Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1050, Describing Stomach Problems.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1050.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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This story is about describing problems with your stomach.
Let's get started.
There's nothing I enjoy more than spending a couple of hours relaxing at a cafe.
I sit drinking my tea and reading.
What could be better So, I think I may have to see a doctor soon.
You know, I've had these terrible pains in my stomach.
My digestion is terrible and now I think I may have an ulcer.
Well, I was having a relaxing time until I started overhearing the woman at the next table talking loudly on her cell phone.
No, I don't think it could be lactose intolerance.
My bowels are working fine.
I don't have the runs or feel constipated.
I just get a really upset stomach and these terrible pains.
This was definitely not a conversation I wanted to listen to.
I looked around for another table, somewhere I could escape to.
Yes, I do feel some heartburn and bloating.
Do you really think it could be acid reflux?
I do have a problem with too much gas and burping a lot.
Will an acid help, do you think?
I begin our story by saying...
There's nothing I enjoy more than spending a couple of hours relaxing at a cafe.
I enjoy going to a cafe and relaxing, not doing any work.
What could be better?
Then I hear a woman who's talking next to me.
She says, The woman is not talking to me.
I'm sitting in a cafe and I can hear the woman talking to someone else.
She says she may have to go see the doctor soon.
Why?
Well, she then tells us, You know I've had these terrible pains in my stomach.
Your stomach.
S-T-O-M-A-C-H is the part of your body that processes the food and drink so that you have energy for your body.
The woman is having pains in her stomach.
Her stomach hurts.
She continues...
And now I think I might have an ulcer.
Digestion.
D-I-G-E-S-T-I-O-N is the biological process of converting food into energy for your body.
The stomach is part of your digestive system, part of the system in your body that converts food into energy.
The woman says her digestion is terrible.
And she says she thinks she might have an ulcer.
An ulcer, ULCER, is basically a sore on the inside surface of your stomach that produces pain.
Ulcers can be very painful.
Many ulcers are caused not by food, but by a type of bacteria.
We've discovered in the last 20 years or so that there is a kind of bacteria that causes a lot of ulcers.
But we won't go into that.
This woman thinks she might have an ulcer.
I then return in the story and comment.
I say well, I was having a relaxing time until I started overhearing the woman at the next table talking loudly on her cell phone.
To overhear O-V-E-R-H-E-A-R does not mean to hear too much, but rather it means to hear something without trying to hear it, simply because you are close to whatever is making that sound.
Usually, we use this verb to overhear, when we're talking about hearing the conversation of another person.
I'm sitting at the cafe, and there is a woman next to me who is talking loudly on her cell phone.
This is one of the things that I believe should be illegal, and I will vote for any politician that makes it illegal for you to talk loudly on your cell phone inside a cafe.
There.
I've said it.
Now I'm overhearing the woman at the next table And she continues with her conversation about her stomach problems.
She says, no, I don't think it could be lactose intolerance.
I'm only hearing one side of the conversation, one person in the conversation.
So we hear the woman responding probably to a question from the person with whom she's speaking.
The woman says she doesn't think it could be lactose intolerance.
Lactose, L-A-C-T-O-S-E, refers to a kind of sugar that is found in milk and milk products.
If you have an intolerance I-N-T-O-L-E-R-A-N-C-E to some kind of food, your body reacts negatively when you eat that food or drink that drink.
The prefix in usually means not, and that's what it means here, not tolerant.
If your body is tolerant of something, it doesn't mind it, it doesn't react negatively.
Many people have what is called lactose intolerance, which means they cannot drink milk or other milk products without getting sick.
Other people have what is called carbohydrate intolerance, where their body reacts negatively when they eat too many carbohydrates things like bread and pasta and cake and cookies all the good stuff.
This woman continues telling us about her problems.
She says, my bowels are working fine.
Your bowels, B-O-W-E-L-S, are your intestines.
Your intestines are these long tubes inside your body that help to digest food and to get rid of the food that you no longer need or that your body doesn't need for energy.
The woman says, I don't have the runs or feel constipated.
Well, here now we're getting into some somewhat unpleasant descriptions.
The term the runs R-U-N-S is used informally in English to refer to what is more properly known as diarrhea d-i-a-r-r-h-e-a.
Diarrhea is basically waste that comes out of your body, out of your butt.
To put it more explicitly, that isn't solid.
It can be quite painful To be constipated.
C-O-N-S-T-I-P-A-T-E-D means that you have difficulty getting rid of waste from your body.
