Your English Five a Day #26.5

E254: 🎙️ Welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast! I'm Anna, and you're tuning in to Week 26, Day 5 of Your English Five a Day. This series is your daily dive into enriching your English vocabulary with five new pieces each weekday.

🧼 Let's kick off today's session with the adjective "upmarket". Next up is the adjective "muted", used for both sound and colour! Then we move onto the noun "disinfectant" and the verb "cringe". Lastly,  we finish off by exploring the painful adjective "excruciating".

🦷 Don't forget that we'll do some pronunciation practice as always, and then I'll test your memory with an off-the-cuff story. In today's planned story, we see all the words come together as we listen to someone's fears become real when they navigate a dental visit in a foreign country. The upmarket clinic's muted tones do little to ease their nerves, but with some deep breaths and trust in the dentist, that fear and excruciating pain will hopefully go away!

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Transcript

0:01

Hello and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast. My name is Anna and you're listening to Week 26, Day 5 of Your English Five a Day. This is the series that aims to plump up your English vocabulary by deep-diving into five pieces every day of the working week from Monday to Friday. You can get more out of your listening experience by becoming a Plus Member, which gives you access to a bonus episode every week, as well as transcripts for each episode and a vocabulary list for the weekend episodes. Plus, you help this podcast to continue and to grow. You can find out more about becoming a Plus Member in the show notes. Let's begin today's list with an adjective and it is upmarket. Upmarket. We spell this U P M A R K E T. Upmarket. Something that is described as upmarket is something that's luxurious, high-end and refined. A jeweller's or any kind of shop or hotel or service that is luxury, that is at the most expensive end of that type of service will be an upmarket version of it. Here's an example sentence,"The restaurant's upmarket atmosphere and elegant decor made it the perfect spot for a special occasion dinner." Have you ever been to an upmarket restaurant? So, I live on the outskirts of London. Of course, there are many upmarket restaurants, hair salons, and beauty spa venues all around London and in the areas surrounding London. But I prefer the down-to-earth, budget-friendly places because that suits me and my lifestyle much better. Okay, so, next on the list is another adjective and it is muted. We spell this M U T E D. Muted. If something is described as muted then it is silenced or dulled or toned down. So, if we talk about muted tones or muted colours, then they are not vibrant. They're not bright. They're quite dull. If a person has been muted or if the sound has been muted, then it's been silenced. Here's an example sentence,"The artist had used muted colours as the backdrop for the masterpiece." Next on the list is a noun and it is disinfectant. Disinfectant. We spell this D I S I N F E C T A N T. Disinfectant. Disinfectant. Disinfectant is a substance that is used to kill germs or bacteria. So, you'll have disinfectant in most homes and in every commercial property, particularly where the trade is food-based or care-based. So, in a care home for the elderly or in a school or in a hospital, a GP surgery, a dental surgery, or in a cafeteria, a restaurant, there'll always be disinfectant in those buildings. And we often have disinfectant in the home that we use to clean our bathrooms and our kitchens and our floors. Here's an example sentence,"The hospital staff used disinfectant to clean and sanitise the operating room before the surgery." Next on the list is a verb and it is cringe. Cringe. We spell this C R I N G E. Cringe. I love this word. To cringe means to feel embarrassed or uncomfortable due to something that you think is awkward or unpleasant. So, for example, if I don't know, your grandmother is with you at a social event and they start using some foul language or talking about something that's quite embarrassing, then you might start to cringe and go,"Oh, grandma, please stop talking, please." Or if your dad tells a joke that's really bad in front of your friends and it just isn't cool at all. And your friends are looking at you and saying,"Oh, please make him stop." And you're just dying of embarrassment and you feel really uncomfortable. Then that's to cringe. Here's another example,"I always cringe when I watch hospital programmes and they show the doctors operating on patients, I can't stand the sight of blood." What makes you cringe? Next on the list is another adjective and it is excruciating. Excruciating. We spell this E X C R U C I A T I N G. Excruciating. Excruciating. If something is described as excruciating, then it's extremely painful. It's very, very painful or intense. Here's an example sentence,"After I fell over while playing squash, the excruciating pain in my leg made it difficult to walk, so, I had to forfeit the match." And in fact, I played just a few days ago and I tweaked my shoulder. It wasn't excruciating as such, but it was very painful to the point where I had to stop playing, which is not like me, I would normally play through pain. But this time I knew that I'd done something to my shoulder. And if I continued to play, then I would do more damage. And so, I came off the court, which was very upsetting. I have experienced excruciating pain when I broke my leg. You may remember that story from the YouTube conversation video. I slipped over and spiral fractured my femur and that was excruciating. Also, I'd say being in labour with childbirth, that's quite excruciating as well. What excruciating pain have you experienced? In fact, you probably don't want to remember, do you? So, I apologise if I've just prompted you to remember the most excruciating thing you've ever experienced. Sorry about that. Let's go to the recap as quickly as we can. We started with the adjective upmarket. Upmarket. If something is described as upmarket, then it's luxurious, high-end or refined. Then we had the adjective muted. Muted. Something that is silenced, dulled or toned down. Then we had the noun disinfectant, disinfectant, which is a substance that we use to kill germs or bacteria. Then we had the verb cringe, cringe, which is to feel embarrassed or uncomfortable due to something being awkward or unpleasant. And then we had the adjective excruciating, which describes something that's extremely painful or intense. So, let's now do this for pronunciation