Hello and welcome to the English Like a Native podcast. My name is Anna and you're listening to week 29, day 2 of Your English Fibre Day, the second season.
For those of you who've been tuning in day after day, week after week, month after month, I wanted to send you a very big thank you.
I love reading your comments.
Even if I don't have the time to respond to all of them, I still try my best to read them all.
And I love knowing that I'm part of your everyday routine.
So thank you for being dedicated and thank you for tuning in.
And for those of you who are new here, I release content every day of the working week from Monday Friday on a mission to help you to expand your English and feel more like yourself when communicating in this language.
So, let's begin, as we always do, with a snapshot.
The heatwave had been going on for ten days and everyone said the weather was absolutely glorious, but Marcus disagreed.
His little bungalow felt stuffy and airless with no breeze coming through the windows.
By midday, it was so sweltering inside that he had to sit in the garden under an umbrella just to cool down.
It's time to dive into the vocabulary starting with the noun heatwave. Heatwave. We spell this H -E -A -T -W -A -V -E.
Heatwave. A heatwave is a period of unusually hot weather.
For example, if during the spring you would normally see temperatures of around 18 degrees.
But for four days, there were temperatures of 28 degrees.
That would be a heatwave. It would be unexpected.
And that is something that we tend to see here in the UK, this unpredictable weather.
So we often have heatwaves anywhere from spring through to autumn.
We recently had a heatwave, we are in midsummer and we would usually see temperatures of around 20 to 26 degrees, sometimes a little higher but recently it went over 30, I think we were looking at 32 to 34 degrees which for us is very hot.
and you can tell that it's been very hot and very dry because many of the lawns and the fields have turned brown.
The grass is suffering.
When was the last time you experienced a heat wave?
And here's an example sentence.
During the heat wave, people stayed indoors to avoid the sun. OK, next we have the adjective glorious.
Glorious. We spell this G -L -O -R -I -O -U -S.
Glorious. Glorious.
Notice how at the end of that word, I simply say us rather than os or us.
It's a schwa and an S.
Us. Glorious. If something is described as glorious, then it's wonderful.
It's beautiful. It gives great pleasure.
We often describe sunshine or good weather as being glorious.
glorious. You could describe a person as being glorious.
You might say, she looks glorious.
Or he is glorious standing there on the stage.
His voice is glorious.
The party was glorious if it was wonderful or beautiful, if it gave great pleasure.
But glorious is often associated with views and weather and nature.
Here's another example.
The view from the top of the mountain was glorious.
Next we have the adjective stuffy.
Stuffy. We spell this S -T -U -F -F -Y, stuffy.
If something is described as stuffy, then it's lacking fresh air.
It's airless. I don't like to get onto a train or a tube during the hot weather, particularly during busy times when there are many people crammed into the carriages because it's quite stuffy in there.
And I have been known to suffer with little panic attacks if I feel trapped.
And it usually triggers if I'm in a stuffy and busy environment.
if I don't feel like I can get fresh air, then I tend to start having these little panic attacks.
So, I avoid busy trains on a hot day because the air in there is too stuffy.
I don't like being in a stuffy carriage.
Here's an example sentence.
Please open a window.
The room is too Next, we have the adjective sweltering.
We spell this S -W -E -L -T -E -R -I -N -G, sweltering.
If something is described as sweltering, then it's very hot and uncomfortable.
So, here's an example.
example. It was sweltering in the classroom, so everyone opened the windows.
Now there's one room that you want to be sweltering and that is a sauna.
You want to go into a sauna and feel the hot air on your skin.
It will be a bit stuffy and it will be sweltering, but that's what you want.
Though obviously it's hard to stay in a sauna for very long because it's sweltering.
You may sometimes hear sweltering being paired with the word hot, sweltering hot.
You don't need hot because sweltering does that job.
Sweltering means very hot.
So it's erroneous, unnecessary.
But you will sometimes hear people say sweltering hot, just to exaggerate how hot a place is.
Next, we have the noun bungalow.
Bungalow. We spell this B -U -N -G -A -L -O -W.
A bungalow. A bungalow is a small, single -storey house.
I mean, I say small.
Some bungalows can be be surprisingly big.
There are some bungalows that are bigger than my two -storey house.
And that's because they'll have a large footprint on a large plot of land.
The rooms will all be very big.
So some bungalows are large, but generally a bungalow is a smaller property and it's single storey.
There's no upstairs.
So there are no stairs in a bungalow.
It's all on the ground floor.
There's no second level.
So most older people choose to live in a bungalow because as they age, stairs become more of an obstacle for their sore hips and knees.
there's a higher risk of a fall or if they become sick or injured due to their increasing frailty then getting up and downstairs might be difficult.
So a bungalow is a good choice for an elderly person.
Here's an example sentence.
Her grandparents live in a cozy bungalow with a lovely garden.
OK, so that's our five.
Let's do a quick recap.
