Welcome back to the Learn English podcast, the podcast teaching English in context so you can learn naturally.
My name is Dr. C. and I'm a TESL certified English teacher.
I teach English online to students who are learning it as a second language.
I created this podcast with the goal of it becoming a resource for you to help you with your fluency, vocabulary, and knowledge of American culture.
On today's episode, I would like to focus on the vocabulary aspect because I want to talk about the different words and phrases that are used when talking about illness.
Of course, if you are not feeling so well, you could say that you are sick, but there's a lot more words and phrases that you could use to be more descriptive and to sound more like a native speaker.
So with that, let's begin.
Since we are discussing illness and feeling sick, I want to talk about the general basic things that people say when they are feeling unwell.
When you hear the phrase, I'm feeling unwell, that is the proper grammatical structure for the sentence.
The adverb that should be used to describe or modify feeling should be unwell.
However, as you know, people don't always speak in perfectly grammatically correct ways.
Language is adaptive and it changes over time.
I will personally say that I don't think I've ever said the sentence, I feel unwell.
Instead, what I say is I don't feel good.
That is not perfectly grammatically correct, but it is more accepted and it is more common, especially in the United States or when you are in informal context.
When people are feeling sick, you will hear them say that I don't feel so good or I don't feel good.
People will also say it to someone who looks sick.
So people say you don't look so good, or you don't look so hot.
Hot is a little bit confusing because people might think that it means someone has a fever or someone's temperature is hot.
That's not what it means in this case, in this way and in this context.
Hot is a synonym for good or well.
So when someone says you don't look so hot, that means you don't look so good.
You look like you're probably a little bit sick.
Just some basics to know, so when you hear people say this or when you say this to someone else, you know what words to use and why people say good instead of well, when well is technically more grammatically correct.
There are a lot of idioms and phrases that people use when they are feeling sick.
One of the more common ones is feeling under the weather.
If someone says that they are feeling under the weather, that means that they are feeling sick.
The history and the origin of this term is a little bit debated.
Some people say that it comes from nautical terms.
Nautical means refers to the ocean and being in ships.
If you've ever been on a boat, especially in rough weather, you know that there are waves and those waves rock the boat back and forth.
That rocking motion, that moving motion can lead people to feel nauseous, which we call seasick.
People who were seasick would go under deck, they'd go down into the boat, into the ship, and that was called going under the weather deck.
Therefore, some linguists believe that's the origin of the phrase, feeling under the weather, referring to feeling sick.
Another possible origin is that weather was used to refer to someone's mood or disposition.
So if someone was feeling under the weather, that means that they weren't feeling very good, that their mood was slightly off, probably because they were feeling sick.
Not sure which one of these is the true origin, but it is a common idiom and phrase that people use when they are not feeling very well.
Two other idioms and phrases that you can use when you're feeling a little bit sick could be, I'm not feeling like myself today, or I'm feeling a little bit off.
I'm not feeling like myself means that you don't feel how you normally feel when you are 100 % healthy, when you are not sick.
Maybe you're a little bit tired, maybe you have a little bit of a cough or cold or a fever, but you're just not feeling how you normally feel, how your normal self feels when you are healthy.
Very similar to this is feeling a little bit off.
That means about the same thing and kind of has the same context.
So you are feeling a little bit different, a little bit abnormal, a little bit sick, and that is what the a bit off means, feeling a little bit off means feeling a little bit sick.
All three of these idioms feeling under the weather, not feeling like yourself, feeling a little bit off, are all used when someone is just a little bit sick with a mild cold, a little bit of a headache, a little bit of a fear, nothing too serious.
So if someone says, I'm feeling a little under the weather, I'm feeling a little bit off, I'm not feeling like myself, that just means that they have a slight illness.
You would not say this if you were in the hospital, for example, or in the emergency room because you were very sick.
This is just when you're just mildly not feeling so great.
Another idiom that you might hear is that when someone says that they are coming down with something.
Coming down with something, the something what they're referring to is some type of illness.
Maybe a cough, maybe a cold, something along those lines, but that's what that means.
So if you're coming down with something means you're starting to get sick, you're just starting to feel like you caught some type of illness, some type of virus that's going to make you sick.
Now illnesses, viruses, another way of saying those those words is a bug.
Now catching a bug or coming down with a bug is when you are just beginning to feel sick.
When you are sick, when you actually have a full illness and are feeling like you're in the middle of this sickness, if it's a cough or cold or flu, people will say that they are battling a bug.
Again, it kind of brings to mind an interesting idea where someone is fighting with insects.
Because bug means illness, battling means that you are trying to fight against this illness.
Your body is trying to fight against this infection and it's trying to get you better.
So battling a bug means fighting off some type of illness.
Now let's talk about the different types of illness that someone might have.
Again, remember that bug means illness, which means that if someone says that they have a stomach bug, what they're referring to is having some type of upset stomach, some type of nausea symptoms, maybe some vomiting or diarrhea.