purposes. Please repeat after me. Upmarket. Upmarket. Muted. Muted. Disinfectant. Disinfectant. Cringe. Cringe Excruciating. Excruciating. Very good. Alright, let me now test your memory by testing my own improv skills as I make up a story. Last week I was helping my partner to put up a partition wall. So, we were doing a spot of DIY and he invited a friend along to give him a hand. So, the three of us were working away and my partner was nattering to his friend and I kept telling him he needed to focus and concentrate on the job at hand, especially while he was wielding a nail gun. So, I'm holding this plasterboard in place and my partner is banging in the nails with the nail gun. And at one point, I'm not quite sure what happened, but he managed to put a nail right through my hand and nail my hand to the wall. Now, this all happened, of course, because he wasn't focusing because he was too busy talking about football to his friend. I can tell you that the pain of having a nail shot through your hand is the most extremely painful thing you can experience, as far as I'm concerned, anyway. What adjective could I use to describe this intense pain? Excruciating. It was excruciating, and my partner, who hadn't stopped talking up until the moment that he shot a nail into my hand, suddenly had nothing to say for himself. He was completely silenced. What adjective can I use to describe my now silenced partner? Muted. Yeah, so, while I'm there screaming in excruciating pain, my muted partner is just staring at his handiwork. His friend, on the other hand, was a bit more on the ball and he ran to the kitchen, grabbed the substance that we use to kill germs and bacteria. What do we call this noun normally? Disinfectant. That's right. He grabbed the disinfectant, he grabbed an old rag, and he told my partner that we would need to pull the nail out of the wall, if not out of my hand, so that I could be freed in order to head to the hospital. My partner really struggled with the idea of pulling this nail out of my hand or even out of the wall. He felt really uncomfortable doing this. What verb could we use to describe him feeling so uncomfortable with this unpleasant situation? Cringe. Yes, he was cringing at the idea of having to act to release me from this excruciating bind that I found myself in. So, his friend had to do everything. He threw the disinfectant onto my hand and he doused the rag in disinfectant, and then he pulled the nail out of the wall, but left it impaling my hand, covered the whole thing with a rag and as much disinfectant as he could get out of the bottle. And my partner who continued to be muted, and the friend, and I all went to the hospital together to get this nail removed and to get my hand X-rayed and dealt with. Luckily, my hand survived and everything is still intact and my partner, who's found his voice once again, took me to a luxurious, very high-end restaurant as a way of apologising for shooting me in the hand. What adjective could we use to describe this high-end restaurant? Upmarket. Upmarket restaurant. Yes. That was my improv. I felt like it went well today! Let's quickly recap. My partner, his friend and I were doing some DIY trying to build a partition wall. My partner was having a nice chat with his friend and not paying attention and managed to shoot me through the hand with a nail gun. I was in excruciating pain. Now, my partner, who had not stopped talking all day, was suddenly muted. He didn't have a word to say for himself, and he even cringed at the thought of trying to remove my hand from the wall or remove the nail from my hand. So, his friend had to do everything. He grabbed the disinfectant from the cupboard. He grabbed a rag and he managed to free me from the wall and we all went to the hospital to sort my hand out. My partner then took me to an upmarket restaurant in order to say sorry for shooting me in the hand. Okay, let's now revisit all five items once again in today's storytime. You sit nervously in the waiting room of the upmarket dental practice, your hands shaking and your palms sweaty. It's your first visit to the dentist after moving abroad, and you can't help but feel anxious. You're not fluent in the language here, so you have to rely on hand and facial gestures to communicate. And today, you have a severe toothache that's been keeping you up for nights, making you dread this visit even more. As you look around the modern and sleek waiting room, you start to feel overwhelmed. The elegant furniture, the muted colours, the fancy artwork on the wall everything feels foreign to you. You take a deep breath. You try to calm yourself down. You can do this, you tell yourself. A few minutes later, a nurse comes to get you and leads you to the examination room. As you enter, the sound of drilling and the smell of disinfectant hits you, making you cringe. You sit on the dentist's chair and try to put on a brave face, but deep down, you're terrified. You hate needles, and you know there's a good chance you might need a shot today. The dentist comes in, and to your relief, he speaks English. But as he begins to examine your teeth, he starts speaking in his native language to his assistant, leaving you feeling lost and confused. You try to communicate with hand gestures, but it's not easy when your mouth is open wide."Ahhhhhhhhhhh!" Just when you think you can't take it anymore, the dentist takes out a needle and explains that you need a filling. Your heart drops, and you feel like running away. But then, you remember the sleepless nights and the excruciating pain in your tooth. You take a deep breath and you close your eyes, trying to trust the dentist. And to your surprise, it's not as bad as you thought it would be. The dentist is gentle, and the shot doesn't hurt as much as you anticipated. As he works on your tooth, you realise that the language barrier wasn't as big of an obstacle as you thought it would be. The pain is soon gone and you feel relieved and grateful. As you leave the dentist's office, you start to feel proud of yourself. You faced your fear of needles and managed to survive your first visit to the dentist in a foreign country. Although this experience went ok, you don't want to make a habit of having to go. And as you are walking home, you remember a saying a friend once told you: an apple a day keeps the dentist away. I better stock up on Granny Smiths! And that brings us to the end of today's episode and to the end of Week 26. I do hope you found this week useful. Don't forget there'll be another episode coming out tomorrow, so be sure to stay tuned. Until then, take very good care and goodbye.