📕 Part 1: Sleep

This episode's vocabulary

Roll around (phrasal verb) - (of a time or event) to happen.

Workload (noun) - the amount of work to be done, especially by a particular person or machine in a period of time.

Dictate (verb) - to influence something or make it necessary.

Chore (noun) - a job or piece of work that is often boring or unpleasant but needs to be done regularly.

Groggy (adj.) - weak and unable to think clearly or walk correctly, usually because of tiredness or illness.

Siesta (noun) - a rest or sleep taken after lunch, especially in hot countries.

Degenerate (verb) - to become worse.

Giggle (noun) - a nervous or silly laugh.

Pull an all-nighter (idiom) - depriving yourself of sleep to do things that need to be done or you want to do, usually used for studying.

Sleep cycle - a period of sleep consisting of five different parts, each of which has different brain activity.

Spurt (noun) - a sudden and short period of increased activity, effort, or speed.

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Questions and Answers

M: Rory, how many hours do you usually sleep?

R: I try to get my eight hours in every day, but during the week it's probably closer to six or seven or six and a half. And well, until the weekend rolls around and then I can have a long line sleep for something like nine hours.

M: What time do you go to bed?

R: Well, on weekdays my goal is always nine thirty, but usually that never works and it's often half past 10 or something like that.

M: Do you go to bed at the same time every day?

R: I try to, but it's usually dictated by my workload or whatever I have to eat before bed. Plus, they're the usual household chores to do, which they have to happen at some point, don't they?

M: Do you ever have a nap during the day?

R: Oh, almost never actually. I always wake up groggy whenever I do that kind of thing. Some people say it's refreshing to have some kind of siesta, but I suppose it's because they're used to it, whereas I'm not. So I try to avoid it because I don't feel very well.

M: Do you think it's important to sleep?

R: Yeah. Otherwise your body starts to degenerate, basically. You can see this whenever you stay up past to certain number of hours and you get the giggles or start to lose focus on whatever it is you're doing. Because, well, we used to pull all-nighters at university, for example, and that always was the end result, basically.

M: Should older people sleep more than children?

R: I suppose it depends on what you mean by older. If we mean grown adults, then I don't think that more is needed because you're better able to cope with shorter sleep cycles. But it's essential for young children, especially teenagers having growth spurts. They need to sleep more so they can grow and develop properly. And as for people like pensioners, I'm not sure, actually. They seem to sleep more but is that because there's less to do or because they're more tired and they need it? I'm not sure.

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Discussion

M: Oh, thank you, Rory. Your answers are like a lullaby.

R: Hopefully the answers weren't a complete snooze fest.

M: Can I get a cup of coffee to get me all awake? All right, so let's talk about sleep vocabulary. We actually have an episode when we talk about staying up late.

R: We do, yes. We could use a lot of the same vocabulary there, actually. Like pulling an all-nighter, for example.

M: Yes, that's that's a beautiful phrase. So stay up late or pull an all-nighter. And do people say that thing, pull an all-nighter?

R: Um, well, I did when I was at university 500 years ago.

M: You're ancient. Yeah. So when you pull an all-nighter, you stay up late and you don't go to sleep. You just like stay up. You stay awake all night or half of the night. Rory, you said that when the weekend rolls around.

R: Yeah.

M: That's a juicy phrasal verb.

R: Well, it's just like when the weekend starts or when the weekend comes. But instead of saying comes, something rolls around.

M: Wow. So, like, what do you do on the weekend? And I can say when the weekend rolls around, I hang out with my friends.

R: Yeah.

M: Wow. I love it. Dear listener, do you love it? Is it true that you go to bed at nine thirty, nine thirty pm?

R: I try, like that's always the goal, which is what I said actually. I try because I need to wake up at half past five in the morning or half five in the morning. But it never works out that way because like I said, there's always stuff to be done. We should talk about different ways of talking about the time you go to bed, though. Because most people say the full time, like half past nine or half past five. But you can say half five and half ten.

