Episode 0234

Hello everyone and welcome to English Pod. My name is Marco.

My name is Catherine and we're talking today about health and getting sick.

That's right, we are going to visit the doctor, so we're feeling a little bit ill.

And uh well, we're going to describe some of the symptoms that we have and the doctor is going to recommend some medicine.

All right, so let's take a listen to today's dialogue and we'll be back in a moment to talk about what's going on.

Good afternoon, Chloe, I'm Dr. Evans. What seems to be the problem?

Ah, I see.

Yes, you do sound rather croaky.

Well, let's have a look, shall we? Could you please open your mouth and say 'ah'?

Uh.

Good, yes. Your tonsils are a little swollen and red. How are your ears?

Blocked at all?

Okay, Chloe, can you please breathe in and out slowly for me, while I listen to your chest?

Wow, you really are all bunged up. You don't sound too good at all.

Okay, I'm going to set you up with a bunch of antibiotics.

You will need to take these orange pills twice a day and these blue pills every evening.

You will also have to take this cough medicine three times a day after meals.

Finally, I am giving you an inhaler to use every time you feel breathless, just to clear up your lungs.

Absolutely not. You're highly contagious.

You don't want to infect the rest of your coworkers, do you?

I recommend staying in bed for at least three days and drinking plenty of fluids so you don't get weak and dehydrated.

Okay. Would you mind writing me a doctor's note for work?

Otherwise, they may think I'm faking it.

Now, off home and away to bed. If you have any questions, just give me a call.

Feel better soon and take care.

Bye.

All right, we're back. So now let's take a look at six keywords that we have prepared for you today on language takeaway.

Language Takeaway.

So often times in the wintertime, when the air is very, very dry and maybe you have a cold, you get this.

This is the first thing we're talking about.

That's right, we have a sore throat.

Okay, so Chloe in the dialogue says, 'I woke up this morning and I had a really sore throat.'

Right. So, let's take a look at those two words. We know throat is the part of your neck, right?

Connects your head to your body.

That's right. And the word sore.

Sore means it hurts.

So I could have a sore back or sore knees.

Uh sore is basically an adjective that describes pain.

Pain, so you have an ache in your throat.

All right, so that's a sore throat.

And uh, well, she said that she has this sore throat.

And the doctor says, 'Ah, I see. Yes, you do sound rather croaky.'

Okay, croaky is a way to describe the way a person sounds, especially when they're talking and maybe their voice, I think, is very deep or rough.

Right. So usually if you have a sore throat or a very bad cough, you sound a little bit croaky, so you're like, 'Hey, my throat hurts a little bit.'

Exactly. Not a very nice way to sound.

It comes from the way that frogs croak, right?

Yeah, that's the sound that frogs make, they croak.

So, yeah, sometimes when you do have a sore throat or a very bad cough, people say that you have a frog in your throat, right?

All right, so that's the word croaky.

Now, uh, moving on, if you have a sore throat, it's usually because your tonsils are swollen.

Okay, so the first word here, tonsils, these are a body part. They're in your throat, the very back of your throat. And you usually have two of them.

Some people don't have any, though.

Right. Some people get them removed. They're like little balls in the back of your throat.

And uh, I don't really know what they do. I think they pick up some, I don't know what they do, really.

I don't think you need them, actually, because a lot of people have them taken out when they're young. Uh, but tonsils, when they are infected or when they are swollen, are very, very painful.

You can have really bad sore throats.

Right, and usually they can cause fevers and and stuff like that.

So some people get them removed.

And uh, well, as we said, your tonsils are swollen. So, if they are swollen, that means they are big.

That's right. So swollen means they're bigger than normal.

And uh, you can say this about many different things.

For example, maybe someone stepped on my toe and my toe really hurts and I look down and it's swollen. That means my toe got bigger.

Okay, so this is an adjective when something is swollen.

But the verb form to say that something swells.

Mhm, it gets it gets bigger.

It gets bigger, to swell. Or the adjective, it is swollen.

All right. And now she was talking a little bit about her sinuses that the, her sinuses are a little blocked up.

So sinuses are in your face. You have them in your nose and under your eyes.

And uh, when, when they hurt, it's actually quite painful.

And uh, people say that sometimes there's sat, their sinuses are aggravated or they have bad sinuses.

Um, this means they're having a hard time breathing or their face is sore, their eyes are sore.

That's very common.

Okay, so that's sinuses. Isn't there actually a condition that if you have blocked sinuses all the time, uh, they call it sinusitis?

Yeah, so that's a problem that comes back again and again.

Okay.

And the doctor also recommended her to rest because she is highly contagious.

Okay, so you want to stay away from people who are contagious. This means that what disease they have or what illness they have can affect other people.

