Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 543, Describing Different Smells.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 543.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in In beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpodcom.
Go there today to download the learning guide for this episode.
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This episode is called Describing Different Smells.
It's a dialogue between Julia and Gilles talking about the different words we use to describe how things smell in English.
Let's get started.
Do you really think we'll be able to renovate this place and turn it into a restaurant?
It's not so bad.
I know it smells a little stale and musty in here, but all we need to do is air it out.
Air it out?
This place needs a lot more than an airing out.
The kitchen smells putrid.
I wonder what died in there.
There is a faint smell of something nasty in there, but I don't think it permeates through the rest of the building, do you?
No, but there are different nasty smells in other parts of the building.
Oh.
There's a really strong burnt, smoky smell in this corner.
Hold your breath.
This is a restaurant.
I'm sure a thorough cleaning will make all the difference.
That might be true for the kitchen.
But what will you do in the dining room?
An entire truckload of scented candles or bottles of perfume couldn't mask those foul smells.
This place just stinks from top to bottom.
All right, I'll look for another building, but this place is cheap and within our budget.
Yes, but if I had to work here...
I'd first have to lose my sense of smell.
Gilles begins by saying to Julia Do you really think we'll be able to renovate this place and turn it into a restaurant?
To renovate means to improve a room or an entire building by usually rebuilding parts of it, expanding it perhaps, putting different decoration, different colors, that sort of thing.
To renovate means to make new, in some ways, the room or the building.
Gilles wants to take a place, some place they own or are renting and turn it into a restaurant meaning, make it into a restaurant.
Maybe it was a store before.
Now it will be something different.
Julia says, it's not so bad.
The place is not too bad, is what she's saying.
She says, I know it smells a little stale and musty in here, but all we need to do is air it out.
Stale is a way of describing a smell that is not fresh, that is old.
Something that smells used could be described as stale.
Musty, M-U-S-T-Y, musty. is something that smells like it's slightly wet.
It's a very bad smell, usually because there hasn't been enough air circulation in a particular area.
If you live in the northern part of the United States and your house has a basement, sometimes in the basement it can get very moist, very damp, meaning there's water there and that can lead to a musty smell.
To air something out means to open windows or to do something to make the air move around the particular space so it dries out, smells better, gets rid of the bad smells.
You might open a window, for example, to air something out.
Gilles says air it out means Notice he uses airing out as a noun from the verb to air something out.
He says, The kitchen smells putrid.
Putrid, P-U-T-R-I-D, is the smell of something that is dead, something that is perhaps decaying, meaning that, for example, it's been sitting there for a long time and so it starts to come apart, a human body, if it were left in a room forever. a dead body, that is, would start to decay.
It would start to change colors.
It would start to smell bad.
Well, that bad smell we could describe as being putrid.
It doesn't just mean it's a dead body.
There are other things that can smell putrid.
Putrid is perhaps one of the most negative words you can use to describe the way something smells.
Gilles says, I wonder what died in there.
He's joking.
He doesn't mean something actually is dead in there, although it's possible.
Julia says there is a faint smell of something nasty in there, but I don't think it permeates through the rest of the building.
Do you?
A faint, F-A-I-N-T, smell is a very slight, very small, so small you can almost not notice it.
Faint has a lot of different meanings in English.
In addition to this one, take a look at the learning guide for some more explanations.
Nasty, N-A-S-T-Y. is something that is very unpleasant.
We might even say it's disgusting or it's gross.
It's a very negative way to describe something.
You could say it was a nasty fight.
The two people were fighting, they were yelling at each other, they were shouting, using bad language.
That would be a nasty fight.
Here, nasty means that the smell is very bad.
Julia says there's a faint smell of something nasty in there, but she doesn't think it permeates through the rest of the building.
To permeate P-E-R-M-E-A-T-E means to be present in every part of something, in every part of, in this case, the building.
If a nasty smell permeates the building, we mean you can smell it everywhere in the building.
