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Hello and welcome to the English Like a Native podcast. My name is Anna and you're listening to week 30, day 4 of your English 5 a day.
The second season. I'm here to assist you in taking a daily dunk into the English language so that you can, over time, increase your vocabulary, improve your listening skills and start to feel more like yourself when communicating in English.
Now, this podcast releases every day of the working week from Monday to Friday.
But besides this podcast, there are also many other resources that I provide.
I have another YouTube channel where I provide videos and you can see my face.
Yes, my face. You might enjoy looking at it.
It might help. You can but try and let me know.
Just look for the English Like A Native YouTube channel.
and if you'd like to go further and join a supportive community, take structured courses, receive support and feedback and connect with me on Telegram and in live calls, then you can come and take a look at what's on offer by visiting the website englishlikeanative .co .uk.
All right, without further ado, let's start today's episode with a snapshot.
shot. After the accident, Lucinda tried to suffer in silence about her injured knee, but when memories of her catastrophic fall during the hike came flooding in, she realised she couldn't ignore the pain any longer.
She had got herself into this situation by attempting the difficult mountain trail without proper preparation, but now she had to face her injury head -on if she wanted to recover properly.
Picking up her phone, she finally decided to book an appointment with the doctor.
Okay, let's dive into the vocabulary, starting with the idiom suffer in silence.
To suffer in silence.
Suffer, S -U -F -F -E -R, in silence, S -I -L -E -N -C -E.
To suffer in silence is to endure pain or difficulty without telling anyone.
To suffer in silence.
Some people often choose to suffer in silence for whatever reason.
Maybe they fear being judged or assume that there would be no compassion or understanding.
Maybe they don't want to fuss.
Maybe they don't want people to help them.
For me, I am the opposite.
I think I talk too often about my ailments, my suffering.
I am an open book and that I think sometimes is too much. Sometimes I wish I could suffer in silence a little more but for me, that's just my personality.
I feel like maybe that's how I get through my suffering.
If I'm struggling with something, talking about it openly is like a form of therapy for me.
How about you? Do you prefer to suffer in silence or open up about your struggles?
So here's an example sentence.
She refused to suffer in silence and decided to contact a friend.
Next, we have the idiom come flooding in to come flooding in, flooding, F -L -O -O -D -I -N -G, in, flooding in.
If something comes flooding in, then it's suddenly arriving in large amounts.
And this is usually used when talking about thoughts or memories, they come flooding into your mind.
Here's an example sentence.
Memories of childhood came flooding in when I saw the old photos.
I always find smell has a very strong connection to memories.
If I smell something familiar, something that reminds me of the past, that can bring in a flood of memories.
The memories just come flooding in as soon as I catch a whiff of my grandma's perfume.
Maybe I walk past somebody who's wearing the perfume that my grandma used to wear.
And then suddenly all these memories come flooding in, remembering her laugh and the glint in her eye and the experiences that we had together.
Next, we have the adjective catastrophic.
Catastrophic. Catastrophic.
We spell this C -A -T -A -S -T -R -O -P -H -I -C.
Catastrophic. Catastrophic.
If something is described as catastrophic, then it causes great damage or suffering or destruction.
So if something is catastrophic, then it's quite bad.
So if someone makes a mistake that causes great damage, you you could say that was a catastrophic mistake, like choosing to turn your car into a side road that perhaps isn't a side road you can turn into, and the junction is actually for cars entering the road, not for exiting the road, and your small mistake of missing the signs causes a catastrophic incident or a catastrophic accident where you crash into another car which causes multiple collisions and injuries and damage.
Here's another example.
A computer virus caused catastrophic data loss.
OK, next we have the idiom face something head -on.
To face something head -on.
Face, F -A -C -E, something head -on.
H -E -A -D hyphen on O -N.
to face something head -on is to confront a problem directly and bravely.
For example, if there is some tension in the workplace between you and a colleague, and this has been going on for a while, and maybe this person actually has conflict on a regular basis, maybe there's tension between this person and many other people, maybe they are the problem and nobody is addressing it and then one day you decide to be brave and direct and go straight to this person and confront the problem and say look there seems to be an issue here it seems like you're not very happy or you're a bit tense when you're dealing with me I find you a bit abrupt a bit rude let's talk about it let's
get get everything out in the open and confront whatever issue is causing this tension.
So that's facing it head on.
Here's another example.
We must face the issue head on and find a solution.
In that example, we don't know what the issue is.
It might be that you run a a school and there's a truancy issue.
There's an issue with attendance.
Maybe your school is underperforming when it comes to pupil attendance and you have to face this issue head on.
Maybe you have to bring all the parents in, speak to the parents directly and say, look, we're going to be firm here.
We're not blaming you directly, but you have an important role to play in ensuring your your children come to school.
And so we're facing this issue head on.
We're going to sort this out.
Have you ever had to face an issue head on?
What was it? And how was it when you finally stood up and confronted it?
Next and last on today's list, we're looking at the phrasal verb, verb, get yourself into something.
To get yourself into something.
Get, G -E -T, yourself, Y -O -U -R -S -E -L -F.
Into, I -N -T -O, something.
To get yourself into something is to become involved in a difficult or unpleasant situation, usually by accident or without intention.
