How to Talk about Household Tasks in English

my name is alicia and in this week’s

live lesson we are going to talk about

how to talk about your household

activities so in this lesson we are

going to cover chores so that means your

regular household tasks we are going to

talk about sharing space with other

people so that means like how do you

express time alone how do you express

that you want time alone and how do you

express wanting to spend time with other

people and finally we are going to talk

about some everyday use household

expressions so as you join live please

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okay good everyone is here let’s look at

today’s lesson boards then fantastique

okay this is what we’re going to do

today you can take a screenshot if you

like this is our kind of basic we’re

going to talk about basic topics yes but

i want to cover some vocabulary words

that maybe are a little maybe some new

vocabulary words and new expressions so

part one will be chores your household

tasks

part two will be using space like with

together

time alone and time with other people so

how do you how do you express these

desires and finally household

expressions just things that we say

around the house so i hope this is a

good

i hope this is a good lesson just for

everyday practice stuff you can use

right away and so if you have questions

uh or want to practice with some example

sentences send them in the chat and i

will try to check live okay let’s begin

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okay let’s get started

first chores let’s begin so our first

vocabulary word for this lesson is

chores what are chores chores always

lists i need to do some chores yeah so a

chore

a chore as a noun a chore is a household

task or perhaps you have office chores

also but chores refers to those everyday

maintenance tasks at your place of

work or the place where you live so

cleaning tasks or organizing tasks those

are all chores those little daily things

you need to do

to make your life clean and tidy right

so let’s talk about some

chore vocabulary and kind of expand on

it a little bit and cover some questions

that and some issues i see sometimes

okay

first one is this one do

the laundry to do

laundry so sometimes people say do the

laundry sometimes people say do laundry

both are fine to use

this the refers to the laundry in the

house i guess if you want to be really

specific so to do laundry

we do not use like make laundry we don’t

really say clean laundry sometimes we do

say wash clothes i need to wash my

clothes

one common issue i see a lot in the chat

actually is a lot of uh

speakers and a lot of uh learners

use the word

dress

i think instead of using clothes so we

don’t say

dress to mean all of our clothes we say

clothes uh when we talk about this so we

don’t say i need to wash my dress no

that’s a dress is one specific uh part

of our clothing yeah so please make sure

to say clothes wash my clothes or do the

laundry yeah

so do the laundry includes all of this

wash

dry

hang and fold wash dry hang and fold

these are all included in do the laundry

if you want to be specific you can say i

need to wash my clothes i need to dry my

clothes i need to hang my clothes i need

to fold my clothes but usually we say do

the laundry do the laundry

okay

all right so this is our first one if

you have questions let me know

okay next one is wash the dishes wash

the dishes you may also hear do the

dishes to do the dishes cannot use make

here cannot use make make means to

create something yeah so wash the dishes

or do the dishes we typically do not say

clean the dishes we might use clean for

like one plate like hey can you please

clean this plate it’s dirty you might

hear that but we almost always say this

wash the dishes or do the dishes yeah

okay i’m looking for your questions

there are many people watching hello

everybody watching make sure you like

this okay

let’s go to the next one the next one is

actually three verbs for the same uh the

same chore the same task okay so we have

clean

and pickup

and tidy clean pick up and tidy these

are all verbs yeah so clean

the and then the room i have room in

brackets here so you can put in the room

the living room the kitchen the bedroom

the bathroom i need to clean the

bathroom i need to pick up the bedroom i

need to tidy the bathroom whatever so

what’s the difference in this case not

much clean sounds very thorough so that

means we are going to maybe do

all the cleaning tasks in that room so

i’m going to for example in a bedroom if

i say i need to clean the bedroom maybe

i’m going to wash my sheets and i’m

going to

wash the windows i’m going to do

everything

pick up

the room sounds like maybe there are

some clothes on the floor or maybe many

objects in the room that don’t belong in

the room i’m going to organize it yeah

so i’m going to pick up the room usually

pick up the room means like there’s

stuff in the room on the floor or in the

room that doesn’t belong

finally too tidy to tidy the room too

tidy tidy is used more often in british

english i feel but in american english

we do sometimes use it

to tidy the room is like the light the

mini clean so we’re not going to do deep

cleaning of the room but we just want to

a little a little maintenance to tidy

the room

so like i need to i need to pick up my

room i’ve got some stuff

around i need to put away some laundry

that’s always my task i always leave the

laundry too long

sergio says can we use cleaning to refer

to all of these activities uh yes you

can yes you can like if someone calls

you and you’re like ah i can’t talk i’m

cleaning my house perfect yes all of

these refer to cleaning

awesome sokun and no kalo i hope i said

your names right said i tidy the

bathroom or i need to tidy the bathroom

and i tidy the bathroom every day nice i

tidy make sure the bathroom every day

yeah

jonatha willian says what does folds

mean uh to fold means when you wash

after you wash your clothes your laundry

you fold the clothes

you fold the uh like your shirts or

whatever to put them away somewhere okay

okay let’s go to the next one next is

this group sweep

mop and scrub the floor sweep mop and

scrub the floor what is the difference

the difference is the tool so first the

floor

is the bottom of your house yeah the

place where you walk that’s your floor

so we have three verbs here to sweep to

