Expressions to Use with Your Doctor

Lesson Transcript

Hi, everybody! My name is Alisha.

In this lesson, I'm going to talk about "expressions you can use with the doctor."

These are some expressions that you can use when you need to visit the doctor and explain a problem with your body or maybe explain something that happened to someone else.

Let's get started! Okay.

The first expression is a very basic expression, "My [body part] hurts."

My [body part] hurts.

Sometimes, I hear learners use a pattern like, "I have a pain in my [body part]," but this one is much more natural.

So, examples of this might be things like:

"My head hurts."

Or "My stomach hurts."

So, using "hurt," that kind of expresses a very basic type of pain. So, this is probably the quickest and easiest way to explain that a specific body part does not feel good. So you can use any body part.

"My leg hurts."

"My nose hurts."

"My ears hurt."

So, just keep in mind, if you're using the plural form of a noun, as I just did with "ears," you don't need to put an S at the end of "hurt." So, my head hurts. Head is singular, but my ears hurt. So ears, that's two, "ears hurt." So please keep that in mind when you're using this pattern, "My [body part] hurts."

The next pattern is, "There's a spot on my [body part]."

So here, a couple of points, this "there's" is "there is," there is.

"There's a spot on my [body part]."

"Spot" refers to something that's new. Usually, we go to the doctor for something new and it's usually something that's like a dark color, so we use the word "spot" to talk about that. You could say "dark spot."

For example, with this pattern:

"There's a spot on my leg."

Or "There's a spot on my neck."

So, include the part of your body where you noticed the new spot. We can use the word "spot" to describe that kind of shape, so it's usually a circular shape, "a spot."

"There's a spot on my [body part]."

Okay. The next pattern is, "I think I broke my [body part]."

I think I broke my [body part].

This is a pattern we use specifically for cases where we think, in this case, we think we broke a bone, a bone. So, we don't use this to talk about pain, necessarily. We use this to talk specifically about a bone in our body being broken. So, "I think I broke my [body [part]." The "body part" you use here should be a body part with a bone.

So, for example, with this pattern:

"I think I broke my arm."

"I think I broke my finger."

So, we would not say, for example, "I think I broke my stomach" because there are no bones in the stomach. We use parts of the body which have bones in this pattern.

"I think I broke my arm."

"I think I broke my leg."

"I think you broke my nose."

So, you can use different parts of the body with bones in this pattern and you can use "I think," to express, kind of your guess. I've included this here just to explain maybe quickly what your gut feeling is. So your "gut feeling" means your instinct, the first thing that you think of. So if you want to say your guess, for some reason, to your doctor, you can say, "I think I broke my finger." "I think I broke my arm." Okay.

Let's look at the next pattern.

The next pattern, I have two verbs here.

I have "I fell down (past tense)" or "I crashed" and then we include a [sport or an activity in the -ING form].

So, for example:

"I fell down skateboarding."

Or "I crashed snowboarding."

So what's the difference between "fell down" and "crash"?

So to "fall down," it sounds much lighter than "crashed." So, to fall down is like we're doing something that's a typical action and we maybe make a mistake when we're walking and our body falls. So, "I fell down the stairs," perhaps or, "I fell down because I stood up too quickly." So, "I fell down skateboarding," this might be, it might depend on your level of skateboarding, but to fall down sounds kind of light, not so serious, but it could be serious, depending on the situation.

"Crash" however, sounds quite strong, quite intense. "I crashed snowboarding."

It sounds like your whole body was maybe very violently moved or tossed in some way. "I crashed snowboarding." So this is the same verb we use for car accidents, like car crashes. So your body, you imagine your body crashed maybe into something, like the ground or into another object. "I crashed snowboarding." So you can use this pattern to explain the reason for your pain or the reason for your injury.

For example:

"I think I broke my arm. I crashed snowboarding."

So, that might be a way to describe to your doctor what happened. So, why do you think your arm is broken? Because I crashed snowboarding. Okay.

Let's continue on to the next pattern.

The next pattern is, "[Person] was in a car accident."

[Person] was in a car accident.

So here, you can use yourself if you need to, like I was in a car accident, or if you need to report about someone else, like you saw another person who was involved in a car accident or maybe you need to talk about a family member or a colleague that was in a car accident, you can use this pattern to do that.

For example:

"My roommate was in a car accident."

Or, if you're replying to a question about someone, like:

"Hey, how is your co-worker? Was he okay? We didn't see him yesterday."

You might reply:

"Oh, he was in a car accident."

So can use "he or she or they." If you need to use "they" to talk about more than one person, please make sure you change "was" to "were."

"They were in a car accident."

So this is a pattern you can use to talk about car accidents or other vehicle accidents too. So you could change "car" to like boating accident or boat accident, if you need to, but in, I think, most cases, perhaps, we use "car accident." Okay.

Let's continue to the next pattern.

The next pattern is "I'm having trouble (something)."

I'm having trouble (something).

So, we end this expression with another verb in the -ING form.

For example:

"I'm having trouble seeing."

"I'm having trouble hearing."

"I'm having trouble sleeping."

And so on….

So, this means that this activity, this action is difficult for the speaker here. "I'm having trouble…" We're using this progressive form to mean this is happening now. My condition, this is the condition now. "I'm having trouble sleeping." I'm having trouble sleeping now, in my life.

So, whatever action is difficult for you, you can use it at the end of this pattern and the -ING verb form.

