Do you remember Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman smoking in the film Casablanca?
Well, actually that's a film which goes back many years in black and white, and only my older listeners perhaps, may have seen it.
But what was interesting about it, and about all those films during those years decades, was that all the heartthrobs, all those people that we loved on the big screen, the silver screen, in the cinema, they all smoked.
Smoking was seen as something which was sensual and attractive.
Interestingly, Ingrid Bergman didn't smoke in real life.
She was a non-smoker and she had to learn how to smoke for the film.
Now that's changed.
And as I have got older, I have seen how smoking in our society has little by little been discouraged.
For example, years ago there used to be advertisements about smoking and very attractive advertisements on the television.
And then those were banned.
And then in the streets, in billboards, showing attractive and virile young men and women smoking, and then that was banned altogether as well.
No advertising for cigarettes these days.
It's the opposite, that if you buy a packet of cigarettes, you'll see that there is the compulsory, obligatory or compulsory message on there which tells you that cigarettes can seriously damage your health or cigarettes can kill you, and even horrific pictures of somebody who's just died from lung cancer.
I suppose younger people in a way are fortunate in that they have that information, whereas years ago it wasn't really known.
It's the same with mobile phones which, little by little, have changed and become more influential in our lives.
And now with the smartphone, They are indeed addictive.
And I think it's unfortunate that the generation which is being exposed to these mobile phone smartphones is the generation of my daughter.
There is so much exposure to all sorts of things that we parents don't want our children to see.
And not only that as well the addiction, like a cigarette, of just using that phone so much and the difficulty it is for us parents to try and drag it away from them.
It means that perhaps children are doing less exercise.
Definitely not like my childhood when we were kids, we used to go out all the time and play outside.
Or did we get bored?
Well, sometimes we did.
And I can remember my mum telling me, if you've got nothing to do, well then find something to do.
If you've got nothing to do, then find something to do.
And we did.
We made go-karts, we climbed trees, we went out and explored in the countryside and we did wonderful things.
And it seems that perhaps the generation of my daughter doesn't follow that particular habit of going out and being outside.
They are often addicted to these smartphones.
But just as with smoking, when experts doctors scientists, found out that cigarettes were seriously damaging to our health and caused lung cancer well, now experts are saying that the overuse of mobile phones, especially in children, is also damaging for their health, damaging for their social life.
In Australia last month.
They banned the use of all social networks for young people under the age of 16.
But that's too late for this generation that are already 16 or 17.
Okay, well, that was quite a long introduction, wasn't it?
Today I'm going to talk about language to do with health, Health and the Body.
And it's a B1 recording.
So this is B1 language for you, even though my introduction had lots of B2 language in there, if not C1 as well.
Anyway, so it's a dialogue today, actually.
I'd like you to listen to it.
And can you identify the words which refer to body and health?
Here we go.
Hello and welcome to Practicing English.
My name is Mike Bilbre and these are podcasts for students of English at B1 or B2 levels.
For transcripts, please go to practicingenglish.com.
Would you like to see my books for learning B1 and B2 level English?
Then go to the show notes at your podcast app, and just below today's lesson you'll see a link to Amazon and there you'll be able to read about my new B1 book and my B2 book.
Check it out today.
The dialogue is called, That's Life.
This is a dialogue between Mary and Anna, Morning, Anna.
You don't look very well today.
Are you sick?
Morning, Mary.
Oh, yes, I feel terrible.
I'm suffering from this backache and my head hurts.
I think it's an illness caused by this awful cold weather.
Oh, dear.
I've got problems too.
I can't breathe properly and I have to blow my nose all the time.
I know I'm always complaining of my poor health, but it's getting worse, I can tell you.
Did you check your temperature?
Yes, it's a little high.
The doctor says it's nothing serious, but...
I'm not sure I believe him.
I've probably got some terrible tropical disease.
But he doesn't want to tell me.
You know what these doctors are like.
Anyway, last week I fell and now I have a bandage on my leg.
Just look at it.
That looks painful.
I think many people of our age suffer from the same illnesses.
Our lifestyle is quite unhealthy.
My mum is always telling me, too many hamburgers and no salads.
You're right, we don't exercise enough.
Too much mobile phone, my dad says.
I hope I recover soon.
I want to feel young again.
After all, I'm only 15.
I'll be 16 next month.
Time waits for nobody.
By the way, Anna, what's the matter now?
Another illness you haven't told me about?
No, I was just going to ask.
Is your mum giving you a lift to school tomorrow?
Oh yes, as always.
Can she take me too?
All that walking makes me tired.
Right.
Okay.
So very old ladies.
And in fact, they were only 15 and 16.
So be careful.
That wasn't 50 and 60.
It was 15 and 16.
So it was kind of an exaggeration.
I was exaggerating.
Okay.
The effect of mobile phones on teenagers' health.
Anyway, we'll go through the language now of the dialogue.
So i'll pick out some of the b1 words there which are referring to body and health and then afterwards will be a quick test on those words.
So I'll just pick out parts of the dialogue where the words come up.
First of all, are you sick?