We started with the noun heatwave, which is a period of unusually hot weather.
Heatwave. Then we had the adjective glorious, meaning beautiful or wonderful, something that gives great pleasure.
Glorious. We had the adjective stuffy, describing something that's airless, lacking fresh air, stuffy.
We had the adjective sweltering, which is something that's very hot and uncomfortable, sweltering.
And we had the noun bungalow, which is a very small, single story house, a bungalow.
Let's now do this for pronunciation purposes.
Please repeat after me.
Heat wave Heat wave Glorious Glorious Stuffy Stuffy Sweltering Bungalow.
Bungalow. Very good.
What's the adjective I would use if I want to say that a room is lacking fresh air?
Stuffy. Yeah, it's very stuffy in here.
And it's made worse because it's very hot.
This whole house is very, very hot at the moment and uncomfortable.
What adjective could I use instead of saying very hot?
Sweltering. Yes, this house is sweltering.
Do you have the heating on in the middle of summer?
it's making the rooms very stuffy please turn off the heating open the windows let some air in did you know that the weather is beautiful what other adjective could i use instead of saying the weather is beautiful did you know the weather is glorious the weather is glorious you don't need to have the heating on you're making your house sweltering you're making the rooms stuffy open open the windows and enjoy this glorious weather.
Did you know that we're having a period of unusually hot weather?
What do we call this?
A heat wave. Yes, we're having a heat wave at the moment.
This glorious weather is welcome.
We enjoy a heat wave every now and again, though you must turn off your heating so you don't have a sweltering house, making the rooms all stuffy in your very small single storey house.
What noun could I use instead of calling this house a single storey house?
Your bungalow. Yes, your bungalow is sweltering.
Your rooms are stuffy because we're having a glorious heatwave at the moment.
So so please turn off your heating in your bungalow and open the windows.
There we go. All right, let's now revisit our snapshot.
The heatwave had been going on for 10 days and everyone said the weather was absolutely glorious, but Marcus disagreed.
His little bungalow felt stuffy and airless with no breeze coming through the windows.
By midday, it was so sweltering inside that he had to sit in the garden under an umbrella just to cool down.
OK, I'd like you to listen out for our target vocabulary once more as we head into story time.
I can't stand this weather anymore.
more. Everyone keeps saying how glorious it is, but I'm absolutely miserable.
This heatwave has been going on for two weeks now and I feel like I'm melting.
My little bungalow wasn't built for weather like this.
The estate agent called it cosy when I bought it, but what he really meant was.
Tiny, with no proper ventilation.
The whole place feels stuffy and airless.
I've opened every window in the house, but there's not even the slightest breeze.
The air just sits there, thick and heavy, like a wet blanket.
I barely slept last night.
Even with just a thin sheet over me, I was sweltering.
I kept tossing and turning, trying to find a cool spot on the pillow.
By 3am, I'd given up and lay there staring at the ceiling, listening to next door's air conditioning unit humming away.
Lucky them. This morning, I dragged myself out of bed feeling feeling exhausted.
My hair was sticking to my head with sweat before I even got dressed.
I stood in front of the open fridge for ten minutes, just letting the cold air wash over me.
The milk has gone off, probably because I keep opening the fridge door to cool down.
Work was a nightmare.
Our office air conditioning broke down yesterday, today and the repairman can't come until next week we're all sitting at our desks like zombies too hot to think properly my boss suggested we make the best of it and enjoy the sunshine easy for him to say he's got a corner office with two windows and a desk fan oh at lunchtime i tried to go to the park thinking the trees might provide some shade What a mistake!
The concrete pavements were radiating heat like an oven.
I saw a dog walker pour water from his bottle onto the ground to cool the pavement for his pet's paws.
Even the dogs are suffering in this heat.
The worst part is that everyone else seems to be loving it.
My neighbours are having barbecues every night, laughing and chatting in their gardens, whilst I'm hiding indoors with a wet towel around my neck.
Social media is full of people posting photos of themselves sunbathing and drinking cold drinks.
They're calling it perfect weather and saying things like, I wish summer could last forever.
Well, well, I don't.
I'm dreaming of autumn rain and cool breezes.
I want to wear a jumper again without feeling like I'm suffocating.
I want to sleep under a proper duvet instead of lying on top of the covers sweating.
The weather forecast says this heat wave will continue for another week.
I don't know how I'll survive it.
Tomorrow I'm going to spend the entire day in the local shopping centre just for the air conditioning.
Right now, I'm sitting in a cold bath, fully clothed, writing this on my phone.
My neighbours probably think I've lost my mind, but I don't care anymore.
This glorious summer can end any time now.
Thank you very much. much. And that brings us to the end of today's episode.
I do hope you enjoyed it and found it useful.
If you did, then please take a second to leave a like if you're watching on YouTube or a rating or review if you're streaming from any other platform.
Until tomorrow, Take very good care and goodbye.
