VivaLing Kids: I Feel Sick – Health Matters (Sapling)

Winter is here, and so are colds and the flu! In this episode, learn essential English vocabulary for common symptoms and discover simple ways to describe how you feel when you're sick. Perfect for building your language skills—whether you’re feeling unwell or just curious! 🤧 

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Creators and Guests

TA

Guest

Tom Ashton

What is The Vivaling English Podcast?

This podcast is designed to give English students extra practice by discussing events, history, culture and language.

Hello, friends. It’s winter time, and do you know what often comes in winter? It is feeling sick, and today we are going to learn some different words for feeling sick and how to talk about feeling sick. Are you ready? Let’s start!

Let’s talk about the word ‘cold.’ In winter, it is cold outside. But in winter you can also have a cold. No, you are not cold, but you are sick. A cold is when you are sick just a little and for a short time. Sometimes you can go to school with a small cold.
So, “It is cold in winter” is different than “I have a cold in winter.”

But what word is it when you are not a little sick, but you are really sick. You are very tired, and you have a fever. A fever is when your head feels very hot, and you have more than 38 degrees Celsius. You can’t go to school. This is not a cold. It’s the flu! You can tell your mom or dad, “I have the flu.”

Now, let’s play a guessing game. You listen to three problems people when when they feel sick and guess what is is.

This is one action you can have when you feel sick. Maybe you have a cold, or maybe you have the flu. What is it? It is coughing! You can say, “I am coughing” or you can tell your mom or dad, “I have a cough.” Cough is an action AND a thing.

You do this usually when you have a cold. Many people do this when they have allergies in the spring, summer or autumn, too. What is it? It is sneezing! Just like cough, sneeze is an action and a thing, so you can say, “I am sneezing” or ‘I have a sneeze,” but people usually talk about the action: He is sneezing a lot. I need to sneeze. I sneezed.

You can do this when you have a cold and when you have the flu. You need tissues. What is it? It’s a runny nose! It’s funny – runny nose. Noses don’t run …. but when people feel sick, they do! So, if you have this problem, you can say, “I have a runny nose.”

Many times when people feel sick, they have pain. You can talk about this pain like this:

I have pain in my ….. and say what part of the body … in my head, in my belly, in my leg.

Or, you can use the word ‘hurt.’ You have pain, but the body part hurts. So … My head hurts, my belly hurts or my leg hurts.

Do you have a cold or the flu now? I hope not, but if you do, practice these new vocabulary words …. and feel better soon!