For example, you might end up caught up in some sort of illegal activity.
Maybe a friend of yours or a neighbour has asked you to put a package in your suitcase when you travel to Spain that you can then pass on to a friend of theirs in Spain.
And it all seems very innocent.
But by the time you get to Spain, you're pulled to one side by the customs officers and they want to open your suitcase.
And then you find yourself in a sticky mess.
You've got yourself into something really quite troublesome because you find the package is drugs and you didn't realise.
You've got yourself into a very unpleasant situation.
You have to explain to the police that you had no idea what was in that packet.
Okay, so here is an example sentence.
How did you get yourself into such a mess?
All right, so that's our five.
Let's do a quick recap.
We started with the idiom suffer in silence, which is to endure pain or difficulty without telling anyone.
Suffer in silence. We had the idiom come flooding in, which is to suddenly arrive in large amounts, especially when talking about thoughts or memories.
Come flooding in. We had the adjective catastrophic, which means that something Something is causing great damage, suffering or destruction.
Catastrophic. We had the idiom face something head on, which is to confront a problem directly and bravely.
To face something head on.
And we had the phrasal verb get yourself into something, which is to become involved in a difficult or unpleasant situation, often without intention.
So, there we go. That was our recap.
Now it's time for pronunciation.
Please repeat after me.
Suffer in silence. Suffer in silence.
Come flooding in. Come flooding in.
Catastrophic. Catastrophic Face something Head on Face something Head on Get yourself into something Get yourself Into something something.
Very good. If a smell makes all these memories come to my mind, what idiom would I use to describe how they all arrive in my mind in a large amount quite suddenly?
They come flooding in.
Yes. And if I'm in pain and I don't tell anybody about it, what what idiom would you use to describe what I'm doing?
I'm suffering in silence.
If I need to confront a problem directly and bravely, what idiom would you use?
You'd say, Anna, you need to face it head on.
And if I become involved in a very unpleasant situation completely by accident, what phrasal verb could you use?
would it look like?
You'd say, ooo you got yourself into something!
And finally, if something happens that causes great damage, what adjective would we use to describe it?
Catastrophic. Very good.
Right, let's revisit our snapshot.
after the accident lucinda tried to suffer in silence about her injured knee but when memories of her catastrophic fall during the hike came flooding in she realized she couldn't ignore the pain any longer she had got herself into this situation by attempting the difficult mountain trail without proper preparation but now she had to face her injury head -on if she wanted to recover cover properly.
Picking up her phone, she finally decided to book an appointment with the doctor.
Okay, now I want you to listen out for this target vocabulary once more as we head into story time.
Regina stared at the envelope on her kitchen table.
Her name was written on the front in in official letters.
She had been avoiding opening it for three days now, but she knew she couldn't put it off any longer.
The bank had been calling constantly.
Each time her phone rang, her heart jumped.
She had stopped answering unknown numbers weeks ago, choosing to suffer in silence rather than face the reality of her situation.
But silence, she was learning, could be its own kind of torture.
When she finally tore open the envelope, the words seemed to jump off the page.
Final notice. 30 days.
Legal action. The memories came flooding in.
The redundancy letter from her job.
The mounting bills.
The sleepless nights wondering how she would pay her mortgage.
what had started as a temporary setback had become catastrophic.
Regina had always been the responsible one in her family.
She was the eldest sister, the one everyone turned to for advice.
How could she tell them that she had got herself into such a mess?
That the woman they all looked up to was about to lose her home?
She walked to the window and looked out at the small garden she had worked so hard to create.
The roses were blooming beautifully, unaware that they might soon belong to someone else.
The thought of strangers living in her house, sleeping in her bedroom, cooking in her kitchen made her feel sick.
Her mobile phone buzzed.
A text from her sister Cheryl.
all. Fancy meeting for coffee tomorrow.
I have some exciting news to share.
Regina could imagine what the news might be.
A promotion at work, perhaps, or plans for a holiday.
Normal news that normal people had.
Regina sat down heavily on her sofa.
She had been trying to solve this problem alone for months, but the situation was getting worse, not better.
She had applied for dozens of jobs, but the replies were always the same.
Thank you for your interest, but...
The rejection letters had stopped hurting after a while.
Now they just felt inevitable.
But as she sat there, surrounded by the silence of her empty house, Regina realised something had to change.
She couldn't continue like this.
Her pride had prevented her from asking for help, but pride wouldn't pay her bills or save her home.
She picked up her phone and scrolled through her contacts until she found her sister's number.
Her finger hovered over the call button.
This was it. The moment she would have to face her situation head on, no matter how humiliating it might be.
taking a deep breath, Regina pressed call.
When Cheryl answered, cheerful as always, Regina found her voice.
Cheryl, it's me. Are you free to talk?
I need to tell you something important.
For the first time in months, Regina felt a tiny spark of hope.
Perhaps she didn't have to carry this burden alone after all.
And that brings us to the end of today's episode.
I do hope that you enjoyed it.
And I really hope that you'll join me again tomorrow because tomorrow is Friday and Friday is when we bring together all of the vocabulary that we've looked This week in one big story.
So make sure you're there until then.
Take very good care and goodbye.
