Welcome to a new episode of English Vocabulary Booster.
My name is Lara and I'm a SALSA-certified English teacher.
Learning new vocabulary usually takes a long time, but we'll do it in a way that's easy, quick and efficient.
In every episode, we'll learn how to use five new English words or expressions, so that you too can start speaking like a native.
So let's get learning!
Hello and welcome back again.
This week's topic is sleep.
So let's get right into the story.
My boyfriend always complains because I'm often late.
But not last night, I thought.
Well, yesterday was Valentine's Day and I promised him I'd meet him at the restaurant at exactly seven o'clock.
But since it was only five, I thought I had time to take a nap.
Just 20 minutes.
Well, 20 minutes later, my alarm clock went off.
But did I get up?
No.
I hit the snooze button instead and fell back asleep.
When I woke up, I looked at my watch.
Oh no, 7.30.
I had overslept.
I got dressed super quickly.
I didn't even shower.
Ran there, risking getting hit by at least two cars.
And he was not at the table.
He'd already left.
He obviously didn't want to be with me anymore.
So I started crying in the middle of the restaurant.
Everybody, including the waiters, were looking at me.
Then I looked up and saw the bathroom door open.
And there he was, looking all confused.
What are you doing here already?
I checked my phone.
6.45?
What the?
And he goes, Oh, yeah, I forgot.
I changed the time on your watch so you wouldn't be late.
Good old trick of changing the time on someone's watch so that they're not going to be late again.
Not sure if it works, but worth a shot.
Alright, let's begin with expression number one.
Take a nap.
I thought I had time to take a nap.
If you take a nap, do you sleep for a long time or a short time?
A nap, it's usually pretty short, okay?
We're talking anything between I don't know 15 minutes to two hours, sometimes three or four, but it's definitely not eight hours like at night.
What is the most popular time of the day to take a nap?
The most popular time of day is the afternoon, okay?
Usually after lunch.
It's what the Spanish call the siesta, right?
But you can take a nap whenever you want to.
Do you take naps and how long are they?
I try not to take naps, because the problem is that when I do take a nap, I tend to sleep between one and two hours, which I think is a lot.
And then I cannot sleep at night.
So I try to avoid naps altogether.
I only take a nap when I'm like super, super tired.
Maybe I woke up really early in the morning and I just feel like I'm not being productive.
And I know a nap is going to help me in that case.
And so I do, but only in that case.
Expression number two, go off.
My alarm clock went off.
If your alarm clock goes off, does it start ringing or does it stop ringing?
This is an interesting one because you shouldn't get confused because you have the word off.
Because to go off, if you say that an alarm goes off, it means that it starts ringing. ringing.
And what sound does your alarm clock make when it goes off?
This is the sound that mine makes.
It's just, it's the standard one.
I don't know.
I don't particularly like it, but also I don't particularly dislike it.
So that's okay.
I wouldn't want to wake up to something that sounds like, you know, some alarm clocks go like that.
I would hate that.
Do you always hear when your alarm clock goes off?
I used to, but I don't know what's been happening lately.
Maybe because I haven't been sleeping well.
I do not hear it in the morning.
And I usually wake up like two hours or one to two hours later than I should, because I literally do not hear it.
I don't know.
Expression number three, hit the snooze button.
I hit the snooze button instead.
If you hit the snooze button, will your alarm clock ring again or not?
Yes, that is the power of the snooze button.
Is that if you press it, then your alarm clock will stop ringing for now, but it will start ringing again later.
So how soon after you've hit the snooze button will your alarm clock ring again?
It depends on what you decide.
You can decide that.
Okay.
It's usually not too long after, like five minutes, 10 minutes, maybe 15 minutes.
And then it will ring again.
Do you hit the snooze button in the morning?
How many times?
Yes, I love the snooze button.
It's one of my favorite buttons in the world, maybe.
I love setting my alarm very early, like an hour before I have to get up, because I don't like having to like, as soon as the alarm goes off, having to get up.
So I do that, and then I hit the snooze button maybe two, three times so that I get a little extra time in bed, and then I'll get up, finally.
Extraction number four, fall back asleep.
I fell back asleep.
Remember in the last episode, we talked about fall asleep.
Now, Do this little exercise for me and put the following actions in order.
Wake up, fall asleep, fall back asleep.
What is the order of these three?
First thing is you fall asleep.
Okay, this is the cycle.
You're tired and you fall asleep, but then you wake up maybe in the middle of the night and then you fall back asleep.
So falling back asleep means falling asleep again after a period of time where usually pretty short when you were awake.
How long does it take you to fall back asleep if you wake up in the middle of the night?
Oh boy.
Lately, I don't know what's wrong, but it's been terrible.
Maybe because I'm so worried about like, how the podcast is going and if I can make this a job and I don't have a job right now.
I don't know.
There's a lot of things that go on and on and on in my head at the moment.
And so if I do wake up in the middle of the night, it literally takes me three hours to fall back asleep.
It's the worst.
Expression number five, oversleep.
I had overslept.
If you oversleep, do you sleep more or less than you wanted to?
If you oversleep, that means that you sleep more than you wanted to.
Have you ever been late because you'd overslept?
No.
I, it's happened to me not very often, but sometimes it has happened.
And I remember specifically this one time I had class in the morning and I overslept.
And I hate oversleeping because you wake up with the sense of like dread, of anxiety.
You check the phone and you're like, oh my God, what do I do now?
And um, so yeah, I think I.
I just ended up calling, calling the school and telling them that I was gonna be there late.
I don't remember really.
Um, but yeah, it's happened to me.
Not very often.
I do not oversleep a lot but sometimes, like I said, if I don't hear the alarm clock or I hit the snooze button too many times, I might oversleep.
And that is it for today.
And remember, if you want to access the transcript, as well as lots of other resources, visit enboocom.
That is E-N-B-O-O-O dot com.
Have a great day.