For example, some more examples:

"I'm having trouble walking."

Maybe, my leg hurts.

Or, "I'm having trouble focusing."

I'm having trouble focusing, so maybe it's difficult for me to think clearly.

"I'm having trouble focusing."

So you can use actions or you can use something relating to, like your mental situation, inside your mind too. So when you explain to your doctor, you can use these sorts of patterns to describe things that are difficult for you, at the moment.

"I'm having trouble sleeping."

That's a very common one.

Okay.

Let's move on to the next one.

The next one is "I burned my [body part]."

I burned my [body part].

Here, we're using the past tense "burned." This is the past tense of the verb, "to burn." So, "to burn (something)" means to make it too hot, too hot and to injure that thing, in this case, we're injuring a part of the body with heat. So I burned my [body part].

Please note that in English, we have a couple of different words relating to "burns" especially with the skin. If you're talking about, like fire, so something very hot, for example, you're cooking with fire or you're cooking with an electric stove and you touched it, we use the verb "burn" in that case.

If, however, you're talking about sunlight, like going to the beach or going out in the sun and your skin becomes red, we use "sunburn," sunburn, and the pattern we use for that is "My [body part] got sunburned."

So, "My arm got sunburned."

Or "My face got sunburned."

"My shoulders got sunburned."

We use "sunburned" to talk about sunlight, burns from the sunlight.

We use "burned" to talk about fire and heat.

Another point to note is that in English, we have different verbs for "burn" and different, and like, to express when our skin just changes color slightly. So, for some people, some people want their skin color to change a little bit in the sunlight, to get darker. We call that "to tan," to tan. That's the verb we use or "to get a tan." So, in some languages, getting a tan is the same as getting a sunburn, but in English, we have two different verbs, "to tan" or "to get a tan" and "to get sunburn." So, "sunburn" is bad in English and "to get a tan" can be a good thing for many people, so please keep those points in mind.

But for this lesson, I want to focus on burns like from heat, from like a fire or something else very hot.

"I burned my [body part]."

Some examples of this are:

"I burned my hand."

Or, "I burned my arm."

So we use the verb "burn" to talk about heatsource-related injuries.

Okay. Onto the next part.

The next one is, "My [body part] itches."

My [body part] itches.

Please be careful. Do not use the word, "scratches" here.

"To scratch" refers to this motion, this motion.

"To itch" refers to the feeling, the sensation, like my arm itches, I want to scratch my arm. So, "scratch" refers to this motion. "Itching or to itch" refers to the condition, the feeling, it itches, it itches, so please be careful. Don't confuse "itch" and "scratch."

"My [body part] itches."

My [body part] itches, so I want to scratch it, in other words.

For example:

"My head itches."

Or, "This bite on my leg itches."

Or, "This rash itches."

So, there are a couple of new vocabulary words here. I've included this "bite on my leg itches." So, imagine a spider or a bug bit you. So, "bit" is the past tense of the verb "bite," so maybe itches after or rather, the bug bite itches after the bite happens. You can describe that with this pattern, "This bite on my leg itches" or "This rash itches."

A "rash" is typically a red area of the skin. It's not a burn. It's something from maybe a bug bite or maybe from a plant or some other kind of allergic reaction-related thing, and it's often red and it's kind of strange-looking. We call that a rash, a rash. This is different from a "spot." A "spot" tends to be something in a circular, it's shaped like a circle, it's a circular shape. A "rash" tends to not have a circular shape. It kind of spreads along the skin. So, a rash is often very itchy or "this rash itches" is a way you might express that. So, please keep in mind, "itch" and "scratch" are different, again. So, "I want to scratch this part of my body" or "This itches," this itches.

Okay. Let's move on to the last part of this lesson.

The last part, this last two patterns are to express the time period or the point at which the problem started. So, the doctor will often ask when did it start or when did you notice the problem? Here are a couple ways that you can explain that.

First:

The problem started [time period] and sometimes (ago).

"The problem started [time period] (ago)."

For example:

"The problem started 2 weeks ago."

Or "It started yesterday."

Here, you'll notice I've used "it." So, "it" means the problem, the problem. Very natural to use "it," so like, "My head really hurts. It started yesterday." where "it" refers to my head hurting. So this problem, it started yesterday or the problem started yesterday.

So we use this "2 weeks ago," in this case, we're using "ago" because we're talking about this time period, some time in the past. It was a long time in the past. Here, you do not need to use "ago." "It started yesterday," so it's a specific point in time. "It started yesterday."

So, this is a couple or rather, yeah, these are two patterns to describe a point in time at which the problem started.

If you want to be more specific, like a specific day or a specific date, you can use this pattern:

"The problem started (on) [date]" or "The problem started [day]."

The problem started (on) [day].

For example:

"The problem started on Monday."

Or you may hear…

"The problem started Monday."

"It started on the 3rd."

"The 3rd" where "the 3rd" means the 3rd of the month, the current month.

"It started on the 3rd."

"It started on Monday."

You can also drop "on" here.

"It started Monday."

So, if you want to use a specific day or a specific day of the month, you can use this pattern. This might be good for specific time periods. So, these are good expressions to use to explain when an issue started.

Okay. So, this is a quick list of some expressions that you can use when you need to visit a doctor or a hospital or a clinic and so on. Thanks very much for watching this lesson and I will see you again soon. Bye-bye!

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