Bug Spray

Hello everyone! And welcome back to EnglishPod! My name isMarco.

And my name is Catherine and today we’re talking about one of my least favorite things, Marco.

Mosquitoes.

Ugh.

Mosquitoes. They’re all over the place, especially in summer or near water.

Exactly.

And for me the worst part is when you’re trying to sleep and there’s a mosquito that just keeps on biting you and boom when you sleep.

Zzzz.

Yeah.

You can gonna hear it around your head, you know…

Yeah, around your head.

By your ears.

Aha.

Oh, I hate that. Or when you just get bitten and you’re in bed and that just itches so much you can’t sleep.

Itches… and it burns sometimes.

Yeah. Yeah, so that’s what we’re talking about today, fun stuff. Uh, let’s jump right into this dialogue and we’ll back in a minute to talk about what’s going on.

Alright, we’re back, so let’s take a look at some of these words in “language takeaway”. Voice: Language takeaway.

Alright, so as we mentioned, we’re gonna be talking about mosquitoes and, well, these are just little small insects that suck your blood.

They do and they very thin and, um, not much to say about them. They are very important in the movie Jurassic Park if you remember that.

Hehe. Right. Now, what’s the difference between a mosquito and a fly?

Okay, a fly usually is just annoying, it doesn’t suck your blood.

Uhu.

But a mosquito does, it sucks your blood. And flies are fatter…

Uhu.

And s… and like shorter.

And they’re big and black…

And they’re black.

Or green kind of, sometimes.

Black and green and they, um… yeah, they just buzz around.

Uhu, so…

And mosquitoes actually bite you.

Okay, so a mosquito and a fly. Now, if a mosquito bites you, you really, really want to scratch.

That’s right, so, uh, you feel like you need to scratch your body, because you have this bite. You’re… you know, it’s really an allergy.

Uhu.

And you have a red bump on your arm, a red mark and you scratch it and it gets worse and worse.

Alright, and moving on to our next word, mosquitoes have a reputation of being sneaky.

Okay, so you can say sneaky about a lot of things. One, you know, obviously, we’re saying: mosquitoes are very sneaky.

Uhu.

Um, that means that they can kind of hide and get you when you’re not expecting it.

Yeah, because sometimes during the day you don’t really see them in your room, right? They’re hiding or they’re in a place where you can’t really see them.

And then at night…

At night.

All of a sudden…

Yeah.

They come out.

They come out. So and they’re very hard to see. They fly around in… in a way that’s very difficult to catch them or kill them, right?

Right, we could say: thieves are very sneaky.

Mm.

Like a thief is someone who steals something and they like to sneak around and hide in the dark and then, when you’re not expecting it, they come out and they steal your s… your stuff.

Exactly. And now, what are we… what do we do or what do we use in order to prevent mosquitoes from biting us?

This is essential, especially if you’re going to the beach…

Uhu.

Uh, we bring bug spray.

Bug spray.

So, a spray is something that psch-h-h-h-h.

Uhu.

That you usually have in a can that you push a button and it comes out.

Alright.

Right, it’s like a… it’s like water, but it keeps the bugs away.

So bug spray keeps bugs away, not only mosquitoes, but like, uh…

Flies.

Flies or any other type of bug.

Uhu.

Now, specifically for mosquitoes you would use maybe a mosquitorepellent.

Right, so repellent is a… it means something that pushes or keeps away things you don’t want. So something that keeps mosquitoes away is called a mosquito repellent.

Alright.

And usually it’s a cream you put on your arms or legs.

Uhu. Alright, very good, so interesting words that we’ve just taking a look at. Let’s listen to our dialogue again and we’ll be right back. DIALOGUE, SECOND TIME (slow)

Alright, we’re back, so now let’s take a look at a couple of different phrases on “fluency builder”. Voice: Fluency builder.

Alright, so the first phrase is very, very common. Uh, the person in the dialogue says that they’re going to have to put up with it, put up with these mosquitoes, because they didn’t have any bug spray.

Uhu.

So this phrase to put up with is really important.

Alright, so if you put up with something, it means that you tolerate it.

Alright, that means even if you don’t want to, you’ll still handle it, you’ll still have to deal with it.

You accept it.

Uhu.

So maybe you have a little brother that’s very annoying and you just have to put up with him. There’s no other option.

Uhg! I… yeah. Or, um, someone says to you: you’re just gonna have to put up with it.

Uhu.

Or you say: I won’t put up it anymore.

Uhu.

I won’t handle this anymore. I’m done!

Alright, so I think this is a great phrase for us to take a look at a couple of different examples. Voice: Example one.

I can’t put up with the noise any longer; turn that music down. Voice: Example two.

If you could put up with the smell, then stinky tofu is actually very tasty. Voice: Example three.

I’ve had to put up with him for too long; I want a new roommate.

And after this we’ve got another phrase. We’re talking about beer, okay. And so, the person says: oh, I have an idea, instead of bug spray we can s… we can cover ourselves with beer.

Uhu. So to cover yourself or cover ourselves.

Uhu.

So it means that we put it all over us.

Right, so you could even cover yourself with bug spray.

Okay, so every part of your body, you put bug spray on it.

Head to toe.

Head to toe.

Uhu.

Now, you can cover yourself under a tree, maybe.

Or you can cover yourself with a blanket.

Okay, so to cover yourself – to completely hide under something.

And finally we have the response to this idea, the answer. The first… the person says: oh, without a doubt. That means absolutely or definitely.

Okay, so there is no doubt – it is true or it is certain.

Right, so a doubt is something that maybe you’re not so sure about.

Uhu.

You’re not convinced.

But you can say: this is without a doubt the best mosquito spray.

Or this is without a doubt the best cake I’ve ever eaten.

Mm.

That means it’s definitely the best cake I’ve ever eaten.

Alright, so I think we’ve covered all the phrases now. Why don’t we listen to our dialogue for the last time? And we’ll be right back.

Mosquitoes are very annoying, but at times they can be very dangerous, right?

They can, uh, there’re a couple of diseases that can be passed, um, by mosquito bites.

Uhu.

One of them is malaria.

Mm.

And that’s I think pretty common in Southeast Asia and South Asia.

Now, there was another situation where people believed that if a mosquito bite a person infected with HIV or AIDS they could pass it on to another person.

Aha, well, I don’t know that that’s even possible…

Right.

Because there’s no AIDS carrying mosquitoes, but there is another disease called dengue fever.

Dengue fever, yes.

And this is another very dangerous one. It’s also known as break-bone fever and I think it’s… it’s so painful it feels like your bones are breaking…

Mm, yeah.

And that’s where the name comes from.

It’s very common in, uh, South America as well and… cause we have such a tropical climate.

Uhu.

That, uh, in the rainforests of Brazil, Peru, Columbia, it’s… it’s common to… to see this, but not so much anymore. Now they’reeradicating it.

Oh, wow.

Alright, so, uh, an interesting topic – mosquitoes are not onlyirritating, but can be dangerous. So if you have any other questions or doubts, please come to our website englishpod.com and we’re there to answer any questions.

So we’ll see you on the website and until next time, everyone… Bye-bye!

Bye! ***