Practice English Speaking&Listening with: Learning English - How to describe physical pain in English. ( Free English speaking Lessons)

Hi everyone thanks for clicking I am Niharika. Well the other day I cut my finger and trust

me it was extremely painful. Now any kind of pain is totally awful. However it’s quite

a constant part of human experience. We all hate pain, right? In English we have certain

vocabulary to describe certain physical pain and that’s what we are gonna learn in today’s lesson.

For example you touch a hot stove, it is painful

right? You touch it, it is painful but how do you describe that? Yes, we have certain

adjectives here on the board that will help you to describe the different types of physical

pain. So let’s get started. The first one is burning. Now burning is, of course it’s

painful. However it is a kind of a very tingling experience. So for example if you get hurt,

Okay and you try to clean that injury, if you try to clean that wound you can say “ Oh

my God, it’s burning! So that’s burning. When it tingles and it’s quite painful and

it just feels as if you are touching something hot. So that’s burning for you. So it’s

more like a tingling pain. Another type of pain is chapped. Now chapped

is, usually human being have chapped skin or chapped lips. So chapped lips or chapped

skin is when the skin is really dry may be because of cold weather or even because of

too much exposure to the sun. Ok! So , it’s lack of moisture that tends to crack your

skin or crack your lips. So when you say I have chapped lips it means that you are trying

to say that it is extremely painful. I have dry lips and it’s very painful. So chapped

is dry skin or dry lips and it’s painful. Another one, acute. Now when do you say Oh

I have this acute pain! What type of pain is it? Well, acute pain is when the pain is

really sudden and sharp. For example you hurt your elbow, may be you banged into a door

or banged into a wall and you hurt your elbow and having this acute pain. It’s a very

sudden sharp pain which just lasts for short period, so that’s acute pain. So it just

lasts for short period. And then we have chronic pain. So chronic

is again very sudden and sharp pain but it lasts pretty longer. And in fact if someone

is facing chronic pain or is going through or suffering with chronic pain then you need

medical attention. You need to go visit a doctor if you are having a chronic pain. SO

again chronic is sudden sharp pain however it lasts for a very long time.

Now let’s have a look at another type of pain, which is griping. “ my stomach is

griping” So it means that you are having a stomach ache or your stomach is hurting.

But when you specifically use this word “ my stomach is griping” then it means that you

are having again a very sudden and sharp pain particularly in your stomach. It’s more

like cramps. When you feel cramps in your stomach then that pain is griping pain. So,

it’s more like cramping. It’s a sudden sharp pain in your stomach. Alright?

The next one, Inflamed. Somebody boxed you ,that’s painful! So may be someone boxed

you on your cheek, your cheek is now swollen, it’s red and it’s painful. So that means

that your cheek is inflamed. Alright! So inflamed is when your body part , wherever you get

hurt , there’s an injury, it hurts and it’s now swollen, it’s red and of course it’s

painful . So it means you are having a inflamed cheek or inflamed shoulder, somebody hit you

really hard on your shoulder so you are having an inflamed shoulder. So it’s an injury,

it’s swollen, it’s red and it’s painful Let’s have a look at another one Itchy.

“ I am so itchy” So what does itchy really mean? It’s a very unpleasant feeling and

just when your skin is very irritated and you feel like scratching and rubbing your

skin then that means that you are feeling very itchy. So maybe you have an allergy or

may be something is troubling you and your skin is very irritated and you are scratching.

So, you won’t say Oh my god I feel scratchy, a perfect word to use for this kind of unpleasant

feeling is you are feeling itchy. So itchy is again very unpleasant, it’s a little

painful and of course you tend to scratch or rub.

Let’s have look at another one here Sore. So, what is sore? We have sore gums, we have

sore throat, we have sore shoulder, sore knee so what exactly this pain is? Now sore is

, you know when at times in certain body parts you just feel that there is no movement and

it’s hurting, it’s quite painful may be because of an injury , may be because of an

infection then that kind of pain is sore. Like I have sore gums, so maybe you have infected

gums or probably you hurt yourself with a toothbrush while brushing so now you have

sore gums. So sore is, it’s pain of course due to

an injury or an infection .So you have sore throat, so sore throat is because you have

an infection you have sore shoulder sore knee and so on.

The next one is Stiff, have you heard this before, “Ah, my hand is really stiff today,

I can’t really move” Now stiff, what kind of pain is that? Now stiff is when you are

unable to move your body part and it’s more of a muscle pain. So it’s not an injury

from outside, you can’t really see, it’s not swollen, it’s not red but maybe you

went to the gym and you tried to do weights and now your hands really hurt. So, it means

that your hands are really stiff. It’s more of a muscle pain. So when you are having this

muscle pain it means that your body or your body part is stiff.

The next one Stabbing. Stabbing, have you heard that before? Maybe in a movie , he stabbed

her , he murdered her . So stabbing is killing someone with a knife but here when we talk

about stabbing pain it means a sudden and sharp pain. So like the other day I cut my

finger and I was screaming with pain so it was more like a stabbing pain. It was extremely

sharp of course it happened suddenly and it was painful. Now at times people also use

this word for headaches. I have a stabbing headache. So stabbing headache is when you

are having a real bad headache. So it’s like somebody is stabbing your head, it’s

like sharp pain. So that’s stabbing. So these are 10 types of pain that you can

talk about and we also have another word for you here which is Anglo-phobia. What does

this mean? Well you know it’s a type of phobia of course and when you fear pain, like

for me I am Anglo-phobic because I really fear pain. So that is Anglo-phobia for you.

If you are one of the person who fears pain , u fear of getting hurt or any kind of pain

then you are Anglo-phobic. So use that word it sounds really nice. So hope this lesson

is helpful to you, stay safe and I will be back with a new lesson till then take care.