The woman says she is not constipated.
She says, I just get a really upset stomach and these terrible pains.
An upset U-P-S-E-T stomach is a feeling of sickness in your stomach, as though you might vomit or throw up.
We might also use the word nausea N-A-U-S-E-A to describe this condition more technically, more medically.
Upset normally means angry.
When we talk about a person being upset, we mean the person is mad.
But an upset stomach means that your stomach isn't feeling right, that you feel sick to your stomach.
We might also say
Another word we might use in this case is queasy, Q-U-E-A-S-Y.
I say, I looked around for another table, meaning I looked in the cafe to find another table.
Somewhere I could escape to, I say.
To escape E-S-C-A-P-E to somewhere means to go to somewhere that is safer than where you are now, or perhaps more comfortable than where you are now.
The verb to escape means also to leave some sort of imprisonment or confinement.
You could talk about a prisoner in jail escaping, getting out of the jail illegally, of course and running away.
I'm not in jail in this story.
I'm in a cafe.
But still, I need to escape to somewhere more comfortable.
But again, we hear the woman speaking.
She says Yes, I do feel some heartburn and bloating.
Heartburn h-e-a-r-t-b-u-r-n is a painful or uncomfortable burning feeling, usually inside of your chest or just below your chest.
It's sometimes caused by eating, for example, spicy food, food that is hot hot in the sense of being spicy, not hot in the sense of having a high temperature.
Many different things could cause heartburn, I suppose.
The other thing the woman says she feels is some bloating, B-L-O-A-T-I-N-G.
Bloating is when your body, your stomach or your intestines has extra liquid, or perhaps gas, and it increases the size of your body or parts of your body.
The woman says, do you really think it could be acid reflux?
Acid reflux is a medical condition in which The acid in your stomach, a liquid in your stomach, moves up into the esophagus, which is the tube that carries the food from the mouth to the stomach.
Once again, it can be quite painful.
The woman says, I do have a problem with too much gas and burping a lot.
Gas G-A-S Here refers to someone who has air come out of their butt, and it's often not very pleasant smelling.
The more technical word would be flatulence, F-L-A-T-U-L-E-N-C-E.
A somewhat cruder informal word is fart, F-A-R-T.
I'll have to thank Dr. Say for writing this script for me to explain later on.
But back to the script.
The woman says she has a problem with too much gas and burping a lot.
To burp, B-U-R-P, means for air to come out of your mouth, usually burping. in a way that is involuntary that you don't mean to happen although i guess you can make yourself burp to a certain extent a burp is gas coming out of your mouth rather than out of your butt to put it that way the woman then asks will an antacid help do you think An antacid, A-N-T-A-C-I-D, is a kind of medicine or drug you take to reduce the amount of acid in your stomach.
Remember, the acid in your stomach helps break down or divide up the food that you are eating in order to convert it into energy.
If you have too much of this acid, it can be painful.
That's why you would take an antacid, something to stop or reduce the amount of acid.
I conclude the story by saying, by this time I was in panic mode.
To panic, P-A-N-I-C, means to become alarmed, to become perhaps even a little frightened or scared.
Panic mode M-O-D-E would refer to a situation where I feel a lot of anxiety or fear, anxiety that I need to run away from.
I say, by this time I was in panic mode.
If I didn't get away from this woman soon, if I didn't move away from this woman, I'd surely be sick to my stomach.
To be sick to your stomach is, as we explained earlier, the same as to have an upset stomach or to be queasy.
Now let's listen to this very fun dialogue one more time at a normal speed.
What could be better?
So, I think I might have to see a doctor soon.
You know, I've had these terrible pains in my stomach.
My digestion is terrible, and now I think I might have an ulcer.
Well, I was having a relaxing time until I started overhearing the woman at the next table talking loudly on her cell phone.
No, I don't think it could be lactose intolerance.
My bowels are working fine.
I don't have the runs or feel constipated.
I just get a really upset stomach and these terrible pains.
This was definitely not a conversation I wanted to listen to.
I looked around for another table, somewhere I could escape to.
Yes, I do feel some heartburn and bloating.
Do you really think it could be acid reflux?
I do have a problem with too much gas and burping a lot.
Will an antacid help, do you think?
By this time, I was in panic mode.
If I didn't get away from this woman soon, I'd surely be sick to my stomach.
Dr. Lucy Say writes all of our scripts, and most of them are wonderful.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2014 by the Center for Educational Development.