All of those symptoms usually get called as having a stomach bug or a stomach flu.
Now this is a little bit confusing because when you think of influenza, the virus that causes the flu, those viruses typically have respiratory conditions, respiratory symptoms, like having a cough, having a runny nose, having a fever, having chills.
The stomach flu is not actually an influenza virus.
It is usually some type of virus that actually just causes stomach upset, but we still call it the flu.
We just call it a stomach flu or a stomach bug.
When you're talking about your stomach or having an upset stomach, you can also call it by a more medical name or if you go to the doctor, you might hear a more medical way of saying stomach, which is gastrointestinal tract or gastrointestinal illness.
So the gastrointestinal, that means your stomach and your intestines that are in your body.
In medical context, it usually gets abbreviated and it gets called GI.
So if you hear a doctor say GI symptoms, that means that you have some type of stomach symptoms.
Again, nausea, vomiting, that would refer to those GI symptoms.
A more casual way of saying this is to call something, a stomach, a tummy.
Usually, young children will instead of saying stomach, they'll say tummy and people also say it when they're in a less formal context when they're with maybe their family members.
They might say that their tummy hurts or their tummy is upset.
That means that their stomach is upset, that their stomach maybe is cramping or has they have pain in their abdomen and their stomach area.
And that's what it's referring to.
Whether you're saying that you're having tummy troubles or you're you're having GI symptoms or gastroenteritis, all of that is referring to having an upset stomach.
When people have an upset stomach, pain in their abdomen, nausea, vomiting, other people might use the idiom green around the gills to describe them.
Now, green around the gills is specific for having this upset stomach.
And what it's referring to, the color green is referring to the color that people's skin turns when they are feeling sick.
Think of emojis that people send when they're trying to show vomiting or feeling unwell.
The face in the emoji is green.
And that's what this is referring to, that green color that people have when they are feeling sick.
The gills part is referring to a fish, to be 100 % honest.
I don't know why we say this, but what we say is that green around the gills is referring to someone feeling unwell and looking unwell.
If someone tells you that you look green around the gills, that means you look sick and you look like you're probably about to vomit.
It is not a good thing.
You don't want to look like you're green around the gills, but it is a way to describe someone who is having these symptoms.
Next up, we are going to discuss the symptoms that people have when they have a more traditional cold or flu.
These symptoms we usually say are above the neck.
So think of your neck and above, which would be your neck and your head.
This could be that you have congestion.
Congestion means that you feel like you can't breathe.
It might feel like the sinuses are inflamed or full of fluid or some type of mucus.
Your nose might feel like it's full of mucus.
And you just feel like you cannot breathe very well.
That would be that you are congested.
You can also have a cough, which means you're coughing a lot.
You can also have feelings like your ears are clogged, and again, relating to that overall congestion feeling.
And you can also have a fever or chills.
Fever means that, of course, you're feeling very hot.
You have a high temperature.
Chills is when your body has the reaction to fight against the illness, and then all of a sudden you feel very cold.
And your skin gets very goose bumpy, which means that it has little tiny bumps along it because you're feeling very cold.
You might also start shaking because you feel like you're freezing and your hands might get very cold.
That is having the chills.
Now, remember when you are talking about these symptoms to use the structure, I have.
When you are saying what symptoms you have, let's say if you're telling someone or you're at the doctor's office and you're trying to communicate what you're feeling, you would say, I have.
I have a runny nose.
I have a cough. I have the chills.
I have a headache. That structure is what you're going to use, I would say, for most symptoms, an upset stomach, flu -like symptoms, a cough, a cold, runny nose.
All of those use the structure I have.
I have an upset stomach.
I have the flu. I have a cold.
I have a cough. I'm not sure why the flu is what we use when we're talking about the flu.
Maybe because we're being very specific and talking about an influenza virus with an upset stomach or with a cold.
There's a number of different viruses that can cause those symptoms, but influenza is what we call the flu.
If you have the flu, that's the article that we're using instead of a, like we would say, you have a cough or a cold or an upset stomach.
When we are talking about coronavirus, though, we don't use an article.
I'm not sure why, but people will say I have COVID.
You might also more casually hear I have the Rona, which is a shortened way, I guess, of saying coronavirus.
People will say I got that Rona.
I have the Rona. If you hear that, what they're referring to is COVID.
Now, there are some symptoms that do not use this I have format.
Again, most of them do.
Most of the symptoms that you will discuss will be I have, I have.
However, there are a few that aren't.
Some of them use I am and then the symptom.
I am nauseous. I am tired.
I am fatigued. Use this I am structure.
Tired and fatigued mean the same thing.
More common way, I guess, would be tired.
A little bit less sophisticated way.
If you go to the doctor or if you're using a more advanced word for it, you would hear fatigued.
Again, fatigued just means tired.
It's a fancier, more sophisticated way of saying tired.