Gilles says that he doesn't think the nasty smell permeates through the rest of the building, but there are different nasty smells in other parts of the building.
He then says, oh, there's a really strong burnt, smoky smell in this corner.
Hold your breath.
A burnt, B-U-R-N-T, smell would be something that smells after it has been damaged by fire.
Smoky similarly means that something has been burning or something has been producing smoke, and the smoke is now the smell that you get when you go close to that object.
So if there's a fire in the room and there was a wooden chair after the fire, whatever is left of the chair might have a burnt smoky smell.
Gilles says to Julia, hold your breath.
To hold your breath means not to breathe, usually because you don't want to smell something.
You want to avoid a bad smell.
It means not to breathe.
Julia says, I'm sure a thorough cleaning will make all the difference.
So I guess they're in a building that had a restaurant, but it's an old one and it needs cleaning up.
Gilles says that might be true for the kitchen.
But what will you do in the dining room, the place where people eat or dine?
Gilles says that an entire truckload of scented candles or bottles of perfume couldn't mask those foul smells.
A truckload here would be the amount that you could put into a truck.
More generally, it just means a large amount of something.
So he's saying that even if we had a large number of scented candles...
Scented means with a pleasant smell.
So you buy a candle and you light it, and it gives off a pleasant smell.
That would be a scented candle.
I personally don't like scented candles because I don't think the smell is very pleasant at all usually.
Gilles also mentions bottles of perfume.
Perfume is a liquid with a strong, pleasant smell.
It's used primarily by women.
When men use perfume, they don't call it perfume.
They typically call it cologne, just so they don't seem like they're women.
I guess, i don't know, it's all perfume basically.
To mask M-A-S-K means to cover something, to make it difficult or impossible to see or smell or hear something.
In this case, make it difficult to smell something.
Foul.
F-O-U-L is like the word putrid, something that is very unpleasant, something that is very bad.
Foul, however, has some other meanings.
Take a look at the learning guide for those.
So, going back, Gilles says An entire truckload of scented candles or bottles of perfume couldn't mask those foul smells.
This place just stinks from top to bottom.
To stink means to have a very bad smell.
You would never want to say to your boss or to your girlfriend, Boy, you really stink.
That is not a nice thing to say.
More generally, stink means to be very bad at something.
So we could say, Ah, that baseball player stinks.
David Beckham stinks, for example.
I'm not saying he actually stinks.
I don't watch soccer, so I don't really know.
But when Gilles says this place just stinks, he means it literally stinks.
It smells from top to bottom, meaning the entire building, the entire room.
Julia says, all right, I'll look for another building.
But this place is cheap and within our budget, meaning we can afford it.
We have enough money for what we planned.
Gilles says, yes, but if I had to work here, I'd first have to lose my sense of smell.
Your sense of smell is your ability to smell.
We talk about the five senses. smell, see, hear, taste, and touch.
And then, of course, the sixth sense, which is the ability to see dead people.
If you saw the movie, you know what I'm talking about.
Now let's listen to the dialogue again, this time at a normal speed.
Do you really think we'll be able to renovate this place and turn it into a restaurant?
It's not so bad.
I know it smells a little stale and musty in here, but all we need to do is air it out.
Air it out?
This place needs a lot more than an airing out.
The kitchen smells putrid.
I wonder what died in there.
There is a faint smell of something nasty in there, but I don't think it permeates through the rest of the building.
Do you?
No, but there are different nasty smells in other parts of the building.
Oh, there's a really strong burnt, smoky smell in this corner.
Hold your breath.
This is a restaurant.
I'm sure thorough cleaning will make all the difference.
That might be true for the kitchen, but what will you do in the dining room?
An entire truckload of scented candles or bottles of perfume couldn't mask those foul smells.
This place just stinks from top to bottom.
All right, I'll look for another building, but this place is cheap and within our budget.
Yes, but if I had to work here, I'd first have to lose my sense of smell.
There was nothing stale about this dialogue because it was written by Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2010 by the Center for Educational Development.