One of the most common topics of
small talk and conversation is how you feel about something happening. It may be as simple as your response
to the common question: Hey, how's it going? To telling
your coworker how happy, sad tire or angry you are about
something that happened yesterday. Of course, you know words like
happy, sad, angry, and tired, but English speakers have a vast
number of expressions, collocations, and idioms we use to
talk about how we feel. Doing so not only brings exciting
variety to the conversation, but it also allows you to be
precise about how you feel, choosing the exact word that allows
you to express what you want. I'm Annemarie with
Speak Confident English. This is exactly where you want to be
every week to get the confidence you want for your life and work in
English. In this video today, you're going to learn 23 new
ways to talk about how you feel, whether it's
happy, sad, angry, tired, confused, or "all the feels."
Throughout the lesson, you'll learn a variety
of collocations, idioms, and synonyms so that you can describe
even the smallest difference in the kind of happiness
you feel. For example, there's a difference between
feeling happy because it's Friday, which is certainly a great feeling, and the kind of happiness you
feel when you realize you were successful in a job interview in English,
and they just offered you the job. Both of those result in happy feelings,
but there is a little difference, isn't there? There certainly
is. And in today's lesson, you're going to learn exactly
how to talk about those. Let's start today by
talking about the feels. On social media or on TV shows, you may hear people talk
about having all the feels or feeling all the feels. It's not very common that we see
that word feel used as a countable noun. These two expressions are very
informal and what they mean is to feel a depth and often
a variety of emotions. For example, have you ever watched
a TV commercial that made you cry? And you had this weird mix of feelings, including hope for humanity. Those are surprising feelings
from a TV commercial. And when you're telling a friend about it, you might say that TV commercial
made me feel all the feels or I had all the feels when
I watched that TV commercial. It's definitely become a common expression
to use. And now that you know it, you'll probably start
seeing it quite a bit. So now that we know about all the feels, let's talk about a few ways to
describe happiness. For this feeling, we're going to focus on four different
synonyms that describe different levels or kinds of happiness. We feel the first one is to
be thrilled. Now this is word. I actually use a lot. I love this word and it means
to be extremely pleased. For example, when someone tells me that
one of my lessons was useful to them, I feel extremely pleased.
I feel really happy. I'm thrilled. Now with the word happy, of course we could emphasize
that word by adding the word very, to be very happy. Or we could be blissfully happy. Blissful means to be full of. To be full of happiness. Similar to being blissfully
happy is to be delighted. This is also a great alternative
to the word thrilled, because it also means to be
extremely pleased about something. You might be delighted that your team
was successful in winning a new client. You might be delighted that your son's
sports team won the championship. Or you're delighted because a coworker
brought you flowers for your birthday. And the last one for talking about
feeling happy is a really fun one to be giddy. We often combine this
with the word excitement, to be giddy with excitement. To be giddy can mean to feel dizzy. So imagine there's so much excitement
and happiness that you are dizzy. Or it can also mean to be light hearted. Someone who's lighthearted is
so happy and they don't have any worries or concerns or stresses. One image I love to think about with
this idea of giddy with excitement is to imagine a wave of excitement, something that's overwhelming,
but in a positive way. All right, now that you've got a variety
of ways of talking about feeling happy. Let's talk about feeling sad. You know, those days when you wake
up and you just don't feel great? You don't really know
why, maybe it's lack of sleep. Maybe something's not going well at work. And you just feel this
slight general sense of sadness or a little bit of
depression. It's nothing serious, but you just don't feel
particularly great. In that case, you might say that you feel
blue. If a friend calls you and says, Hey, how are you doing? You might
say, Hmm, feeling kind of blue today. Similar to that idiom, but perhaps slightly stronger
is to feel down or to feel down in the dumps. Again, this means to be sad or depressed. If a friend of yours recently lost a job, they might be feeling down or maybe
you see a friend and immediately you notice that something isn't
right. She's upset about something. So you might say, you look a
bit down, is everything okay? Our third way to talk about
feeling slightly sad is to say, I'm not really feeling it. What that means is you're just
generally disinterested in something. I actually used this one recently when
my husband and I were watching a movie. It was a movie that he thought was
fantastic. He was really enjoying it. And at the end he said, wasn't
that fantastic? And I said, Hmm, I wasn't really feeling it. In other
words, I wasn't very interested in it. I don't know why. Now typically we might feel that
sense of disinterest because we're tired or slightly depressed
or upset about something. And finally, our last example for how to talk
about feeling sad is to have a heavy heart. Now, this one is
a powerful expression. If you have a heavy
heart, you are very sad, even miserable. You may have a heavy heart because
a friend received some terrible news or something awful happened at work. If you're telling a coworker about
something upsetting, you might say, Oh, I have a really heavy heart today. Before we move on to look at a variety
of ways that we can use to talk about feeling angry. I want to
pause here for a moment. This particular month, I'm sharing several videos related
to vocabulary because I want to help you grow your vocabulary
and communicate precisely. My goal of course, is not only
for you to learn new vocabulary, but to remember it, to be able to use it. So as you watch this lesson today, I
have two pieces of advice. Number one, after you hear my example sentences, take a moment to create
your own example sentence, using the same synonym, idiom,
or collocation. Doing that not only personalizes the language, but it also gives you some of the
repetition you need to help you remember something new. The second thing that you can do is
