Hi everyone, this is Xiaojun from China.
You're listening to Everybody ESL.
Welcome to episode 448 of Everybody ESL, the podcast for everybody who wants to improve their English, practice their English or just learn more English.
My name is Ben and I have a mini episode for you today where I am going to teach you about one English topic.
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Okay, let's get on with this mini-episode.
In this episode, I am going to talk about the word ache.
Ache.
That's spelled A-C-H-E.
Yes, that spelling is a little bit confusing.
Ache is spelled A-C-H-E.
What is ache?
What does ache mean?
Ache can be a noun or a verb.
When ache is a verb, it means to be painful or to cause pain.
When it is a noun, it means something that is painful or something that causes pain.
As a verb, ache is not really very common.
I don't think you will still hear people use it sometimes.
But I think it's more common for people to use the word hurt.
So instead of saying something like my hand aches, I think it's more common for people to say my hand hurts.
Why am I telling you about this word?
Why did I think this was a good topic to teach you about?
It's because of this.
We can use the noun ache as part of larger words when we are referring to certain body parts hurting or certain body parts being painful.
But we can only make these special nouns for certain body parts.
There's only a small set of body parts that work with the word ache to make a new noun.
What am I talking about?
This is what I'm talking about.
If your head, for instance, hurts, you can say that you have a headache, headache.
That is a noun.
It's a compound noun made of two parts, head and ache, headache.
That means your head hurts.
You have a pain or an ache in your head.
So head is one of those words that we can combine with ache to make a new noun.
The other words in this list are ear, If your ear hurts, you can say you have an earache.
Tooth.
If your tooth hurts, you can say you have a toothache.
Back.
If your back hurts, you can say that you have a backache.
Stomach.
If your stomach hurts, then you have a stomachache.
And yes, that is all one word, stomachache.
And we also use the word heartache, heartache.
But that doesn't really mean that your heart is feeling pain.
It really means that you are very, very sad.
Those, I think, are the only body parts that we can combine with ache to make a new noun.
Head, ear, tooth, back, stomach and heart.
I think those are the only body parts that work this way.
If your knee hurts, you really cannot say that you have a knee ache.
A knee ache.
That just isn't a word in English.
If you want to tell somebody that you are feeling pain in your knee, you would have to say something like I am feeling pain in my knee or, more naturally, my knee hurts.
It's the same with a word like finger or foot.
You really just cannot say that you have a finger ache or a foot ache.
If you say something like that, I think everyone will understand what you mean, but it will not sound natural because we can combine only a small set of body parts with ache to make a new noun.
And those words again are head, ear, tooth, back, stomach, and heart.
I guess it's possible that I am forgetting one.
I don't think so.
But maybe there's another one or two of them that people use.
But the point is, you cannot use ache with just any body part to make a new noun.
And that is ache and the way we use it, an important part of English that I think you should know.
This is the end of episode 448 of Everybody ESL.
Remember if you have questions about English or if you have comments for me, or if you would like to record an introduction that I can play at the beginning of future episodes.
The same way, Xiaochun recorded the introduction you heard at the beginning of this episode.
Send an email to everybodyesl at gmailcom.
I'll be back soon with a new episode and until then, keep going, keep practicing and keep learning.
I'll see you soon.
Goodbye.