mop and to scrub the floor

sweep

is with a broom yeah this motion so i’m

going to sweep the floor so that’s where

you clean the big stuff like dirt

or i don’t know crumbs like small pieces

of food the big stuff with this motion

yeah we sweep

then

mop to mop so mop is a verb and a noun

mop is the name of the tool we use and

it’s the verb we use so a mop

is a wet

kind of brush on a stick

it’s a mop so we clean the floor with a

wet tool to make it clean yeah

so final one is scrub

scrub to scrub the floor this is the

most intense floor cleaning i scrubbed

my floor a couple days ago

it was good

so to scrub the floor means to use some

like a cloth towel or something and

cleaning supply cleaning water and you

really

on the floor like this with your towel

really really intensely cleaning the

floor these are the three verbs we use

to talk about floor cleaning

to sweep the floor to mop the floor and

to scrub the floor

okay

hollis nguyen says i’m learning this

vocab in my el lesson at school oh

that’s so cool oh that’s awesome so i

hope this is good practice for you

thanks for sharing that

okay

all right

gennaro herreria says uh scrub is like

deep cleaning yes we use scrub for like

floors we also use scrub for like skin

care

yeah like it means a deep cleaning you

have some like a product that you scrub

in your face or you scrub on your skin

it’s like deep cleaning that’s the feel

with scrub you can use it for your car

too like scrubbing your car clean

okay

cool

awesome cesar says i must wash the

dishes every day yes we must but

sometimes we get lazy

okay let’s go on let’s go on to the next

one the next one is dust dust this is a

verb and a noun to dust and dust so

first let’s look at the noun form dust

is the

really really really small

pieces of like dirt fuzz

it gathers on

like a table or a shelf so

when we i don’t know i have no dust here

i was cleaning i guess recently but when

we have

dust it’s usually on the top of a table

some place we did we have not touched

recently so there’s little dirt or fuzz

or something here so to describe that

when we find oh there’s this

dirt there’s dust here

we would say there’s a lot of dust on

the shelf there’s a lot of dust on the

shelf here it’s used as a noun there’s a

lot of dust on the shell so maybe

there’s some dust on my shelf somewhere

i should check this lesson makes me want

to clean my house okay

and

we use dust as a verb to mean to clean

dust yeah for example i dusted the shelf

i dusted the shell so to dust as a verb

means to remove

dust yeah with like usually a wet towel

or some other cleaning towel we usually

do this motion we use dust to mean to

remove dust i dusted the top of my tv

yeah or i dusted the shelf yeah this

means to remove dust

someone on facebook i can’t read your

name i’m very sorry he says there are

there are a lot of dust on my book close

dust we use there is there is it’s a

singular or yeah it’s we use this as a

singular noun there’s a lot of dust so

like a mass noun

yeah uncountable uncountable

there is a lot of dust on my book okay

nick nick says can i say the room is so

dusty yes yes you can say that

absolutely my house is so dusty my room

is so dusty

uh gabriel says when i need to use an

iron on my clothes how do i say ah to

express that yeah nice one i think

there’s a little space down here i’ll

add that there’s a little space left so

iron

clothes we use the verb iron to iron

clothes yeah

i’ll talk about that last okay

cool then let’s go to the last two we

have to take out the trash

or to take out the garbage both are fine

we use trash and garbage in american

english if you’re studying british

english you might know rubbish to take

out the rubbish yeah so to take out the

trash so we usually say the trash to

mean the trash in my house right now

take out the trash okay

nando says do you use the word debri in

american english yes we use debris for

american english but we use that to mean

the small pieces of um

like machine or maybe dirt and stuff

like that usually like after an accident

or after some kind of maybe like um like

a fight like in war

so we typically don’t use debris in our

house unless maybe unless maybe there’s

been a huge accident in the house like i

don’t know maybe i made a big like

explosion in my kitchen

then i might say oh there’s debris

everywhere it sounds really serious

debris

jonathan says can i say there is a

plethora of dust on the table we would

not say plethora plethora is usually

used in more formal situations for like

a huge amount of stuff like i think my

favorite example is like a plethora of

treasure in uh the egyptian king’s tomb

so we don’t really use plethora very

much in everyday speech but you can say

uh there’s a lot of dust plenty of

sounds kind of positive and

dust is generally

not a good thing okay oh my gosh

lee and

anita hi says how about telling the kid

to put the trash in the bin ah yeah good

one so bin is another one we don’t use

bin in american english it’s used in

australian and i think in british

english as well

so you can yeah tell your kid put the

trash in the bin yeah for sure or put

the trash in american english we would

say put your trash in the garbage can we

use garbage can or trash can we don’t

say bin in american english

okay

phew great questions everyone let’s go

to the last one we just added to iron

clothes to iron clothes so that’s when

you want to make your clothes smooth i

have like a wrinkle in my shirt i didn’t

see it i started so

we have this if we want to make this

smooth we would say i need to iron my

shirt so that’s with the hot iron

obviously on a surface to iron your

clothes

and if you have a steamer you say to

steam your clothes that’s when you have

the hot iron and water inside to steam

that’s your

sound effect okay phew that was a lot oh

my gosh that’s only part one we need to

continue so let’s go on to part two okay

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need to go to part two so let’s go to

part two using your space alone or with

other people right so if you live alone

or if you want some alone space

alone time what do you do

let’s continue and if you haven’t please

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join thanks for your great questions too

it’s super super awesome

okay

gabby says we are celebrating our

independence in mexico oh it’s today

mexican independence day oh

congratulations that’s cool okay um