Doing Laundry

Hello English learners! Welcome back to EnglishPod! My name isMarco.

And my name is Catherine and today we’re talking about being clean.

Yeah, we’re gonna be doing the laundry, right?

It’s a very important part of everyone’s weekly schedule.

And not only important, but I find it to be a little bit difficult, because, you know, like washing machine and what clothes you should mix with what and, you know, how much detergent and how long. It’s such a complicated process.

Let’s say this, it might not be difficult, but it’s very easy to mess up.

Exactly, yeah, that’s the problem. It’s very easy to like just ruin your favorite t-shirt if you don’t do laundry correctly.

Or all of your white socks turn pink, for example.

Hehe. Right, so we’re gonna be looking at a lot of vocabulary and phrases related to this topic. And before we get started with the dialogue, why don’t we take at look at “vocabulary preview”? Voice: Vocabulary preview.

Okay, so central to all of these phrases and words that we’re gonna be hearing is, ah, a thing, an electric thing, that helps us wash our clothes.

Right, a washing machine.

Right, pretty simple, right? So washing is, uh, to wash, washing, and machine. So they go together – washing machine.

Right.

Pretty simple.

So it’s easy now. You just put all your clothes in this thing and it washes it for you.

Whum-whum-whum.

Now, you know, a lot of people don’t like to use washing machines. They say it doesn’t really clean the clothes as well as doing it by hand.

Really? Well, I’d say a most clothes get… get washed pretty well with a washing machine, but if you have this hard-to… hard-to-get stains or some dirt maybe it’s good to have a washing board.

The washing board, yeah.

Yeah, where you can really scrub it yourself.

And, uh, well, funny you mentioned that word stain, because it’s our second word that we’re gonna preview – a stain.

Alright, a stain is some color maybe some food or wine or grass that you can’t remove from your clothes.

Right, so it’s very common. You’re having a nice dinner and all of a sudden you spill wine on your shirt.

Mm.

So you have a wine stain.

I hate that. And, uh, you can also have stain on your… you can also have a stain on your carpet.

Uhu.

Right, so if you spill some coffee on your carpet, it’s got a little circle that’s brown forever.

Hehe. Right, or, well… I mean, some people have stained teeth.

That’s right, so you can get them turned back white for… with a little money to your dentist.

Exactly, so those are the two words that we’re gonna be looking at today in vocabulary preview. So let’s listen to our dialogue; let… let’s see what’s happening with these people that are doing laundry.

Okay, so we’ve got someone who is maybe doing the laundry for the first time.

Mm.

And, uh, is not really understanding the instructions he’s got.

Hehe. Well, that’s the thing I tell you. It’s a little bit difficult and, well, it’s very tedious at times to try and do laundry like this.

Well, the first thing it’s maybe tedious about it is that you have to really worry about what colors go together.

Right, so let’s take a look at those words that were related to doing laundry now in “language takeaway”. Voice: Language takeaway.

Okay, the first word we have is actually related to a joke we made earlier about pink socks. So if you change the color of something, you’re dying it. Okay.

Okay, dye. So it’s pronounced exactly the same way as, you know, to die – to not live anymore.

Uuh.

Hehe. Dye. But it’s spelled differently.

D-Y-E.

Okay, so it can be a verb or an adjective.

Or a noun.

Or a noun.

So something that you put on clothes to change the color is calleda dye.

A dye.

But, uh, to do this, to change the color of some clothes is to dyethe clothes.

Uhu. So that’s maybe what happens when you wash a red t-shirt with all your white t- shirts.

Then you have dyed shirts.

Uhu.

You have pink shirts and, oh…

And also women, when they go to the beauty salon, they dye their hair.

Exactly, so that means you change the color of your hair. It means it’s a long-term change.

Uhu.

It’s not short; it’s not like one day.

Right.

It means, probably for a long time.

Uhu. So that’s the correct word – to dye. Very different, maybe some people say to paint, which, you know, you… we understand, but the correct form would be to dye.

And next we have a word that describes a certain kind of clothing. We’re not talking about pants or socks, we’re talking about delicates.

