41 New Ways to Talk about Feeling Sick in English

Hi I'm Anne Marie with Speak Confident English and welcome to this week's

Confident English lesson. Where I live right now it's the middle of flu season

which means it's a period of time when a lot of people are catching a cold or

coming down with the flu. In fact this year it's nearly an

epidemic -- an epidemic is when something affects a large part of the population

very quickly. And of course when you have a cold or get the flu you definitely

don't want to go to work you want to stay home and rest which means you might

need to tell your English-speaking boss what's going on or maybe an

English-speaking friend from work or from your neighborhood calls you to see

how you're doing and all you want to do is talk about how bad you feel. And if

it's really bad then you might need medical help or maybe you need to go to

the pharmacy for medicine which means you'll have to talk about your symptoms.

So how do you do all of this in English? Well that is exactly what we're going to

focus on in today's Confident English lesson. So the next time that you get

sick or maybe your child gets sick, you know exactly what to say in English. In

this lesson I'm going to share a lot of new vocabulary and expressions so I've

also included all 41 ways of talking about being sick in English in the

online lesson. Let's start with how to talk about your symptoms because that's

the most important part. If you need to go to the doctor, if you need medicine to

make you feel better then you need to know how to talk about your symptoms,

how you're feeling and what's wrong. As I said earlier, right now it's flu season

where I live everyone I know is sick with the flu.

Some people have less severe or less serious symptoms which is just the

common cold and for both the flu and the cold there are some common symptoms for

example, you might have a runny nose which means you're going to need a lot

of these. And if you need a lot of these and you have a runny nose you probably

also have the sniffles. With a runny nose and the sniffles you're also probably

sneezing a lot. The opposite of a runny nose is when you can't breathe through

your nose and we say that we have a stuffy nose or a stuffed-up nose. Another

common symptom for both the cold and the flu is to have a scratchy or itchy

throat -- this is when it feels so good to drink some hot tea or eat something like

toast. And when there's a lot of pain in your throat we say you have a sore

throat and of course sometimes with a sore throat you also have a cough. Now if

you have some additional more serious symptoms then you probably have the flu.

Oftentimes when we have the flu we have body aches -- our whole body is in pain and

when it's really bad when it feels like the pain is pulsating. We say that it's

throbbing. You might also have a headache or simply a backache. Some people also

get a fever or they have a temperature which is when your body temperature is

higher than it should be and sometimes that can make you feel a little bit

dizzy. Now in addition to the flu we also have

the stomach flu or to have a stomach bug. A stomach flu includes feeling nauseous

in your stomach or to have an upset stomach and perhaps you are also

vomiting. Now when someone is vomiting a lot, either due to the stomach flu or

maybe something like food poisoning, we say that you can't keep anything down.

What that means is you can't keep anything in your stomach. If you eat a

cracker or a little piece of bread or drink some water it doesn't stay in your

stomach. Now of course it's not just when we have the cold or the flu that we

don't feel good. Sometimes we might have an allergic reaction -- maybe you are

allergic to something like bees or peanuts,

which means you have to avoid contact with those. When someone has an allergic

reaction some common symptoms include a skin rash. This is when your skin might

be red or it has little bumps maybe it itches or it burns. We could also say

that you have hives, for example if someone eats something and very quickly

they start getting red bumps or red splotches on their skin and again those

might itch, sting or burn. During the spring season, some people are allergic to

pollen and as a result they might sneeze a lot, have a very runny nose, and have

itchy, watery eyes. Now that is a lot of new language for how to talk about your

symptoms when you're not feeling well in English but before we finish today I

want to talk about one more thing and this is what we say when we don't feel

well in general for example if we have to call our boss

to say we can't go to work, we probably won't talk about all of our symptoms but

we do need to say that we're not feeling well. So if you need to call your boss or

send an email you might simply say that you have come down with the flu or that

you are simply not feeling well. Perhaps you would say I don't feel well

and I need to go to the doctor. Or you might be very direct and say I have a

serious cold or I have the flu, I have a temperature or a fever. Depending on

where you work, your boss might require a doctor's note. A doctor's note is simply

a short note or a letter from your doctor saying that, yes, you need to stay

home to rest and recover. You can't go to work. And the same is true for children

who need to stay home from school. Most of the time the school requires a

doctor's note. Now if a friend calls you or a colleague at work you might be a

little bit more informal when talking about how you feel.

One common idiom that we use when we're really sick is we say I'm as sick as a

dog. Why? I have no idea but it is a common expression. Or you could simply

say I hurt all over which of course means everything is pain and everything

feels miserable at that moment. And very informally sometimes we say I feel like

crap. And that is how you talk about feeling bad, feeling sick, getting ill in

English. Now the best way to immediately learn and be able to use new vocabulary

when you need it is to practice so today I want you to take an opportunity to

review the language in the online lesson then answer my one challenge question

which is: when was the last time you were sick and what were your symptoms? You can

use some of this new language by sharing your answer with me in the comments

section of the online lesson. And with that, thank you so much for joining me

for this week's lesson. If it was useful to you please be sure to give it a

thumbs up on YouTube, subscribe to this YouTube channel, and share it on Facebook.

Those are three really simple ways to let me know that this was helpful. And of

course, I wish you nothing but health because let's be honest getting sick is

absolutely miserable. Thank you for joining me and I'll see

you next week for your Confident English lesson.