Learn English Vocabulary Common Household Tasks
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hi everybody my name is alicia 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 it from this position to
the proper position so your blanket and
your pillow
are perfectly laid out 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 no
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 or 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 dew
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
uh 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 dust
pan 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 dust pan 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 item 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 like a
this is a tissue but usually we use a
towel
uh 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 a
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
now 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 bleached 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
tube 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
uh you could use that if you want to i
personally
i feel like i use fold clothes more
often but
fold laundry i suppose is okay too uh
full clothes so to fold clothes is one
of my least favorite tasks i think
okay almost finished here the next one
is to take out the trash
or to take out the garbage to take out
the trash or 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 uh 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 remove old things from 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 consider
thinking about them or even saying them
out loud in
english to help you with your studies so
i hope that this lesson was helpful for
you
if you have any questions or comments or
if there’s another household task you
know how to describe in english
please feel free to include anything any
of that in the comment section
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thanks very much for watching this
lesson and i will see you again soon bye
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