So if I have the flu, Marco, and I come to work, it's pretty contagious. It's very likely that you will get the flu.

That's right. So a flu is very highly contagious, or many other things are highly contagious.

For example, pink eye.

Yeah. Is very contagious.

Very. But, you know, cancer is not contagious. If you have cancer, I can't get it from touching you.

Right.

Very good. So, contagious.

All right, why don't we go back and listen to our dialogue again and we'll be back in a little bit to talk about fluency builder.

Good afternoon, Chloe, I'm Dr. Evans. What seems to be the problem?

Ah, I see.

Yes, you do sound rather croaky.

Well, let's have a look, shall we? Could you please open your mouth and say 'ah'?

Uh.

Good, yes. Your tonsils are a little swollen and red. How are your ears?

Blocked at all?

Okay, Chloe, can you please breathe in and out slowly for me, while I listen to your chest?

Wow, you really are all bunged up. You don't sound too good at all.

Okay, I'm going to set you up with a bunch of antibiotics.

You will need to take these orange pills twice a day and these blue pills every evening.

You will also have to take this cough medicine three times a day after meals.

Finally, I am giving you an inhaler to use every time you feel breathless, just to clear up your lungs.

Absolutely not. You're highly contagious.

You don't want to infect the rest of your coworkers, do you?

I recommend staying in bed for at least three days and drinking plenty of fluids so you don't get weak and dehydrated.

Okay. Would you mind writing me a doctor's note for work?

Otherwise, they may think I'm faking it.

Now, off home and away to bed. If you have any questions, just give me a call.

Feel better soon and take care.

Bye.

All right, we're back. So now let's take a look at four key phrases that we have prepared for you on fluency builder.

Fluency Builder.

So Chloe goes into to see her doctor, Dr. Evans, and she says, 'Thanks for seeing me on such short notice.' What's short notice?

All right, so basically, Chloe made an appointment with the doctor very late or very suddenly, right? So that's a short notice.

Great. So, for example, it's Friday night and she needs to make an appointment for Saturday morning. That's pretty short notice. That's not calling the doctor in advance.

You can say this also when you're talking to friends. Um, you know, I'm really sorry to cancel on such short notice, but I can't go to dinner tonight.

Right. So I think it's very interesting, the whole structure, as you see, on such short notice. So as you said, your example, 'I'm really sorry to cancel on such short notice.'

On short notice, on such short notice.

That's right.

All right, so moving on to our second phrase, Chloe was explaining that she doesn't feel very well and she said, 'I think I'm coming down with the flu.'

Okay, so let's look at this verbal phrase here, coming down with. Okay, so you can come down with many different illnesses.

Um, but the verb here means um this is the beginning of my illness. So I'm starting to feel the effects.

Like you said, Marco, I'm feeling some symptoms. So I'm starting to get sick, right?

I'm coming down with a fever.

Mhm. Or I think I'm coming down with a cold.

Mm, very common.

All right.

And the doctor started to check Chloe, how she was breathing, and I think he listened to her lungs. With his uh, what is it called, a stethoscope?

Stethoscope.

Stethoscope.

And uh, he said, 'Wow, you are really all bunged up.'

All right, so here he's basically saying that she's very congested. That means that her breathing passage ways, like in her nose and her throat and her chest, are very stuffy, there's things in them, usually um mucus, phlegm.

Phlegm.

These are things that, you know, what's in your nose when you have a cold and you have to blow it out? That's phlegm and mucus.

Yeah, not not a very pretty thing. No, very disgusting, actually. So maybe we should move on to our next item.

All right. So she's all bunged up.

And so he recommended a couple of different medicine, such as antibiotics, some pills, and he also gave her an inhaler to clear up her lungs.

Okay, so an inhaler is basically a device that you use to put steroids in your lungs that will help you breathe.

So some people when they're running or they're walking, they're very short of breath and they can't breathe. Well, there's a problem with this, like asthma, and they need to...

Yeah. Breathe this little um inhaler, and it's a, it's like a little, it's like a little tube.

I think it's you inhale medicine from this little tube.

Yeah. So the medicine helps open up your passage ways. It helps you breathe, and it's uh, it's very important for some people.

But in the case of an illness, like your lungs are very congested, um this helps you breathe um on the short term.

Right. So basically, clear up is to allow air or or the movement of something within your body, usually, I think.

Right, but to clear up isn't necessarily about air, it's basically a way to say that it will make this problem go away. To clear something up is to make the problem go.

Right, so I guess if uh you get medicine from a doctor, he'll said, 'Okay, this will help you clear up your throat.'

Right, or if you have a problem with acne, maybe your doctor will give you some cream to help clear up your acne, make it go away.

Clear up your skin.

Okay. So a lot of great examples there, why don't we go back and listen to the dialogue one last time?

