Coronavirus — How to Talk about It in English

335,527 views ・ 2020-03-13

Speak Confident English


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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Hey, it's Annemarie with Speak Confident English.
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At the beginning of this week I did a live session in one of my online Facebook
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communities and in that session we focused on how to talk about the coronavirus
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because it's definitely affecting all of us. It's worrisome and stressful,
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but what shouldn't be stressful is knowing how to talk about it if you need to
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have conversations with friends, family members or coworkers,
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and especially if you need to have conversations in English with medical
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professionals. After doing that live session,
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I received multiple emails from students and other community members of mine
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telling me how helpful it was and they were glad to have the opportunity to
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learn and understand the vocabulary that they're hearing and reading about
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regularly in English and they were also glad that they could now use it in their
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own conversations.
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So I decided it would be useful to share that with you as well. Again,
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I don't want you to feel stressed about how to talk about this.
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So in this video today,
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I'm going to highlight some of the most important vocabulary that you'll need to
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understand and to use in conversations about the coronavirus and what's
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happening around the world. Now, before I get started,
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I want to make it very clear that in no way am I a medical professional and I'm
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not offering any advice,
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but I do want to help you fully understand what you're reading and hearing about
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and I want to make it possible for you to share your thoughts, your concerns,
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or what's happening with others in your community.
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Let's start with the words outbreak, epidemic, and pandemic.
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Those are definitely the top words that are being used when we're talking about
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the coronavirus.
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A really helpful picture to have to understand these words is to imagine a
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target.
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You have a central point and then the circles get bigger.
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So an outbreak is an increase in the number of cases of a disease in a
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particular place. Let me give you an example to help understand that.
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In the United States,
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the coronavirus started with an outbreak in Washington state.
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Over time, it became an epidemic, which is a large outbreak.
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That means the number of people who have the virus continued to go up quickly
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and it was over a larger geographic area.
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Now this week we also started to hear the word pandemic.
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A pandemic is a global epidemic.
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It means the number of cases continues to rise rapidly around the globe.
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It's no longer in one region or one country.
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It's across multiple regions, countries, and continents.
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Now,
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one more word that you may have heard or read that is related to this is
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epicenter. An epicenter is a focal point or center point.
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If we go back to the first example sentence using the word outbreak.
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Initially the outbreak in the United States began in Washington state.
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The epicenter of an outbreak would be the particular neighborhood or location
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where that outbreak began and this case in the United States,
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the epicenter was a nursing home in Washington state.
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As we've watched the coronavirus move from an outbreak to an epidemic and then
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to a pandemic, we've needed to respond in different ways.
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One of the first things that you've probably heard about art restrictions,
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restrictions are limits or ways to control someone or something.
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For example, right now there are many travel restrictions around the world.
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It means there's a limit or some control of where you can and cannot travel to.
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Some companies are also restricting their employees.
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They may be canceling travel plans or asking employees to stay home to work.
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A second response is social distancing.
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This is a focused effort to reduce close contact between people and the purpose
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of social distancing is to slow down the movement or the spread of the
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coronavirus. This is why we have schools closing.
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This is why large public events are being canceled and why many businesses have
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started to encourage or mandate telework, which means working from home,
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using the internet, email and telephone.
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Social distancing also means choosing to stay home more often and avoiding
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public spaces or large crowds when you are out of the house.
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For example,
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if you are going to work or you go to the grocery store and you see your
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neighbor,
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social distancing would mean that you don't touch or have close contact.
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Instead you keep your distance and that means a big change in behavior for a lot
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of us. Depending on where you live,
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it might be common to shake someone's hand,
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hug them or kiss on the cheek when you see them,
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but right now it's better to keep that distance again to slow the spread or
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transmission of the virus.
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Another response that you've probably heard a lot about is self-quarantine.
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The word quarantine means to separate and restrict the movement of people who
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have the coronavirus or have been exposed to it and those who have not.
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Many individuals have been asked or have volunteered to self-quarantine and what
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that means is they stay home and they restrict their movements.
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They don't go out in public unless absolutely necessary. For example,
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if you have a medical appointment.
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One final word related to this is the word isolation.
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Isolation is the most restrictive separation.
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Isolation is when an individual with a disease has been completely separated
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from other individuals. While they are contagious.
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Let's focus on that word that I just mentioned. Contagious.
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Contagious refers to how a disease moves or spreads from one person to another
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by direct or indirect contact. Now in this video,
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so far, I've used the word spread multiple times.
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This is a word that we often use when we're talking about the movement of a