to create an effective daily habit for practicing vocabulary. And I've got
an easy way to help you do that. Recently, I shared a lesson on how to develop
an effective daily habit in English, and I included a free download
to help you track your English vocabulary habits. You can check out that lesson and
get the free download on my website. I'll be sure to leave a link
for you just below this video. And now let's talk about a few
different to talk about feeling angry. The first word on our list
is kind of a fun word, even though it's a negative
feeling: to feel prickly. Now, a cactus is prickly. And when someone is prickly, it means they are easily offended or
they're just ready to take offense. Maybe, you know someone at work
who's generally just prickly. You never know when they're going to be
offended and upset by something you say. And of course, sometimes
all of us are prickly. Maybe you didn't get a
lot of sleep last night. So today you're just kind of
a little angry and frustrated. The danger of being prickly
is that you never know when someone might explode
or be about to explode. Now of course the word
explode is an aggressive word. Imagine something exploding in anger. Definitely not a positive
moment. For example, yesterday, we were all shocked when our
boss exploded with anger. Or those moments when you
feel really angry inside, you know that you're prickly and
you want to warn someone to be very careful. You might say I'm about to
explode and that lets them know it's probably time to walk away. The third way that we can talk about
feeling angry is to say that furious. Now this is a synonym that we can use
and it's definitely a more powerful way to talk about being angry
because when someone is furious, they are extremely angry. They may be about to explode. Okay? We've talked about all the
feels, alternatives to talk
about feeling happy, sad, and angry. So now let's move on
to talking about feeling tired, feeling confused, and we'll finish with some great
expressions to use when you want to tell someone else that you understand
exactly how they feel. So let's talk about feeling tired. The first one is to
feel or to be worn down, which means to be weary and
overcome with stress and pressure. I think for many of us, 2020 was a year when we felt worn down, we had a lot of increased pressures
and unexpected stresses in our lives. At the end of a long week, you might
come home on Friday and say, Oh, I'm so worn down. I just
want to sleep all weekend. An expression that sounds
similar is to be worn out, but there's a slight difference in the
meaning here. When something is worn out, it means that it's been overused. So if you're feeling worn out, it typically means that
physically you're exhausted. Maybe you had a particularly workout
or you went on a run that was much longer than usual and afterwards
physically you're worn out. And when that happens, you
may need to take a breather. To take a breather means to pause your
activities for a short period of time. And just to relax. Again, for example, if you've had a particularly
long week and someone asks, what are you doing this weekend?
You might say, ah, I'm worn out. I'm just taking a breather. And lastly, the fourth way to talk about
feeling tired is again, a synonym to feel or be exhausted. So here we're using a more
powerful word to talk about feeling very tired. How are you doing? I know we've got a lot of new vocabulary
today. How are you feeling about it? Of course, in a moment
I want you to practice, but first we have just six more
expressions to learn today. We've got four about feeling
confused and two to learn for what to say when you want to tell
someone else that you understand how they feel. So let's talk
about feeling confused. The first one is to feel
off or to feel slightly off. This one works for a general feeling
of being confused or not really clear minded. It's also possible to use it when
you just feel a light sense of sadness or depression to just
feel off. I feel off today. It may be because you slept poorly or
maybe you're coming down with a cold. There may be days when you go to
work and you just can't do anything. You can't think clearly you
don't have the energy again. You just feel off. Our second one is to be a hot mess. If you're a hot mess, you
are absolutely disorganized. Everything is in chaos and you might
feel that you can't do anything right. Maybe you had a particularly terrible
day at work where everything went wrong. So then you come home at the end
of the day and you say, Oh my gosh, I'm a hot mess today. Or I
feel like I'm a hot mess. Number three is to feel puzzled. This is a great synonym
for feeling confused. And we often use this if we've got
some doubt or uncertainty. Now, recently actually did a lesson on how
to talk about expressing doubt and uncertainty. And I'll leave a
link to that just below the video. And now our last one for talking about
feeling confused is to have mixed feelings. This is another great one
to talk about doubt and uncertainty. Let's say that you're about
to make a big decision, but you're still having this
mix of, is this the right thing? Is it the wrong thing? I don't
know. You go back and forth. You have mixed feelings
about it. Similarly, maybe you and your team members at
work are trying to solve a problem. And although someone has
presented a really great solution, you're just not sure about it.
Something doesn't seem right. Again, you have mixed feelings about it. And with that you have 21 different
ways to talk about all the feels plus being happy, sad, angry, tired, or confused. So let's finish with two ways that you
can tell someone else that you understand how they feel. For example,
if someone says after 2020, I feel totally worn out.
You might say, I feel, ya. I feel ya. Or I know the feeling. Both of those are perfect ways
to identify with someone else. Now that you have finished this lesson
with 23 new ways to talk about how you feel, I want you to practice. That is an essential step in
remembering all this new vocabulary so you can use it easily in conversation. If you found this lesson useful
to you, I would love to know. You can tell me in three
simple ways, number one, give this lesson a thumbs up on YouTube
and subscribe to this channel so you never miss one of my Confident
English lessons. Number two, if you have a friend or a coworker, who's also working to increase
their English vocabulary, share this lesson with them. And
number three, practice with me. Share your examples below
the video with that. Have a wonderful week.
Thank you for joining me. And I look forward to seeing you next
time for your Confident English lesson.
