Lesson Transcript

Hi, everybody! My name is Alisha.
In this lesson, I'm going to talk about some vocabulary you can use to talk about common household tasks or chores in English.
Let's get started!
First, I want to look at this part of the board.
I've tried to draw a picture to help with this vocabulary word.
The first one is "make the bed," make the bed.
In this lesson, I'm going to introduce a few vocabulary words that use "do" and "make." This first one is "make."
"To make the bed" means to move your bed from this like messy state, so the blanket is messy or the pillow is somewhat like off its position. We take from this position to the proper position, so your blanket and your pillow are perfectly laid out. It's like the pillow is at the top of your bed, your blanket is covering your bed. This process is called to make the bed. We call this making the bed, in English. So, we're not actually creating a bed now, but we're making a nice bed space. That's kind of how we think of it, we make the bed.
The second expression is "do the laundry," do the laundry.
So, "to do the laundry," means wash clothes, but we usually say, "to do the laundry." I need to do the laundry. So, doing the laundry can mean using a washing machine, like just to put soap on clothes and use water with that. It can also refer to using a dryer to dry the clothes after. So sometimes, people want to be specific, like I want to do the laundry, I'm going to use the washer and dryer, I guess you could. But in most cases, we just say, "I'm going to do the laundry."
The second or third, rather. The third expression is "to do/wash the dishes."
So, "to do the dishes" or to wash the dishes means to clean the dishes, clean the dishes, but we typically use either "do" or "wash." So this can be with a sponge. It could be with a dishwasher, whatever. It means to make your dishes clean. So, "to do the dishes" or "to wash the dishes."
The next three are very similar in appearance. They're common tasks.
The first one is "to vacuum," to vacuum.
So, this might be a little bit old-fashioned looking, but this is actually called a vacuum. This is a vacuum, a noun, and we, you know, use it to pick up, using electricity, dirt, and small things on the ground or on the floor, in our carpets in our house. So, "to vacuum" is to use this machine or another similar machine, an electrical machine, that uses air to pull up crumbs and other small things from our floors, to vacuum, and this is called a vacuum.
This; however, when we use this tool, this is called "sweeping" or "to sweep," to sweep. This is the verb we use. The tool is called a "broom," a broom and we typically use a broom with a "dustpan," a dustpan. So, vacuums are electrical, broom and dustpan, analog, not electrical. So, we sweep, this motion of using a broom. So this motion is called sweeping, to sweep. I'm going to sweep my floors. I will use a dustpan and I will sweep the dirt into the dustpan. Those are the kinds of verbs we would use to describe that action of using a broom and dustpan together, sweep crumbs or sweep dirt into a dustpan.
Finally, the third one here is "mop," to mop, to mop. and this object, this time is called a "mop." So, this is pretty much like a broom, but we use water. So a water bucket and some soap is typically paired with a mop, a mop. So we mop floors. We use it as a verb and as a noun, to mop the floor. I need to mop the floor.
Let's look at the next group.
The next group is dust or the first one, at the top, is "dust."
"To dust" refers to using a piece of cloth. So, for example, this is a tissue, but usually, we use a towel. It could be a paper towel, it could be cloth, to remove dust from the tops of things or from like small spaces where dust gathers. So "dust" is like tiny, tiny fine pieces of dirt or other things in your house. So, to remove them, we use cloth in this motion and maybe some kind of cleaning agent, some kind of chemical perhaps. So, we use "to dust" as the verb to describe that, and "dust" is the name of that small fine dirt. So, we dust in order to remove dust. So, we dust (as a verb) in order to remove dust (noun), so "to dust," to dust is that motion.
The next expression is "to clean the windows" or "to wash the windows," to clean the windows or to wash the windows. Either verb is fine. They communicate the same idea using some kind of cloth and some kind of cleaner to make the windows clear, to make the windows clean. We can use "clean the windows" or "wash the windows" for this motion.
The next verb is "scrub," scrub.