Delicates. So now, this adjective delicates, which means it’s very…

Easy to break.

Fragile, right?

Yeah.

But this is a noun – delicates.

Right, so you think of something that’s easy to break or to ruin, maybe you think of underwear.

Underwear.

You know, underwear is something you wear under your clothing and so it’s generally not as strong as a shirt or a pair of jeans.

Uhu.

And so we call this in English – delicates.

Uhu, very good. So you have to be careful when you’re washing your delicates, because it’s happened to me before, you like put them in with all the clothes and then you have stretched out boxers or something like that.

Yeah, so that’s why many women, I know, wash delicates by hand.

Aha.

So you separate the clothes from the delicates.

Very good. And now if you’re washing delicates or you’re washing towels or t-shirts, it’s always a good idea to use fabric softener.

Alright, fabric softener, what are these two words? One of them you understand already maybe. It’s soft… softener.

Uhu, so it makes it soft.

Yeah, something that makes something softer. We’ve got fabricsoftener. That’s something that makes the clothes that you wash softer.

Uhu, so fabric is any type of material, right? Like a textile.

Yeah.

Fabric.

So it could be cotton.

Uhu.

Or silk.

Or nylon.

Or linen. So these are all kinds of fabrics.

So you pour a little bit of this in your washing machine and your clothes come out really nice and soft.

Mmm, it feels nice just taking about it.

Hehe. Alright, and, well, also to wash your clothes, to actually make them clean, you use detergent.

Right, so many people might want to say the word soap.

Uhu.

Because soap is what we use to wash our hands…

Uhu.

And our dishes. But here we have detergent, so this is a special soap for your clothes.

Right, laundry detergent.

Yeah, you could just say laundry det… you could say laundry detergent or simply detergent.

Uhu. And now in order to remove those nasty stains that maybe are very hard, uh, you would use a chemical called bleach.

Alright, so bleach is the dangerous chemical, because it smells very strong.

Right.

And it can change the color of your clothes to white or yellow, so we usually onl y use bleach with white clothes.

Uhu. I actually had a friend who changed the color of his hair to white using bleach. He put bleach on his head and on his hair and it just turned white.

Oh, wow, so many people do that, because they wanna go from dark colors to light colors.

Uhu, and in that case you wouldn’t say… you could say that “hedyed his hair white”, but usually you would say “he bleached his hair”.

And so we understand that it turned white.

Hehe. Exactly. So those five words we just looked at in language takeaway. They’re important; they’re related to doing laundry, so, uh, before we move on, let’s listen to our dialogue again, but a little bit slower. DIALOGUE, SECOND TIME (slow)

So here at EnglishPod we like to also provide you listeners with some phrases that allow you to increase your fluency, so that means sound more like a native English speaker and so today let’s check out these phrases in “fluency builder”. Voice: Fluency builder.

Alright, so on fluency builder we’re gonna be looking at four words or four phrases, so, um, the first one was really easy. When she was, uh, telling the guy or instructing him how to cl… do the laundry, she said: “Let’s go through this one more time”.

Go through what? The wall?

No, it’s… so it’s not actually to go through an object like to pass. So it’s “let’s repeat” or let’s, uh, rehearse again.

Okay, so normally we say this one there are many different steps to do something, so let’s go through this again.

Uhu.

When you leave work, you go home, you unlock the door…

Hehe.

You open the door and then… so it’s…

Hehe.

It means that there’s a… there’s a process.

Right.

You know, there’re many steps and so “let’s go through this again” is a way for us to say let’s… let’s think about and discuss this process.

Uhu, very good, so we also use it maybe when we’re studying, so let’s go through this, uh, subject one more time.

Can we go through chapter five again? I don’t understand it.

Exactly. So you would re-read that chapter five.

Uhu.

Alright, so, um, why don’t we listen to a couple of more examples of how we could use go through? Voice: Example one.

I wanna go through chapter five again before the exam tomorrow. Voice: Example two.

David, do you have time this afternoon to go over the details of this new project? Voice: Example three.

I went through my contract and it says that I’m entitled to fifteen vacation days a year.

