How to Talk about Winter Weather and the Winter Season with Advanced English

116,310 views ・ 2018-01-24

Speak Confident English


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

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Hi I'm Anne Marie with Speak Confident English and welcome to this week's
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Confident English lesson. Today I'll be answering a question that I received by
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email just a few weeks ago. In that email Ahmad said, "Hi Anne Marie, thank you very
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much for your emails and classes in English (you're super welcome.) but I would
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like to hear from you on how to talk about the winter season. I don't have
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good words to use when I speak about it, for example the positive points. Ahmad
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that was a great question and I love it for two reasons: number one my goal is
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always to help you have the language you need to speak with confidence and to
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speak naturally in English. So if you want to talk about the winter season
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more easily in English, more naturally, than I'm excited to help you do that. And
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number two, where I live it is the dead of winter so it's the perfect time to
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talk about this subject.
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The dead of winter. That expression might give you an idea of how some people feel
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about the winter season. This idiom means to be in the middle of winter when it is
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the coldest darkest period of the year and for many this idiom describes how
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the winter looks and feels. So for those of you who right now do not live in a
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country with a winter season - maybe you're in Australia, New Zealand, Brazil,
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Argentina - and maybe you're wondering right now it's the middle of summer so
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could you say it's the dead of summer? Absolutely not. We never use that
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expression when we're talking about the summertime. Summer is full of life and
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warmth, everything is in bloom, so instead we say the height of summer. So for those
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of you in the southern hemisphere where it's warm and wonderful right now, you
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are experiencing the height of summer while many of us up north are in the
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dead of winter. Now of course there are many people who love the winter season.
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They find it invigorating and full of activities. And then there are others,
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like me, who are simply waiting for the season to pass. Now as I said there are
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people who really love the winter season, like my husband. For them the winter is a
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time full of exciting sports and the winter chill gives them a bolt of energy.
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A winter chill is a feeling of being really cold and often you're shivering.
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Shivering is that uncontrollable movement or shaking of your body when
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you're really cold. Some people like that winter chill. Why? I
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have no idea but again for them it sparks life and invigorates them. Now
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there are a couple of other ways we can talk about the feeling of cold air in
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the winter in a more positive way for example, we might say that the air is
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brisk or the air is crisp. In the last few years during the winter season
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Americans have become obsessed with a Danish word and concept.
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This word is hygge (and I'm probably mispronouncing it if I am I'm so sorry
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feel free to correct me) but this concept if I understand it correctly is focused
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on the idea of coziness, that feeling of warmth and comfort. With this idea in the
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winter we think of warm fires, drinking hot chocolate, wrapping ourselves in
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blankets, chunky knit sweaters and just being at home and comfortable. Now a
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chunky knit sweater is one of those thick, heavy, warm sweaters that we wear
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on the coldest days of the year. This is the perfect weather for those lazy
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weekends when you just want to read your favorite book or do some binge watching
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on Netflix. For those of us who live in winter seasons with a lot of snow we of
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course think of winter sports like skiing downhill skiing or cross-country
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skiing. There's snowshoeing sledding and even
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snowkiting. Snowkiting. Have you ever heard of snowkiting? To be honest I had
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never heard of it until very recently but it has become my husband's brand-new
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hobby. Snowkiting is when you use a board like
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a snowboard and you glide across the snow or the ice
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using kite power. All of these sports provide a great workout of course and
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they often give us an adrenaline rush. An adrenaline rush is that sudden burst of
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energy and excitement that we get with an increase of our adrenaline hormone
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and some people love that feeling, they can't wait for the winter to arrive so
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they can dive into those favorite sports and get that adrenaline rush. And then
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you have people like me who prefer to just stay home in that cozy feeling and
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wait for the winter to end. For those who don't like the winter season because the
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days are so short and dark they might find the winter season to be very bleak -
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it means empty or barren, to not have any warmth or life. And we're always jealous
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of people who live in that southern hemisphere where it's the height of
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summer. For us that winter chill doesn't feel invigorating or full of energy. Nope.
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Instead for us it might feel raw, biting, or harsh. These are all words that we use
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to describe a feeling that is really unpleasant or something that makes us
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feel uncomfortable for example a biting wind or a harsh wind. And speaking of
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wind, for us it isn't crisp giving us that burst of excitement.
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Instead the wind for us is howling. A howl is the sound that a dog makes when
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it's injured or in pain so if you imagine the wind sounding like that it
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has that strong sound and we can almost hear how cold the wind feels. And on
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those coldest days you have to brace yourself just to go outside. To brace
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yourself means to prepare or get ready to do something
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that is really unpleasant or challenging. Now of course people who don't like the
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winter can still appreciate those days when you look outside and it's just a
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winter wonderland. A winter wonderland is a scene when you look outside
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after hours of snowfall and everything is white and perfect, beautiful and it's
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so quiet. But then unfortunately those huge snow plow trucks come and they plow
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the snow from the roads, they remove the snow. And at that point the snow becomes
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dirty and brown and slushy. Slush is melted or watery snow. And finally, yes
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even though we don't like the winter, we do also appreciate that idea of hygge,
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that warmth and comfort, sitting somewhere cozy and wonderful. But we only
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do it because we have to. We stay inside to avoid freezing our butts off and we
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try to find the new best Netflix series for some binge watching. (Side note: right
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now my favorite Netflix show is The Crown. If you haven't watched it yet
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I definitely recommend it.) But let's get back to the winter. Now that you have
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some language to talk about the good the bad and a little bit of the ugly during
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the winter season I want to hear from you. I want to know what you love or
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don't like so much about the winter season where you live. As always I do
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have some challenge questions for you in the online lesson, so after you watch
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this video take the opportunity to practice using some of this new language,
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learn from others in the Confident English Community and even get feedback
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by sharing your thoughts and ideas in the comments section
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at the bottom of the lesson. And if you enjoyed today's video be sure to give it
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a thumbs up on YouTube or share it on Facebook. Those are two perfect ways to
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let me know that this lesson was useful to you. And with that no matter where you
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live, I hope that you have a wonderful week full of warmth and comfort and I'll
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see you next week for your Confident English lesson.
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