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virus from one person to another.
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Earlier I mentioned that the purpose of restrictions,
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social distancing and self quarantine are to slow the spread or the movement of
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the virus from one person to another,
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and there are three important reasons why we're doing this. Of course,
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number one is to protect you and all of your loved ones. Number two,
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to protect those who are most vulnerable.
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So far with the spread of the coronavirus,
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it seems that elderly individuals or those of an advanced age and individuals
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with a compromised immune system are most at risk.
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Your immune system is your body's ability to fight a virus or protect itself
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from a virus.
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A compromised immune system means a weaker immune system.
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As a result,
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someone might get sick more easily or their body isn't able to fight a virus as
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well as someone with a healthy immune system can.
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The third important reason to slow down the spread of the coronavirus is to
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reduce the possibility of overstressing,
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overwhelming or over burdening our healthcare systems and hospitals.
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Notice that I'm using that prefix over- with all of those words.
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When I add the word over, for example,
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if a hospital is overstressed or a doctor is overburdened,
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it means too much or above normal.
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Certainly one of the top priorities right now is to make sure that our
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hospitals, our doctors, nurses,
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all of our medical staff and facilities are able to treat everyone who needs
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medical attention. Now,
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if you or someone you know does need medical attention specifically related to
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the coronavirus,
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I want to highlight some of the most important words you'll need to know in
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order to talk to your doctor, nurses,
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and other medical staff about how you're feeling, what symptoms you're having.
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A symptom is a physical sign of an illness.
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Some of the most common symptoms that are being talked about are fevers.
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A fever is when your body temperature is too high.
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It's higher than it should be or higher than normal.
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To talk about that with a medical professional, you would say,
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I have a fever, I have a fever of ____,
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and then give the specific degree in English.
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You'll also hear people say, I'm running a temperature. In addition to a fever,
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you might have symptoms like a cough.
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You may also have shortness of breath or tightness in your chest.
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If you have shortness of breath or tightness in your chest,
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it means that you have pain here,
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particularly when you try to breathe and you're not able to take deep breaths.
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For example, you're not able to do something like
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instead, your breath might be very shallow.
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And again, it's painful. You feel a lot of pressure or pain here.
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Other symptoms of the coronavirus include common flu symptoms such as sneezing,
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body aches,
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a body ache is when your whole body is in pain or it hurts.
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You might also feel tired, fatigued,
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or lethargic.
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Fatigued means very tired and lethargic means you have no energy.
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The last thing I want to highlight in this video today are some of the words
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we're using to talk about how we are preparing to stay home more.
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Again, talking about social distancing,
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choosing to stay home or even if you need to self-quarantine.
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The first one is the phrasal verb to stock up.
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To stock up means to have an extra supply,
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particularly of basic necessities like food,
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medicine and other essential household items and this is perfectly appropriate
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to do if you're going to self-quarantine for 14 days.
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That means that you need to have enough food for you and anyone else who's
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living with you. So right now,
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many people are going to the grocery store and other markets to stock up on
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things like dried goods, canned goods,
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non-perishables and frozen foods.
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Dry goods or non-perishables are foods that last for a long time.
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For example, rice, pasta and dried beans. Now again,
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this is perfectly appropriate, even smart to do.
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It's great to be well prepared,
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but one thing to avoid would be to hoard supplies.
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To hoard means to have an extra large supply that you hide and keep to yourself.
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If you are hoarding supplies,
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it means you are taking more than you need and as a result other people don't
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have the opportunity to also stock up and prepare.
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And that's something we definitely want to avoid. Of course,
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right now we want to protect ourselves and all of our loved ones.
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It's also a time to protect everyone in our community and help where we can.
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Now, I know that I didn't cover every possible word that you may be hearing or
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reading about when it comes to the coronavirus.
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I'm going to post this lesson on YouTube and on my website and if you've got a
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question,
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if you want to share your experience or you hear a word that you're not sure
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about, if you're struggling with how to express something,
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please be sure to share that with me.
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You can always ask questions in the comment section of the online lesson that is
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the best place to share and ask any question that you might have.
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I will be checking my online lesson regularly for any comments that you and
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others in the confident English community might have.
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My number one goal is that you don't feel stressed about how to communicate on
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this important topic. Thank you so much for joining me today and again,
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never hesitate to let me know if you have a question about something you've
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heard,
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something that you're trying to express or if you simply want to share what's
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happening where you live, and with that,
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I hope that you and everyone you love stay safe and healthy.
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