Now this next phrase is very common when we’re using sarcasm and when we’re trying to make jokes.

Uhu.

So we say so-called.

Right, so she said this so-called contraption.

It’s like she doubts that it’s really a washing machine.

Hehe.

So I could say: “Her so-called boyfriend wants to go out tonight”.

Uhu.

So I said it, because he doesn’t really act like a boyfriend.

Uhu.

Right.

So you’re being sarcastic.

Yeah.

It’s a very good way and easy way of, uh, demonstrating sarcasm.

Yeah, and actually in 1990’s in America there was a famous TV-show called “My so-called life”.

Uhu.

Alright, so this is my so-called life, it’s almost like it’s not really like I have any control over it.

Yeah.

So…

Or I don’t really have a life, because it’s kind of boring.

Yeah, so my so-called life.

Right.

Not bragging.

So you…

It’s a joke.

So you can say it: “My so-called friends; my so-called job”. Basically, you can almost be sarcastic with anything.

Yeah, but be careful that you are… that you know that it’s a joke, because…

Yeah.

If you’re trying to be serious, you might make some people angry.

Right. And now, well, she was explaining the whole process of how to do it and when she recommended using bleach, she said that should do the trick.

Trick. So dogs do tricks, right?

Right, but to do the trick, right? What… what are she saying?

This has a different meaning. Right, so she’s saying “this should work; this should fix your problem”.

Uhu, so that should do the trick.

So, Marco, uh, I’ve been having this itch on my foot and I… and I just can’t… I can’t seem to… to figure out what to do with it. Do you have any suggestions?

Yeah, you should maybe just put some ointment on it and that should do the trick.

Alright, cool.

Uhu.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Yeah, so very easy; it’s just a way of saying “that should solve your problem”.

Alright, great, so “that should do the trick” or “it will do the trick”.

Uhu.

Uhu.

And, well, we have one last phrase all set.

All set, so this is another phrase that, uh… that has two words that always go together to mean, uh, well, “we’re finished”, “we’re done”.

Everything is ready.

Everything is ready.

We’re all set to go on vacation, so my bags are packed, I have my passport, we are all set.

Or after a meeting you can say: “Are we all set here?” That means “are we finished?

Uhu.

Is it time to leave?

Very good, so we are almost all set. Let’s listen to this dialogue one last time.

Have you ever had any laundry mishaps? Have you ever lost a sock?

Have…

Dyed something?

Have I ever?

Hehe.

I hate doing a laundry!

Why?

It’s so… it’s time-consuming.

Mm.

It takes a lot of time and I just… I have no patience.

Uhu.

And so normally when I was… well, at least, when I was in college, I would take all of my laundry in a bag and I throw it in a washing machine and I put it on “cold”, you know…

Uhu.

Because cold water would… it’s okay for all colors.

Uhu.

But hot water makes the colors…

Bleed.

Bleed.

Uhu.

I took out the clothes and put them in the dryer.

Uhu.

And afterwards I saw all my clothes were clean except of my three sweaters, which were small enough for babies.

Oooh, you shrunk it.

And so… yeah, I s… I shrunk three brand new sweaters.

Ooh.

Yeah.

That’s too bad. The problem that I have when doing laundry is that I forget that I started doing laundry, so all of a sudden, you know, I’m doing laundry in the morning and then clothes are washed, but there’re still in the washing machine and I remember like the next day.

Phew.

So then the clothes are like kind of smelling like kind of humid.

Cause they’re moldy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I have to rewash them and it’s just like a pain. Yeah, but doing laundry is sometimes so time-consuming, but let us know what you think. Do you like blewing… doing laundry? Or have you ever lost a sock? I think everyone has lost a sock or something…

Oh, man.

In the washing, right?

I think that’s easy.

I don’t know what happens.

There’s a secret home for socks somewhere.

Hehe. It’s so weird.

Maybe it’s in Australia or something.

Hehe. So come to our website englishpod.com, uh, give us all your feedback, questions, comments or suggestions and we’re always there.

Alright, we hope to hear from you soon and until next time everyone…

Bye!

Goodbye! ***