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Hi there and welcome to this latest podcast
from Adept English. We help you with fluency
in English, so that you can move towards fluent
English conversation. With English language
listening using Adept English, you can improve
your English without going to a language school,
without doing a language course. And you can
do it in your spare time. How good is that?
So use Adept English to learn English online.
Let’s work on some vocabulary today. One
of the difficulties with English is the sheer
number of words in the language – there
are a lot! But we tend to help you focus on
the more common words – the ones that are
more useful to you. And it’s much more rewarding
and will take your language learning further
to focus on these words. You can continue
to learn the uncommon words once you’re
fluent. Even I am learning new English words
sometimes, so it’s an ongoing process! But
Adept English helps you cover the vocabulary
that you actually need in the most common
situations. If you would like a podcast covering
vocabulary for a particular topic, which you
can see that we haven’t yet covered, do
let us know. Get in touch with us by email
or on Facebook and make your request!
So today, shall we cover some specific vocabulary?
I’ll introduce you to some words, some of
which may be new and some you’ll already
know. But I’ll make sure that they’re
in context, so that it’s easier to remember
them. So let’s talk today about what the
words are for…….the different rooms in
your house or flat.
A word first of all about housing in the UK.
There are some really lovely houses in the
UK, but on the whole, housing is expensive
and houses and flats can be really small compared
to other countries, especially where they’re
in cities. So I’m fully away that not everyone’s
house contains all of these rooms. If you
live in a flat in a city, you may well have
only four rooms. But it’s the vocabulary
that we all come across, so it’s good to
use and it’s good to learn.
So the obvious rooms first of all – the
rooms you probably already know the names
of. What about the word ‘kitchen’, K-I-T-C-H-E-N?
Well, this is the room in your house or flat
where you do your cooking. Kitchens can be
large or very small, but they usually contain
worktops or work surfaces, where you can prepare
food, chop vegetables, mix ingredients for
cooking. A kitchen will also contain a fridge,
that’s F-R-I-D-GE – and it’s short for
‘refrigerator’. This is where you put
your food that needs to be kept cold, around
4C. In your kitchen, you’ll also have a
hob, H-O-B. That’s the place where you heat
up your pans – and an oven, O-V-E-N where
you can bake things. An oven is where you
put cakes or bread to bake. And in a kitchen
there will also be cupboards and shelves for
all of your cooking things, your plates, cups,
glasses. Often in a kitchen, there’s also
a little place to sit and eat. There’s a
lot of vocabulary associated with a kitchen,
but let’s move onto the next room.
Another main room in a house is the lounge,
L-O-U-N-G-E. This is the room where you’ll
have sofas or chairs, a TV perhaps, where
there may be a fireplace, book shelves, lamps,
a coffee table to put your cup of coffee or
your tea on. This is the room, usually downstairs
in a house, where you relax, read a book,
watch television, listen to music. The lounge
is the more common word, but you may also
hear this room called ‘the sitting room’
– so the room where you sit, or ‘the living
room’ – implying that this is where most
of your life in the house happens.
If you find this way of talking about words,
talking about English vocabulary in context
is helpful to your language learning, then
you could have a more structured approach
in your learning by using one of our courses.
Course One Activate your Listening does just
this. It will help you with vocabulary, like
I’m doing in this podcast, by presenting
words in context, so that they’re easier
to learn. This course, Course One Activate
Your Listening makes use also of ‘spaced
repetition’ – so that’s the best technique
to help you remember new words. And it also
gives you practice at English conversation
– so listening to two people talking, which
can often be much faster and harder to follow,
than listening to one person talk. You’ll
find our course on the website at adeptenglish.com.
You’ll be glad that you signed up for that
one!
Back to ‘rooms in your house or flat’.
Another word for a room that you’ll already
know is the ‘bedroom’, B-E-D-R-O-O-M.
This is where your bed is, where you sleep.