That means that you are very tired.
Maybe you can barely get out of bed or you just want to sleep all day.
That would be fatigued.
Tired might be at that same level, but it also might mean less.
Let's say you just feel like you need to take a quick nap.
That could be tired, but that would not be fatigued.
To end this episode, I want to give you some idioms that people use to describe these symptoms when they're talking about cough, cold, or flu symptoms.
The first one is my nose is running like a faucet.
A faucet is what water comes out of.
Think of your kitchen sink, the faucet, or in your restroom, in your bathroom.
Those are all faucets.
When you have a runny nose, a runny nose means that there is just constant mucus.
You constantly need to use tissue or blow your nose.
That is a runny nose.
To be a little bit more comical with it, to describe that your nose is constantly needing to use tissue and you constantly need to blow your nose, you can say, my nose is running like a faucet.
It's like water. It's just constantly coming out of your nose.
Our next idiom has two different ways that you can say it.
You can either say that you are coughing up a lung or hacking up a lung.
What this is referring to is when you have a constant cough and you are just coughing so much.
It might actually start hurting.
Your chest might hurt or your throat might hurt because of how much you're coughing.
When you have this situation, people say that they are coughing up a lung or hacking up a lung.
Again, not literal but what it's referring to is the feeling like your lungs are about to come out because you are just coughing so much.
Coughing, again, a straightforward thing referring to this symptom, referring to this action, which your body is doing, is when it is coughing.
Hacking is usually when you have a little bit more of a wet cough, we would say, a little bit more mucous, a little bit more phlegm in your throat or in your chest and you're coughing it up.
When people say that they have a hacking cough, that's what it's referring to, more of a wet cough, not a dry cough.
That's what this use of the idiom is, hacking up a lung, referring to having that wet cough and coughing a lot, feeling like your lungs are about to come out of your body because you're coughing so much.
You might also hear the idiom coughing your head off.
Still referring to this, you're just coughing so much that it feels like your head is about to explode.
Maybe you're coughing so much that it's actually causing you to have a headache and that's when you would use this idiom that you're coughing your head off.
You just cannot stop coughing no matter what you do.
Another idiom that people might say is that they're feeling a bit run down.
A bit run down is when you feel tired and you just feel like you can't do as much as you normally would because you are sick.
Run down is usually what we use to describe something that's a little bit used, a little bit beat up.
For example, if you have a building that needs to be painted and maybe needs some maintenance because things are starting to break, that would be a run down building.
When you use this idiom, I'm feeling run down, that's what you're meaning.
You're meaning that you just don't feel like yourself.
You don't feel like you can do as much as you need to do and you feel like you need some maintenance on your body in a way because you're feeling sick.
You just feel like you're falling apart and it's not going so well because of that illness.
You might also hear people say that their brain is foggy.
My brain is foggy or my brain is fried.
What this is referring to is when you're sick and you feel like you can't think as well as you normally do.
We would say you can't think straight.
That means that you just feel like your brain isn't functioning as it normally would when you are not sick.
It's having this fog.
It's having this sensation that you're a little bit confused.
You're a little bit slow with your thoughts.
That's when people would say, my brain is fried.
I just cannot think anymore.
If you think of a computer, when a computer is fried, that means it stops working.
It's exploding. It's not working anymore.
That's what they're referring to when they're talking about their brain.
My brain is fried just means you cannot think your brain is just not functioning as you would want it to.
Our last idiom is the most extreme.
That would be, you look like death warmed over.
This is supposed to be kind of a joke when you say it to someone.
You would not say this to someone who is actually going through a very serious illness or dying.
If someone was in that state, this would be a very rude thing to say and you would not want to say this.
When you use this is when someone looks very sick, but you don't think it's very serious.
Maybe they have a flu and they'll get better in a few days, then you could kind of joke around with them and say this.
If someone says that you look like death warmed over, what they mean is that you look terrible.
You look horrible. You look like death.
If you think of what someone who is dying looks like not a very pretty picture, not something that you would want to look like normally.
The warmed over part, to be honest, I'm not sure where that comes from.
But what that means is that you're still warm.
Your body's still warm, even though you look really terrible.
You might hear people say this to their friends who look sick and say someone of your colleagues comes to work when they look very sick.
You might say, hey, you look like death warmed over.
You should go home and take a sick day.
Don't be in the office.
Don't contaminate everyone who's here.
Go home because you look like death warmed over.
Those are some of the symptoms and idioms that people will use when they are feeling sick.
I hope you learned something from this episode.
Learn some new words, learn some new phrases that you can use the next time you are not feeling so well.
Reminder that in the description of this episode, there is a vocabulary list with these words and phrases along with their definition.
Refer to that, use them, incorporate them into whatever system you are using to study vocabulary, whether it's anki or link or handwritten flashcards.
Whatever system you're using, add these words, add these new phrases and idioms to that system so you can remember them and you can use them in the future.
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