M: Yeah, half five, half ten.

R: But it's only four half past.

M: Yeah.

R: You never say like I go to bed at quarter 11. For some reason the past is imitable.

M: So if you go to bed at eleven thirty pm, yeah? You can say I go to bed at eleven thirty. Half past eleven.

R: Yeah. Or half eleven.

M: Half eleven.

R: Or eleven thirty.

M: God, half eleven, yeah.

R: I understand why it's half past nine. It's because there's only one of them. There can only be one half past but there are different quarters. And so there's less to get confused about.

M: Yeah. Eleven thirty, half eleven. OK guys. Yeah. High score. Yeah. Supernatural. Yeah. So we go to bed or we fall asleep. You just fall asleep when you sleep you can snore. Rory, do you snore?

R: I've been told I do but I don't know how true that is.

M: Do you snore loudly?

R: Apparently it's like really loud but like the people I live with, the walls are quite thin and no one's ever complained.

M: So, okay, you can be a light sleeper. So when you wake up, when you hear some noise or you sleep like a baby.

R: Or you sleep like a log.

M: Like a log. Yeah, that's an idiomatic piece of language.

R: It's a very deep sleep.

M: So when you do your household chores, what do you do?

R: Well, that's just like things like taking out the garbage or the trash if your American. Um, and tidying up and getting things ready for the next day, tidying clothes, household chores or just the chores.

M: When we talk about having a nap, right, so you take a nap, you have a nap. You've paraphrased, taking a nap with siesta. Siesta is a Spanish.

R: It is Espanol. Yeah, but it's something that people say in English.

M: Have a siesta?

R: Yeah, have a nap.

M: Have a nap. Have a siesta.

R: A siesta in Spanish specifically means something that takes place in the middle of the day.

M: Yeah. When people don't do anything at all because it's too hot. No I can't work, it's too hot.

R: I wish we had that in Russia. I can't work, it's too cold. And whenever you take a nap you feel groggy or you wake up groggy. Yeah. It's like you feel sleepy.

M: Sleepy. So sleepy or groggy? Groggy like sounds like a drink. Grog, groggy.

R: Well it is. And grog is a word for drink, but it just means that you feel sleepy and tired and you don't want to really do anything. It's like what's the best way to describe it. It's like a cloud has descended on your head.

M: Yeah. Like you take a nap in the middle of the day and then you get up and you feel this. You feel groggy. Or you can feel refreshed or a nap could be refreshing. So basically refresh. And ladies, we do take our beauty sleep.

R: Men can have beauty sleep too.

M: Oh really? Okay.

R: Doesn't work.

M: So before we go out, we take beauty sleep.

R: Is that what that is? Okay, maybe not then. I thought beauty sleep was just another way to describe I'm going to sleep.

M: No, no. It's usually some sleep before going out.

R: Is it?

M: Yeah. To make yourself more beautiful.

R: What? That sounds totally pointless. Why would you not hang out with your friends?

M: No, no, no, wait. So you're going out right? So before you go out you take a nap, then you get up and then you go out. So this nap before going out for ladies. I thought it's for ladies. Or you can have some beauty sleep.

R: Thank you! That's very egalitarian.

M: Egalitarian... Ok, and if we don't sleep and the question was like do you think it's important to sleep. What kind of question is that? Yes. Or I don't think sleep is important, I'm a zombie.

R: But then you can say, well, I suppose the most important thing with a question like that is that you don't just say yes. You say yes, because, yeah, if we didn't, then something terrible would happen or whatever.

M: Our body would degenerate.

R: Yes.

M: Degenerate? What is that?

R: It just means that the quality lowers.

M: The quality of your life or of your body?

R: Everything.

M: My life would degenerate.

R: Your life can degenerate. It's important that you pronounce it correctly because degenerate is the verb, but degenerate is the person. And a degenerate is someone that doesn't behave very well.

M: Oh God, this is so complicated.

R: So watch your pronunciation, basically.

M: Degenerate.