And in a house where there are several bedrooms,
you might hear the main, the largest bedroom
called ‘the master bedroom’. I’m not
sure why it’s ‘master’? Why isn’t
it called ‘the mistress bedroom’? That
sounds a bit like something else – there’s
a bit of sexist language for you! But anyway….the
master bedroom is the biggest in the house
– and if it’s a family, this is where
the parents sleep. Other bedrooms may be referred
to as ‘the spare bedroom’ – so that’s
the one that’s not used, or ‘the guest
bedroom’ if you have a room specifically
available for guests. In a 3 bedroomed or
a 4 bedroomed house in the UK, there’s usually
a room that is very small. And that might
be called the ‘box room’ – the smallest
bedroom. It may only be big enough to fit
a single bed in, for one person.
And the fourth of the essential rooms, is
of course ‘the bathroom’. So in most houses,
the bathroom will indeed contain a bath, where
you can sit in the water and wash – ‘have
a soak’ as we sometimes say. But often in
the bathroom there is also a shower, a sink,
where you’d clean your teeth, a toilet - though
sometimes this is in a separate room of its
own.
So those are the four main, ‘essential’
rooms.
What you may also have in your house or flat,
if it’s big enough are the following rooms.
As well as your kitchen, you may have what’s
known as a ‘utility room’ – that’s
U-T-I-L-I-T-Y room. So the noun ‘utility’
literally means ‘use’ or ‘usefulness’.
So a ‘utility room’ is where you put all
those items which are very useful, but which
perhaps aren’t as nice as the rest of your
kitchen. So in most ‘utility rooms’, you’ll
find the washing machine, the tumble dryer
– that’s the machine for drying wet clothes.
You may also have a dishwasher. So these are
noisy machines so they’re often sited in
the utility room. This room may also have
another sink, so that if you want to clean
your dirty trainers or your wellies, you don’t
have to do this in the main sink in your kitchen,
where you might wash food. The utility room
is often where pet dogs or cats have their
‘headquarters’! Pet beds and food bowls,
pet foods, pet grooming equipment may be kept
in the utility room.
Another room you may find in a larger house
or flat – an en suite bathroom. So ‘en
suite’ E-N S-U-I-T-E is French meaning ‘following
on’, or ‘connected’. So an en suite
bathroom is a separate room which you can
enter only from your bedroom. So it’s a
little bathroom which goes with a particular
bedroom – as opposed to a ‘main bathroom’
which is accessible from a hallway or landing.
The ‘landing’, L-A-N-D-I-N-G is the name
given for the hallway at the top of the stairs
– where all the bedroom doors lead from.
You might also have downstairs what’s known
as ‘a cloakroom’ or a ‘downstairs loo’.
So this is the toilet on the ground floor.
‘Cloakroom’ because that’s ‘where
you put your cloak’ of course! It may double
as where you store coats for the outside perhaps.
In your house you may also have a dining room,
which has an obvious use and probably contains
a dining table and chairs. And often this
is where your children might do their homework
so it has other uses. And a dining room may
only be used for special meals. In a really
big house, especially an old house, you may
have also what’s called ‘a breakfast room’.
So yes a room intended for you to eat your
breakfast in. So really it’s just a small
additional dining room, but they tend to be
closer to your kitchen. That’s a breakfast
room.
A conservatory is a glass building, usually
situated at the back of the house and overlooking
the garden. This may just be another place
to sit – or sometimes people make it their
dining room or their home office. And sometimes
people just grow plants in there! But the
conservatory is a glass room.
Another room in the house, which has been
important to people lately is the office or
the home office. So sometimes this is a little
room on the ground floor and sometimes people
use the smallest bedroom as a home office.
This is where they do their work. So of course,
this room has your desk, your computer, your
printer and perhaps lots of other technology
in there too. And sometimes people like to
have a home office because that’s where
they retreat to to play computer games! A
very popular room in some people’s house.
So there we are – English conversation practice
– words you would use in normal conversation
in English with friends. There are other rooms
perhaps in some houses, but those are the
words, those are the names, the vocabulary
we use for the main rooms – useful in conversation.
With English transcript, as ever on our website
at adeptenglish.com. Let us know whether this
podcast was helpful and if you would like
others like it on different topics.
Enough for now. Have a lovely day. Speak to
you again soon. Goodbye.
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