Your English Five a Day #50.3

🎙️ E398 of The English Like A Native Podcast.
This series focuses on increasing your active vocabulary while also improving your listening skills.

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Transcript

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Hello and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast. My name is Anna and you're listening to Week 50, Day 3 of Your English Five a Day. This is the series that gives you a healthy daily dose of English vocabulary so you can improve your listening skills and expand your English word bank. I didn't plan what I was going to say there. Could you tell? Alright. Let's kick off today's series with the verb to nurse, to nurse. Nurse. We spell N U R S nurse. Notice how we don't pronounce the R. Nurse/nɜːs/. Nurse. To nurse for someone is to care for them when they are ill, often providing them with food, comfort or medical attention. And it would also be used to refer to feeding a baby with breast milk. So if you're breastfeeding, you can say that you are nursing, you're nursing. Okay. So have you ever been nursed back to health or have you ever had to be the nurse? Have you nursed someone when they have been unwell? If you're a parent, then it's very likely that at some point your children have been unwell and you've had to nurse them. So you've had to bring them food, keep them warm. Give them their medicine and entertain them while they are feeling under the weather until they're back to their old selves. So here's an example sentence,"After her surgery, Jenny's family rallied together to nurse her back to health." Next on the list is the idiom near at hand, near at hand. Near at hand. Let me spell that for you. Near, N E A R. At, A T. Hand, H A N D. Near at hand. Notice how I dropped the T when I said that together. Near at hand. At, at hand. Okay, if something is near at hand then it's close to you. It might be close to you in time or close to you in distance, but generally, it just means that something is so close you can touch it. So if an object is near at hand, it means that you can pick it up. If an event is near at hand, then it's upon us. It's so close. Here is an example,"With the deadline near at hand, the team worked late into the night to finalise the project." Next on the list is the phrasal verb pick up. Now this is when we're talking about the phone. So to pick up the phone is to answer the phone. Pick up. P I C K, pick. Up, U P. To pick up the phone is to answer the phone. Now, if you get a phone call from an unknown number or from a private number, maybe that number has been withheld and you don't know who's calling, would you pick up or do you just let it ring, allow it to move on to the answering machine, let them leave a message? I know people who say,"Don't answer it, don't answer it. They'll leave a message if it's important." But I personally, I'm far too curious. I have to know who's calling me. So I pick it up every time and then often I get grumpy because it's a time waster. Here's another example,"I've called three times but she's not picking up." Okay. Next on the list is the noun and, it's also used as an adjective newborn, newborn. We spell this N E W B O R N, newborn. A newborn is a baby that has just been born, or it might be a few days or a few weeks old, it's a newborn. You could also use this as an adjective and pair it with the word baby, a newborn baby, which we often do."Oh, I've got a newborn baby! Isn't it cute?" Here's an example sentence,"They were allowed to take their newborn home after a few days at the hospital." When my boys were newborns, we had a photo shoot for both of them at a newborn session. And it's a special photography session that you have set up for newborn babies and the room is very warm and the photographer is experienced at working with newborn babies and handling them and putting them into specific poses. And she captured the most beautiful photographs of my newborns. And now I have that forever, that memory of my newborn boys, my newborn babies. They are slapped all over my walls. Giant canvases of these wrinkly little, both wrinkly and chubby all at the same time. Little bundles of joy, my little newborn babies. Next on the list is the adjective sleep-deprived, sleep-deprived. Sleep, S L E E P. Hyphen. Deprived, D E P R I V E D. Deprived. If you are sleep-deprived, then you have not had enough sleep. And it's usually when it's quite bad. It's used when it's been multiple days of poor sleep and you are exhausted. You can't think straight. You look terrible. You have no energy. You are sleep-deprived. Here's an example sentence,"It's dangerous to drive when you're sleep-deprived." I'm very familiar with sleep deprivation. It is a nightmare. So if someone is described as sleep-deprived, be kind to them. Be very kind to them. It's not nice. Okay, so that's our five for today. Let's do a quick recap. We started with the verb nurse, nurse, which means to care for someone who's unwell or to feed a newborn baby. Although you could nurse a baby up until they're one or two or sometimes three years old, sometimes longer. My boys went to around one year 12 months of nursing, and then we stopped. We had the idiom near at hand. If something is near at hand, then it's close. Close enough in distance for you to pick up or very close in time. So something that's about to happen. We had the phrasal verb pick up when talking about the phone, meaning that you answer a phone call. We had the noun, also an adjective, newborn, describing a baby that's just been born. And we had the adjective that usually describes the mother and the father, sleep-deprived, meaning not had enough sleep. Okay, so let's now do this for pronunciation purposes. Please repeat after me. Nurse. Nurse. Near at hand. Near at hand. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up the phone. Newborn. Newborn. Sleep-deprived. Sleep-deprived. Very good. What's the verb that you use when you feed a baby with breast milk or when you care for someone that's ill? You nurse them. Exactly. And what's the noun that I would use for a teeny tiny three-day-old? A tiny baby that's three days old... would be a newborn. Very good. A newborn. And the phone is ringing. What phrasal verb would I use if I'm going to answer it? Pick up. Pick up. And if the phone is close enough to me, for me to be able to handle it without moving, what could I say it is? How do I describe that distance? It's near at hand. Very good. If I have not slept for days, what adjective could you use to describe grumpy Anna? Yes, I would be sleep-deprived. Someone bring me a coffee. Okay, very good. Let's listen out for those items once again in today's storytime. Cassie looked down at her newborn daughter, Lola, nestled in her arms. Just three days ago, they had left the hospital, and now here they were, alone in the quiet of their apartment. The tiny bundle seemed so fragile, so dependent on her for everything. As Lola began to cry, Cassie knew it was time to nurse her again. She settled into a chair and sighed. Nursing her daughter, while a beautiful way to bond, was hard on her body. Cassie found herself spending most of her days and nights feeding Lola, leaving little time for rest or self-care. By the third night, Cassie was utterly sleep-deprived. Her eyes burned from fatigue, and her body ached. She had thought she was prepared for motherhood, but the reality was far more challenging than she had imagined. As she walked around the room with a crying Lola, Cassie realised she needed help. Fortunately, Cassie had a support system near at hand. With trembling fingers, she reached for her phone and called her mother, hoping she would pick up despite it being so late."Hello?" Her mother's sleepy voice was the most welcome sound Cassie had ever heard."Mum," Cassie whispered, as tears of relief streamed down her face."I need help. Can you come over?" Within an hour, Cassie's mum arrived, immediately taking charge. She cradled Lola, allowing a sleep-deprived Cassie to collapse into bed for a much-needed rest. As she fell asleep, Cassie realised an important truth: caring for a newborn wasn't a solo journey. It was okay to ask for help, to lean on those around her. With this understanding, she felt a weight lift from her shoulders. Together, they would navigate this new chapter of life. Now before I say goodbye, I would like to ask you for a small favour, if you could just take a second to leave a like and maybe a comment to let me know if you enjoyed today's episode. If you aren't watching on YouTube, then take a moment to leave a rating or review. All this interaction really helps this podcast to grow and reach other English learners. And I greatly appreciate your help. Until tomorrow, take very good care and goodbye.