We use this verb in a few different places very commonly like scrub the sink, scrub the floor, or scrub the toilet. So, to scrub refers to a very hard cleaning motion. So we use this when we want to make something very, very clean. We use a sponge or we use some other, like very scratchy rough material to clean something and it takes some effort. We use the verb "to scrub" to talk about that. Of course, you can use this verb outside of cleaning as well. So to scrub something off of something else. So when cleaning, we say, I'm going to scrub the floor or maybe with a brush, I'm going to scrub the toilet. We use "scrub" to talk about this rough cleaning motion.
The next verb is "bleach," "to bleach."
So, "bleach" is a chemical. It comes usually in a bottle like this. "To bleach (something)" means to make something white, usually to make something white again, like when our clothes are white and we want to keep them white, we might bleach our clothes. So, I need to bleach this shirt, I got a stain on it, or I bleach my curtains. So, "to bleach (something)" means to use the chemical bleach to make something white or we might use bleach, again, for like extra special cleaning, like there's something extremely, extremely messy or something that we really need to pay attention to, we might use a bleach to clean it. So, "to bleach" is the verb that we use.
The next expression is "to hang the laundry" or "to dry the laundry."
To hang the laundry or to dry the laundry, you might hear both.
"To hang," perhaps, you can see in this image, we use something like this. This is called a "hanger." We place our clothes, in this case, a shirt on a hanger, a hanger, to hang up and dry. So, "to hang the laundry" is specifically on this or on something similar, maybe using clips, and "dry the laundry" generally just means allowing the laundry to become dry. So, "to hang" specifically, to put it up. Sometimes, you dry laundry flat as well, like you lay a sweater down flat, so to dry a shirt flat, you can use that too. So, "to dry the laundry" or "to hang the laundry."
Next on this list is "fold clothes," to fold clothes.
So after the laundry is dry, after the laundry is ready, we typically fold clothes. So this is folding, this motion, whatever motion you use, to make the clothes easy to store. So, "to fold clothes." We don't really use fold the laundry. I guess you could fold the laundry. I personally, I use fold clothes more often than fold laundry, but you could use that, if you want to. I personally, I feel like I use fold clothes more often, but fold the laundry, I supposed, is okay too. Fold clothes, so to fold clothes is one of my least favorite tasks, I think.
Okay. Almost finish here.
The next one is to "take out the trash" or "to take out the garbage."
To take out the trash or to take out the garbage.
"Trash" and "garbage" here, they mean the same thing. You might also hear rubbish in British English. To take out the trash or to take out the garbage. So this means removing trash from your home and putting the trash, in some cases, into a trash bin or a garbage bin or a dumpster, which is a very, very big garbage bin, in your neighborhood, or perhaps, you have something similar. But this refers to removing the trash from your home, "to take out the trash" or "to take out the garbage."
Finally, this expression, "to clean out," to clean out.
So we use "to clean out" commonly with to clean out the refrigerator or to clean out the closet. So "to clean" is a little bit different from "clean out," because "clean out" is used when maybe we have lots of things inside our refrigerator or our closet that are kind of old. So, we have many old things and we need to remove them, we want to throw away some old things. In that case, we use "clean out" like I cleaned out my refrigerator last week. So that means I removed some maybe old things from my refrigerator and I cleaned my refrigerator too. So usually, they're done at the same time, so you removed old things from the inside and then you make the space clean. Same thing for the closet, like you remove some old clothes or some old things you want to throw away and then you make the closet space clean. So we use "to clean out" to refer to this.
Okay. So, this is a list of some very common household tasks. So, I hope that these are verbs that you can use in your everyday life to talk about basic things you need to do in your home. Maybe, a good way to study these kinds of words is to think about these words and describe them to yourself as you are doing them in your home. So, as you're making plans to do these things in your home, maybe you consider thinking about them or even saying them out loud in English, to help you with your studies.
Thanks very much for watching this lesson and I will see you again soon. Bye-bye!

Comments

Hide