when you gather a lot of something, and keep it safe.

For example, some people have been stockpiling toilet paper, which is why it’s hard for

other people to get it.

Because people are going in and buying a lot.

Or, hand sanitizer.

I want to point out that the D in ‘hand’ will be silent when the next word begins with

a consonant.

It doesn’t have to be, but this is how you’ll hear it almost all the time.

I said ‘hand sanitizer’.

No D. Listen again.

Or, hand sanitizer.

Or whatever.

Or, they’re stocking up.

That’s another way you can use it.

This is a phrasal verb.

To stock up on something.

That’s a little bit different than ‘stockpile’.

Stockpile really means a very large amount of something.

Stocking up just means getting plenty of it.

It’s not quite as extreme.

Um, for example, at my house, we’re stocking up on beans, rice, food that we can cook if,

for some reason, we are unable to go to the grocery store.

Stuff that will last.

We would call that kind of food ‘non-perishable’ food.

So, we’ve stocked up a little bit.

We haven’t really stockpiled anything.

We’re trying not to grab too many resources and keep them for ourselves.

But we’re definitely stocking up.

And we are watching the stock market.

We do have some stocks there.

We’re not too worried about it.

We’re still young.

Um, but those are all interesting ways you can use the word ‘stock’.

I’ve also used the phrase ‘take stock’.

And that means assess.

That means gather information in order to make a decision.

For example, we need to take stock of what we have before we go shopping so that we know

what we need.

So that we don’t buy stuff we don’t need, and we don’t forget important stuff.

We need to take stock of what we have before we make our shopping list.

There are other ways the word ‘stock’ is used.

Perhaps in cooking you’ve noticed the term chicken stock, beef stock, or vegetable stock.

So, we’re all ready.

We’re stocked up on everything we need.

Plenty of diapers and all that.

And now we’re just waiting to see what happens.

In Philadelphia, where I live, the schools have closed down for two weeks.

My kids are not school-aged yet.

They’re younger.

So, daycare centers are still open as of now.

However, the counties that surround my county, all four of them have shut down…

Before I go on, let me point out the word ‘county’.

We dropped the D in ‘hand’ because it was after an N and before a consonant.

We often drop the T when it comes after an N.

This happens in the common words internet, interview, and international, and others as

well.

You don’t have to drop the T, but you’ll often hear that.

The dropped T is also common in the pronunciation of the word ‘county’.

So it becomes ‘couny’.

That’s what I did.

Listen again to my pronunciation of ‘county’ and ‘counties’.

The counties that surround my county, all four of them have shut down, what is it,

non-essential businesses.

And that would include daycare.

So, it just seems inevitable.

There were two less common words there.

Non-essential and inevitable.

‘Essential’ means absolutely necessary, something you must have.

Air is essential for life.

Essential businesses in a time like this are pharmacies and grocery stores.

All other businesses, even daycares, are considered non-essential.

We can live without them for a period.

The counties that surround my county, all four of them have shut down, what is it, non-essential

businesses.

And that would include daycare.

So, it just seems inevitable.

Inevitable.

I said it seems inevitable that our day care will close.

That means certain to happen, unavoidable.

Based on what’s happening in surrounding counties, where all the non-essential businesses

have been closed, it seems certain that our day care will close.

What will we do when our kids have to be home with us.

We’re very, very luck in that my husband, David, is mostly a stay-at-home dad.

So, he has a very small job in the evening, and I can take care of the kids at that point.

But generally, during the day, he takes care of the kids.

And when Sawyer’s in daycare a couple of days a week, or Stoney’s at school, then

he does things like grocery shopping, cleans the house, he does all of that.

He runs the household for our family.

So, luckily for us, he can keep doing that with the kids, and I can keep work[ing].

It won’t disrupt our life that much.

But certainly, we have many friends and know that there are many people out there who will

be very disrupted when their kids are no longer taken care of.

And kids who have school-aged, people who have school-aged kids who now can’t be at

school.

And I know that this is what’s been happening all over the world.

I’m just curious, how are YOU guys doing?

How have you dealt with your lifestyle changes?

One of the things that’s interesting, confusing, hard, difficult about this situation is not

knowing the length.

Not knowing how long.

Um, Stoney will go to school on Monday.

He goes to a Montessori preschool.

Um, but we assume that, within a day or two, that will be shut down.

Sawyer, we haven’t heard anything.

We assume that will be shut down.

I have to stop here because one of the vocabulary words I went over recently on my channel was

‘assume’.

And here I’ve used it twice.

It means to think something is true, or probably true, without actually knowing.

At the time I made this video, I thought their schools would be canceled.

I was pretty sure.

I didn’t know definitely, they had not been canceled yet.

But I assumed they would be.

Um, but we assume that, within a day or two, that will be shut down.

Sawyer, we haven’t heard anything.

We assume that will be shut down.

Um, and so we’ll figure it out.

A lot of playing inside, I guess.

I wanted to go over the difference between ‘shutdown’ and ‘lockdown’.

So, I’ve been hearing both of those phrases in the news.

A shutdown of non-essential businesses would mean those businesses close.

So, workers won’t be there.

You can’t go visit them.

Just as a way to diminish the amount of contact that people are having with one another.

Now, a lockdown is when you’re not free to move about.

So, for example, if the city of Philadelphia has a lockdown, then people won’t be able

to leave and come, come into the city.

Uh, and that’s been happening, um, in other places in the world.

And, might it ever be so extreme that there’s a lockdown house by house?

That they say, “look, you can’t leave your house.

This thing is out of control.

We’re going to take dramatic measures.”

I don’t know.

I don’t think that’s happened yet anywhere.

Where they’re saying people can’t leave their house.

But they’re trying to contain areas by locking down those areas.

I hope whoever is watching this, wherever you are, that you and your family are safe

and healthy.

And that you’re weathering the storm.

Um, I know everyone’s life is disrupted, and, the financial impact is huge.

To weather the storm.

This is an idiom that means to make it through a difficult situation.

This is a tremendously difficult time, and I hope you are weathering the storm.

Making it through, not suffering too much.

So, there will be a regular Rachel’s English video here next week.

Please come back and check it out.

And, be well.

Be kind to each other.

And, let’s just all remember to wash our hands.

Stoney, my four-year-old, is so annoyed with how often we’re making him wash his hands.

But, from what I understand, it’s our responsibility to do that for one another, in this world,

to try to shut this thing down.

“Shut it down.”

“Shut it down.”

So, be well out there, my friends, thank you for watching, and I’ll see you here next week.

The vocabulary video where I went over the word ‘assume’ is here – it’s a whole

playlist so if you’ve already seen that one you can skip around.

I make new videos on the English language every Tuesday and I’d love to have you back,

please subscribe with notifications, we have fun here.

That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.