Your English Five a Day #5.4

E107: Feeling puzzled by the pronunciation of the word 'sweatshirt' or are you just unsure when to use 'fasten'? In today's episode of the Your English Five a Day series, we're peeling back the layers of English vocabulary, exposing the nuances and subtleties that take you from an English learner to a confident speaker.  So come along, let's have some fun while we strengthen our English language skills.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Hello, welcome to the English Like a Native podcast. My name is Anna and I do hope you're feeling well and happy. Today You're listening to an episode that's part of the series your English Five a Day, where we deep dive into five pieces of vocabulary every day of the week. So, without further ado, let's kick off week five, day four, with the noun sweatshirt Sweatshirt. This word is spelled S-W-E-A-T-S-H-I-R-T Sweatshirt. Now, this is a very simple, quite low level, basic noun, but it's interesting because, firstly, the pronunciation of anything containing the word shirt is tricky. So, sweatshirt. It's also interesting because in the UK, although this word is used especially within advertising within the UK, we more often in conversation refer to a sweatshirt as a jumper. In America, they also use the word sweatshirt, but they will often refer to a sweatshirt as a sweater, I believe. I mean, I'm not American, but that's my, that's my understanding. So here, a sweatshirt or a jumper. Now, a sweatshirt is a loose shirt that's made of thick cotton and you pull it over your head, unlike a shirt that you'd wear to the office, which you button up the front. So a sweatshirt you pull over your head and it's usually worn either to keep warm or to exercise. Okay, I can't wear a sweatshirt for exercise because I get too hot. I'm not very good at controlling my temperature, so I'm very much at the kind of person who exercises in a vest, in an exercise vest or t shirt. So a sweatshirt. Do you wear a sweatshirt on a regular basis? Let's have an example sentence oh, don't forget to take your sweatshirt with you tonight, it's going to get cold later. Okay, mum, okay. Next on our list is a verb, and it's the verb farsen, farsen. Now, this is spelt F-A-S-T-E-N, but we don't pronounce that T Farsen. Farsen. To farsen something is to close or to do it up securely. So we're talking often about clothing. So you farsen your coat, you farsen your button on your trousers. You can also farsen anything with a buckle or a button, so it could be a bag or a purse. What else could you farsen? You could, yeah, farsen. It sounds so weird when you say that word again and again Fasten, fasten, fasten, anyway. So, yes, anything that's got a buckle or a belt or a zip, you'd fasten it. We often talk about fastening our seat belts when we get into a vehicle, and this is our example sentence Make sure you fasten your seat belt before we drive off. Booooom. At the moment my eldest son is able to fasten his own seat belt. He's been able to do it for ages and we've become a little bit complacent. We've started to relax. When we get in the car, we let him in his side and we shut the door and we realise that we're not double checking anymore, which is bad because he's still only five. So we need to make sure that he's properly fastening the seat belt, because sometimes you can put the buckle into the little hole and it doesn't quite catch, it doesn't quite fasten properly, it just kind of sits there in the hole. So we, my partner and I have made a deal with each other that we have to be really on the ball. We have to be very aware when we get in the car to make sure that Jacob has properly fastened his seat belt. Okay, moving on to our next word, which is a lovely adjective and it's perfumed, perfumed spelt P-E-R-F-U-M-E-D P-E-R-F-U-M-E-D. If something is perfumed, then it naturally has or produces a sweet and pleasant smell. I actually recently bought some new perfume. I don't buy perfume. I don't really take very good care of myself. I'm always too busy worrying about everybody else. But for my birthday back in September I was given a gift card for the fragrance shop Maybe that was a hint. Anna, you smelled terrible. Go and get some perfume. I'm sure I smell fine. I am clean, just to make that you know. Just to lay that down so that you're aware I do clean. I'm a very hygienic person. I just don't always take care of myself in the sense of buying new clothes and having nice shoes and, you know, buying nice creams and perfumes and things I don't pamper myself very often. So I recently bought some perfume with this perfume voucher I had for my birthday, and so now you could say Anna is quite perfumed today. It's nice to smell nice. Here's an example sentence these roses are beautifully perfumed. Where did you find them? Okay, moving on to a phrasal verb oh, we love phrasal verbs and with this phrasal verb you have two options. We have go with or go together. So go with, go go with, with, with or together T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R together. So if something goes with or goes together, then we're talking about items or people that are mutually suited. They match each other very well, okay. So you might say a raincoat and an umbrella go together, a pencil skirt and a blouse go together, a shirt and tie go together, go together. Or a shirt goes with a tie. So it's when things match and fit very well together. Here's an example sentence that top goes really well with your new trousers. Why don't you wear it out tomorrow? So you'll see there, in that example I separated, go and with. That top goes really well with your new trousers. So this is a separable phrasal verb. Okay, let's move on to the last of our list, which is laundry Laundry. This is a noun and it refers to clothes or other materials, like bedsheets or blankets, that need cleaning or have recently been washed and perhaps they're now being dried, or they've been washed and dried but now they need folding or ironing or something like that. That's, any clothes or materials in that cycle is referred to as laundry. So I'll say have you looked in the laundry? Have you done the laundry? There's a basket of laundry sitting on the kitchen side. If you could deal with it please. Or ma, ma, I can't find my t-shirt. Have you checked the laundry? There's a basket of laundry. Go and check the laundry. It's probably in the laundry. Okay, so that's just referring to the clothes in that cycle or the material in that cycle of being cleaned and returned to their wardrobes or drawers. Okay, so that's our five. Oh no, I didn't spell laundry for you. Oh, dear me, I'm really struggling to remember the spelling of the word, so sorry. Before I move on, laundry is spelled L-A-U-N-D-R-Y it's a funny one L-A-U-N-D-R-Y laundry, laundry. So let's recap our five for today. We had the noun sweatshirt, like a jumper, something that you wear to keep warm. We had the verb farsen, which is to close or shut, secure something, usually buttons or buckles. We had the adjective perfumed Whoo, to smell very nice. We had the phrase of verb go with or go together, when two things match very well. We have the noun laundry, which is clothes or material in the cycle of cleaning or being cleaned. Okay, let's try now for pronunciation. Please repeat after me Sweatshirt, farsen, perfumed, Go with, go together, laundry, fantastic. Let's bring all of our words from today into a short story. Here we go. There's nothing better than waking up in the morning, having a cupper in bed, getting the kids off to school and then coming home ready to start your own day. One great way to put you in a productive mood is to go for a walk or, if you're feeling energetic, a run. You put on your new sweatshirt that, luckily, goes perfectly with the bright pink trainers you got for your birthday. You fasten the button on the armband that holds your phone. You can't go for a walk or run without a few tunes blasting out and off you go. As you run through the park, you take in the beautiful smell of perfumed flowers that grow wildly along the pathway. You can faintly hear the ducks quacking away playfully in the pond and you smile at seeing a group of young dogs at puppy school. All seems perfect, until you trip over a football that has just been kicked in the wrong direction, ha Falling to the ground. All you can see is a huge puddle of mud. No, you can't avoid it. And then sploosh. What was supposed to be a productive day in the office is now going to be a day of doing laundry. Maybe going for a run first thing in the morning isn't such a great idea after all. Ladies and gentlemen, that brings me to the end of today's podcast. I do hope you found it useful. If you did, maybe consider leaving a rating or review so that others can find this podcast too. I appreciate you tuning in Until next time. Take very good care and goodbye.