R: Degenerate is the verb and degenerate is the name.

M: Oh God. Okay, you can also say that I need to catch up on some sleep if you need more sleep. Or you can lose sleep of something. For example, I have exams, I'm freaking out about my exams so I'm losing sleep over my exams. Do you talk in your sleep?

R: No, I don't do anything in my sleep.

M: So you snore but you don't talk in your sleep?

R: Well. I allegedly snore in my sleep but I'd think sometimes people just tell me that to make fun of me.

M: Mm hmm. Okay.

R: I usually think I go out like a light, which is something I should have said because the expression to go out like a light just means that you fall asleep immediately.

M: Oh, say it again.

R: To go out like a light.

M: Go out like a light.

R: Yeah. It's like you just switch off.

M: Wow. Nice.

R: And if we talk about what happens after you go, what follows is hopefully your sleep cycle.

M: Yes. And you've used that's like shorter sleep cycles. Like REM sleep. This kind of thing.

R: Yeah. Well, like there are different kinds of sleep but I don't know what they are. I only know REM and that's because it stands for Rapid Eye Movement. But I don't know when that happens and I don't know what that means. Apparently it means like your brain, that's the part of sleep that's the most important because it means that your brain is regenerating itself or recovering from the day.

M: You can also say deep sleep or heavy sleep, sound sleep or I sleep soundly, which means you sleep well. If you don't sleep well, you can say restless sleep. You can also have a dreamless sleep, peaceful, drunken, drunken sleep.

R: You drink too much.

M: Yeah. And then you sleep. You've used the word giggles. That's a nice one. Giggle. To giggle.

R: Giggles. Well, it's an expression, the giggles.

M: The giggles, yes.

R: That's the word that I was meaning earlier that began with the. Slipped my mind. Um, but yes, the giggles are what happens when you just do you ever just start laughing for no reason? It could be because you're nervous or because you're tired and you're just like, can't control. This is the giggles. Yeah. It happens in stressful moments or when you're just absolutely exhausted. On the subject of being tired, you can talk about being exhausted to paraphrase effectively. Or being knackered.

M: Knackered. Yes, that's a good one. And you can use a good phrase to be used to sleeping. Right. Or I'm used to getting up early. I'm used to sleeping for eight hours, or I'm used to my insomnia. Insomnia, when you can't fall asleep, when you can't sleep. Or you may oversleep, you know, when you just get up and you're late everywhere. So you have overslept. Do you sleep in your pjjs?

R: I bought new pajamas. I bought replacements for my where is wally once because I was told that they were too childish. But yes, people sleep in pajamas. Some people

M: What color are your pajamas?

R: They're black now.

M: Oh, black. Wow.

R: Like my soul.

M: Oh, he's black Scottish soul.

R: Anyway, um, so you can have pajamas. We can describe different parts of the pajamas that you wear, you can have a pajama top for the top half or pajama bottoms for the bottom. Some people sleep in their underwear and some people sleep naked. Yes. We'll just let that hang there.

M: Yeah, when we talk about sleep and animals, these are nice word hibernation. And bears, for example, hibernate, also people can hibernate. You know, when a bear is too tired for this cold, the bear starts hibernating. So sleeping and then gets up when it's warm and springy. Do you hibernate in winter?

R: I feel like I need to hibernate in winter, but you people will never let me stop working. Yeah. The world needs you. No, it doesn't. I need a holiday.

M: No.

R: Yes.

M: The podcast needs you. We need you.

R: On the subject of which I'm on holiday now, because we're recording this before I go on holiday. So hello from future me to say I'll be on holiday when this is going out. So I hope everyone is enjoying it. I hope everyone is enjoying my holiday.

M: Well, have a good sleep before you go on holiday.

R: On the subject of things that are good, I think we have come to the end of our description of everything.

M: This is the end. Oh yes. I have one more thing. Remember, the best thing to do, the first thing in the morning is to go right back to sleep. That's all.

R: Bye!

M: Bye!

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