Good afternoon, Chloe, I'm Dr. Evans. What seems to be the problem?

Ah, I see.

Yes, you do sound rather croaky. Well, let's have a look, shall we? Could you please open your mouth and say 'ah'?

Uh.

Good, yes. Your tonsils are a little swollen and red. How are your ears? Blocked at all?

Okay, Chloe, can you please breathe in and out slowly for me, while I listen to your chest?

Wow, you really are all bunged up. You don't sound too good at all.

Okay, I'm going to set you up with a bunch of antibiotics.

You will need to take these orange pills twice a day and these blue pills every evening.

You will also have to take this cough medicine three times a day after meals.

Finally, I am giving you an inhaler to use every time you feel breathless, just to clear up your lungs.

Absolutely not. You're highly contagious.

You don't want to infect the rest of your coworkers, do you?

I recommend staying in bed for at least three days and drinking plenty of fluids so you don't get weak and dehydrated.

Okay. Would you mind writing me a doctor's note for work?

Otherwise, they may think I'm faking it.

Now, off home and away to bed. If you have any questions, just give me a call.

Feel better soon and take care.

Bye.

All right, so talking about illnesses and being contagious, we mentioned this uh pink eye illness before.

So this is the colloquial way of of saying conjunctivitis, which is uh, I don't know if anyone has ever gotten it, your eye gets very, very red for a prolonged period of time.

That's right, and it itches a lot. It itches. And so already your eye is very red or very pink like the name says, but you really want to scratch it and itch it and it's very, it's very hard not to.

Yeah. And uh, I think you treat it by means of some eye drops.

Yeah, and you have to wait.

I actually had a very bad case of pink eye once that uh I couldn't just clear up with drops, but the doctor gave me some eye drops, they were so strong that uh I put them in my eye and I could taste them. I could taste them. Yeah. So apparently, yeah, it's very strange.

Oh, wow.

Well, I've never had it, but I know that it's very, very contagious, like we were saying earlier. And so if a student at a school gets pink eye, all the parents get very nervous because it's very, very likely that he, he or she will give it to another person. Because, you know, kids, if you touch your eye and you touch someone else, all of a sudden they have this disease.

Exactly. So yeah, it's very common thing. And uh, I think with, especially with kids, they always get all the, all these things, pink eye, measles, they get chickenpox, chickenpox, a lot of different diseases. We actually have a lesson on chickenpox, so you guys should check that one out.

But if you have any questions, any comments or any other doubts, please come to englishpod.com where we're there to answer them.

We'll see you there. Bye.

The English audio review.

Listen to the meaning, then say the vocabulary word.

Some parts are bigger than others due to a certain.

Swollen.

Get sick.

Come down with.

Chemical substance that can kill a virus.

Antibiotics.

Having a sickness that other people can catch.

Contagious.

Note from doctor explaining a patient's absence due to sickness.

A doctor's note.

Not having enough water in the body.

Dehydrated.

Unable to take enough air into your lungs.

Breathless.

Let's try that faster.

Note from doctor explaining a patient's absence due to sickness.

A doctor's note.

Chemical substance that can kill a virus.

Antibiotics.

Not having enough water in the body.

Dehydrated.

Having a sickness that other people can catch.

Contagious.

Some parts are bigger than others due to a certain.

Swollen.

Get sick.

Come down with.

Unable to take enough air into your lungs.

Breathless.

Now say the word and hear it in a sentence.

Come down with.

I have a sore throat and my nose is starting to get stuffed up. So I think I might be coming down with a cold.

Come down with.

My sister came down with the flu yesterday.

Come down with.

I have so many things to do in the next few weeks. I hope I don't come down with anything.

Swollen.

Ever since I stubbed my toe a few days ago, it has been swollen to twice its normal size.

Swollen.

My mom told me to put ice on my swollen ankle until the swelling goes down.

Swollen.

His eye stayed swollen for several days after their fight.

Antibiotics.

The doctor said I had an infection, so he gave me a couple of antibiotics that I need to take every day for the next week.

Antibiotics.

If you don't get that cut looked at soon, it could get infected and then you'll need antibiotics.

Antibiotics.

What I thought was a cough turned out to be a throat infection, so my doctor put me on antibiotics.

Contagious.

Don't worry, my illness is not contagious, it's genetic.

Contagious.

On average, someone with a flu virus is contagious for about a week.

Contagious.

You will have to wear a mask when you enter the hospital room because she is highly contagious.

A doctor's note.

Before you leave the doctor's office, make sure you get a doctor's note so I can record your absence as valid.

A doctor's note.

The only thing my professor would accept as a valid reason for asking to rewrite the exam was a doctor's note.

A doctor's note.

I passed the doctor's note to my boss and went immediately to work.