Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 435, Describing Aches and Pains.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 435.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in the beautiful city of Los Angeles, California.
Visit our website at eslpod.com.
You can download a learning guide for this episode that will help you improve your English even faster.
This episode is called Describing Aches and Pains.
It's a dialogue between Nivea and Michael that uses a lot of vocabulary we use when talking about the body and when we have pain in our body.
Sounds like fun.
Let's get started.
Oh, I pulled a muscle in my right leg while playing with my kids last weekend.
It's hard to walk without feeling a twinge of pain.
I'm sorry to hear that.
Why are you sitting in that awkward position?
Initially, I felt a sharp pain and I thought it was something serious, but it doesn't hurt much now.
There's just a dull pain when I sit up straight.
That's why I'm sitting like this, leaning to the side.
That's too bad.
Why are you holding your arms that way?
I got up in the middle of the night last night to go to the bathroom and bumped into the door.
I got a huge bruise on my arm.
It feels better if I hold it over my head.
Why are you shaking your fingers that way?
I helped my daughter finish her science project for school.
I, I mean we, glued over 100 wooden sticks together.
My fingers are really sore and stiff, and they won't stop throbbing.
I'm afraid to ask you any more questions.
I don't think any man could survive any more injuries than what you already have.
Our dialogue begins with Nivia saying to Michael, Why are you walking funny?
Here funny just means unusual, oddly.
We might even say weirdly.
Why are you walking funny?
Why are you not walking normally?
Michael says, oh, I pulled a muscle in my right leg while playing with my kids last weekend.
To pull a muscle means to hurt a part of your body in your arms, in your legs, in your back, in your neck, wherever you have a muscle.
The muscle is what connects bones together and allows you to move your bones.
So pulling a muscle means injuring or harming your muscle.
Michael says, Well, pain, you probably know, is when something feels uncomfortable.
It hurts.
A twinge is a sudden feeling, but it doesn't last very long.
So Michael is saying he feels twinges of pain when he walks.
It's not constant.
It's not all the time.
But it happens quickly and then it goes away.
Nivea says, I'm sorry to hear that.
Why are you sitting in that awkward position?
Awkward means not relaxed, uncomfortable.
Michael says, To strain S-T-R-A-I-N means to hurt part of your body because you were working too hard or because you tried to do something that was too difficult.
I never strain my back because I never work too hard.
But Michael strained his back while exercising.
Initially, he says, I felt a sharp pain.
Sharp here means very strong pain.
It may not last for a long time, but it's a very strong pain.
We might say it's a very acute, A-C-U-T-E, pain.
He says he felt a sharp pain and thought it was something serious, but it doesn't hurt much now.
Now he says there's a dull, D-U-L-L, pain.
When he tries to sit up straight, when he tries to sit normally, dull is the opposite of sharp.
It describes a pain that is not strong, but it lasts a long time.
Dull has a couple of different meanings in English.
Take a look at the wonderful learning guide that Dr Lucy Say prepares for some additional explanations.
Michael says, that's the reason or that's why I'm sitting like this, leaning to the side.
To lean, L-E-A-N, means to put your body in one direction, not straight.
You're usually resting against another object, such as the wall.
So if you lean against the wall, you're standing up, but your shoulders are touching the wall.
The wall is supporting you.
In English, people refer to the famous tower in the city of Pisa in Italy as the Leaning Tower of Pisa, because the building is not vertical completely.
It goes off to one side.
It leans to one side.
Nivea says that's too bad.
That's unfortunate.
Why are you holding your arms that way?
Michael says, To bump into something means to accidentally hit something with your body.
Normally, you don't bump into a thing on purpose.
You're not trying to do it.
The expression to bump into can also mean something very different if you are talking about a person.
You may say I bumped into an old friend of mine at the coffee shop yesterday there it means I met or saw someone that I wasn't expecting to see.
I wasn't planning on it.
It just was a coincidence.
Well, poor Michael bumped into the door and he got a huge bruise on his arm.
A bruise.
B-R-U-I-S-E is an often painful bruise spot on your skin.
Usually it has a different color.
It's either dark, purple or brown, maybe even a little green.
It's caused by bleeding underneath your skin.
There's blood underneath the skin.
It often happens when you are hit very hard by someone or by something.
If you are in a fight, a physical fight with someone, and that person hits you, for example, with their fist, with their hands, you may have a bruise the next day.
You may have this spot on your skin.
So Michael has a bruise on his arm.
Nivea says why are you shaking your fingers that way?
Michael says I helped my daughter finish her science project for school.
Young children are often given homework, things to do at home for their school.
A science project is usually something that you make at home that shows some sort of scientific principle or applies some sort of scientific principle idea.
Parents often help their children with their schoolwork, including their science projects.
Michael says, I, I mean we.
Of course, the child should be doing the project, but parents sometimes do more than the child does.
He says, I, I mean we glued over 100 wooden sticks together.
To glue something means to connect two things or to make two things stick together, using a white liquid or a clear liquid that will dry between the two pieces and keep them together.
You often use glue, for example, in school.
Children will use glue to put pieces of paper together or other things.
This is a science project where they had to glue some small wooden sticks.
For some reason these are popular in schools.
They're sometimes called popsicle sticks, because it's the same small wooden stick that you get with a certain kind of frozen dessert called a popsicle.
Well, Michael was gluing together all these sticks and his fingers got very sore and stiff.
Sore.
S-O-R-E means in pain, usually because you've worked your part of the body too hard, the part that is sore.
It's what may happen, for example, after you strain, after you work your arms or your legs too hard.
Let's say you're running and you're not used to running.
The next day, your muscles may be sore.
They may hurt.
Sore has a couple of different meanings in English.
Take a look at the learning guide for some additional explanations.
Stiff means unable to move easily.
Inflexible.
Not flexible.
So your arm may be stiff.
That means it's hard to move it up and down or left and right, because you injured it, because you hurt it.
He says his fingers won't stop throbbing.
To throb... means to have pain that starts and stops repeatedly, almost like in a rhythm.
So if you hit your thumb, for example, it may hurt, it may throb, it may have this strange sort of pulse, sort of rhythm that causes you pain.
Nivea says, To survive means to continue to exist, even though it's a difficult situation.
An injury is a problem with some part of your body, usually caused by an accident, or perhaps someone was fighting you.
If you run too fast and you hurt your legs, that would be an injury.
Or, in the case of Michael, if he was straining his fingers and now they're sore, that could be called an injury.
One more thing before we conclude.
The name of this episode was describing aches and pains.
An ache is a kind of pain.
Usually it's a dull pain.
It's not necessarily serious, however.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
I'm sorry to hear that.
Why are you sitting in that awkward position?
I strain my back while exercising.
Initially, I felt a sharp pain and I thought it was something serious, but it doesn't hurt much now.
There's just a dull pain when I sit up straight.
That's why I'm sitting like this, leaning to the side.
That's too bad.
Why are you holding your arms that way?
Why are you shaking your fingers that way?
I helped my daughter finish her science project for school.
I, I mean we, glued over a hundred wooden sticks together.
My fingers are really sore and stiff and they won't stop throbbing.
I'm afraid to ask you any more questions.
I don't think any man could survive any more injuries than what you already have.
We hope the script for this episode did not cause you any pain.
It was written by the wonderful Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
This podcast is copyright 2008.