Now, the word sick, to be sick, really has two meanings in English.
First of all, it means to be ill.
I double L. And that means then you're not you are not well to be sick.
Also refers to an action that's happening at the moment.
If I am sick, it means I am vomiting.
It means that the contents of my stomach are coming up and out again.
All right.
So it has two meanings.
And usually by the context, we know which one we're talking about.
To be sick, which is a B1 word.
As you know, you can go to your podcast application and you can see the text there, the audio text for B1 this conversation and also at my website at practicingenglishcom, podcast 287.
Okay, the next one is i'm suffering from this backache.
Okay, to suffer from something then, means that you have pain which is bothering you, which is a problem for you to suffer from.
That's a b1 verb and backache.
So the word ache is like a pain p-a-i-n and ache is spelt a-c-h-e, not pronounced h, but ache, with a k sound there.
And you can have backache, you can have a headache, You can have earache.
So there's several places where you can have an ache.
So here she's got backache and her head hurts.
I think it's an illness caused by this awful cold weather.
So illness is the noun of to be ill.
OK, so ill is the adjective.
I am ill and illness is the noun.
Now, there's another word which I'll mention here later, which is disease.
Now, illness and disease have a similar meaning.
But illness is the word that we use perhaps in Western society for those common illnesses like a cough, a cold or the flu, which is like a cold but cold.
A lot worse, perhaps, because we usually have a high temperature.
And we call those illnesses.
In other countries where perhaps they're not so fortunate, you can suffer from a disease.
The disease is something which is much more serious.
We think, for example, malaria, which is a disease.
It's much more serious than the illnesses that we generally get in Western societies.
I can't breathe properly.
So breathe is to take air in and out of your mouth.
Is to breathe.
And the noun is breath.
So the spelling difference is that breath has no E on the end and breathe finishes in an E.
If you do have a cold, well, then you will need to blow your nose from time to time.
And blow your nose is... OK, with a handkerchief, preferably with a handkerchief.
And that's something we have to do if we have a cold.
I'm always complaining of my poor health.
So to complain of something is to...
We use that complain with a preposition of when we're talking about illnesses.
She's complaining of a cold, complaining of a sore throat.
Okay, to complain of something.
And then Anna asks her friend, did you check your temperature?
Now, if you're talking about illness again, in Western society the word temperature is usually the word we use.
Also, there's the word fever, but...
Although maybe in other languages, Latin-based languages, you might use that word or an equivalent of that word.
In English we use the word fever again for diseases from third world countries.
We often think of perhaps, where people maybe suffer from malaria and you have a very, very high temperature.
We call that a fever.
But usually with a cough or a cold or the flu, we just talk about fever.
A temperature.
The next word is a bandage.
I have a bandage on my leg, which is a cloth, a piece of cloth.
You wrap around a part of your body because you have been bleeding.
To bleed is a B1 word for the blood that comes out of your body.
If you have cut yourself, you put a bandage on.
The next one is unhealthy, which is a B1 word for the A2 healthy.
Unhealthy is the opposite, of course, meaning that you are not in good health.
You are not fit.
You perhaps maybe need to go to bed and have a good breakfast.
Rest.
And if you are unhealthy, then you'll want to recover soon.
To recover, which is to get better.
To recover.
Okay, those are the words.
That's it.
I'm going to read the conversation again.
And I will stop at the B1 words.
And you will hear a bleep.
And there, what you have to do is to say the word. in the next space that I leave, okay?
So for example, you don't look very well today, are you?
Sick, are you sick?
Right, here we go with the test.
Morning, Anna, you don't look very well today, are you?
Sick.
Morning Mary.
Oh yes, I feel terrible.
I'm suffering from this... Backache.
And my head hurts.
I think it's a... Caused by this awful cold weather.
Illness.
Oh dear.
I've got problems too.
I can't... properly.
Breathe.
And I have to... all the time.
Blow my nose.
I know.
I'm always complaining of my poor health, but it's getting worse, I can tell you.
Did you check your... Temperature Yes, it's a little high.
The doctor says it's nothing serious, but I'm not sure I believe him.
I've probably got some terrible tropical... Disease But he doesn't want to tell me.
You know what doctors are like.
Anyway, last week I fell and now I have a on my leg.
Bandage.
Just look at it.
That looks painful.
I think many people of our age from the same illnesses.
Our lifestyle is quite... My mum is always telling me, too many hamburgers and no salads.
You're right, we don't exercise enough.
Too much mobile phone, my dad says.
I hope I... soon.
Recover.
I want to feel young again.
After all, I'm only 15.
I'll be 16 next month.
Time waits for nobody.
By the way, Anna.
What's the matter now?
Another... you haven't told me about?
Illness.
No, I was just going to ask, is your mum giving you a lift to school tomorrow?
Oh yes, as always.
Can she take me too?
All that walking makes me tired.
Right, and that's the end of the recording.
I hope you got the words.
You can check the answers at my website, practicingenglish.com.
I'll be back tomorrow with a B2 podcast.
Stay healthy, everybody.
Bye for now.
