Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles Ah, I just hit my funny bone against this tree here. Your funny bone is back here by your elbow. And when you hit your funny bone, it makes your hand and arm feel a little bit strange for a second. It makes them feel a little bit tingly. If you think about it though, there's nothing funny about it. Normally, when you say something is funny, it means it makes you laugh. If you say a joke is funny, it means the joke made you laugh. But when you hit your funny bone, it doesn't make you laugh; it actually hurts a little bit. So it's an example of an English term where we use the word funny, but not in the normal sense of what the word funny means. It actually means strange or to feel a little bit weird. In this English lesson, I'll teach you nine more ways that we use the word funny that aren't funny at all. So sometimes in English, we'll use the term funny looking to describe something if we don't like how it looks. Maybe your friend bought a new car and he thinks it looks amazing but you think it looks a little bit strange. You might say, "Your car's kind of funny looking." Maybe your friend got a new dog and the dog has super long ears and really long hair on its head, but short hair on the rest of its body. It just looks a little strange. You might say, "Oh, your dog is kind of funny looking." So another way we use the word funny is in the term funny looking to describe something that just looks a little strange or weird. Do you ever think something might happen? In English, we would call this a funny feeling. When you have a funny feeling, it means you think something is going to happen. The other day, I brought my van to the garage and I had a funny feeling that it was going to be very expensive to fix it. I wasn't sure it was going to be expensive, but I knew it needed an oil change and it was making some strange sounds. So I had a funny feeling that it was going to be expensive to get it fixed. So another way we use funny in English is to say a funny feeling, and a funny feeling is when you just think something might happen. Now, this is different than saying that something feels funny. If I was to say my stomach feels funny or my head feels funny, it would mean I'm not feeling well. It would mean I'm feeling a little bit sick. Sometimes when I'm at school, a student will say, "Can I call my mom or dad? Because my stomach feels funny," or "my head feels funny. I have a bit of a headache." So when you say part of your body feels funny, it means it feels abnormal. It means you're feeling a little bit sick or a little bit under the weather. Hmm, there's a funny smell out here. Yeah, definitely a funny smell. When you describe something like a smell using the word funny, it doesn't mean that it's making me laugh. It means that there is a strange smell out here. There is a weird smell out here. There's a smell out here and I don't recognize it. There's definitely a funny smell out here. Sometimes when I open the fridge in the house there's a funny smell. Usually it means the milk has gone bad. The milk has gone sour, but initially I don't know what it is. So I would just describe it by saying, "Hey, there's a funny smell in here. There's a strange smell. There's a weird smell. There's a really bad smell in this fridge." So I mentioned the other day, I took my van to the garage. One of the reasons I brought it to the garage is because it was making a funny sound. Again, we can use the word funny to describe something like a sound when it's unrecognizable, when it's a mystery, when we don't know why the sound is there, or what's making the sound. Sometimes when I come outside, I hear a funny sound. Sometimes when it's really windy, I'll hear a funny sound and I won't know what the sound is. It is unrecognizable. So another way we use the word funny is to describe something that we don't recognize, something that is unrecognizable. So sometimes I make my English lessons in my local town. And when I do that, sometimes people give me a funny look. When someone gives you a funny look, it means that they stare at you for a bit, or they kind of go like, "What's that guy doing?" When you're standing in a town with a camera, and when you're talking to the camera, it probably looks a little bit strange. And so people tend to give you a funny look. They give you a funny look because you're doing something that's abnormal. So once again, a funny look could be a stare or a funny look could be something like this, or someone just makes a funny face because they're not sure what you're doing. When my kids were younger, and when we would go for a long drive, sometimes I would say to them, "Be quiet while dad's driving. No funny business back there." Funny business refers to any kind of misbehavior. Sometimes when we go on a trip at school and when we go on a school bus, I'll say to the kids at the very back of the bus, "No funny business while we're driving down the road." What I mean by that is don't throw things. Don't fight. Don't jump up and down. Don't yell at each other. Don't misbehave. No funny business when you're riding in a van with me, or when you're riding on a bus. Sometimes in English we'll use the phrase, "The funny thing is," to describe something that didn't make sense to us. A long time ago, someone broke into my car and they took all of my CDs. This was a long time ago. They took all of my CDs, but my wallet was also in the car. And the funny thing is, they didn't take my wallet. So I'm using the phrase, "The funny thing is," to describe a situation that didn't make sense to me. It didn't make sense that they would break into my car, take all of my CDs and not take my wallet. So one of the ways we describe something in English that seems at little odd to us is to use the phrase, "The funny thing is." Another phrase we use quite often in English that has the word funny in it is the phrase, "Funny you should ask." And this is best explained by me giving you a couple of examples. Let's say Jen went out to the flower field and she cut all kinds of daffodils. If someone called and said, "Do you have any daffodils for sale?" Jen could respond by saying, "Funny you should ask. I just went to the field and cut a whole bunch of daffodils." Let's say someone was to ask me, "Bob, can you make an English lesson about how to talk about our daily routines?" I could say, "Funny, you should ask. I just did a lesson this past Friday about how to talk about your daily routine." So it's a way to answer someone if there's kind of a coincidence. If what they're asking for is something that you've already just recently done, you would respond by saying, "Funny you should ask." Well, hey, thank you so much for watching this English lesson where I hope you learned a few more ways to use the word funny in English. Remember, if this is your first time here, don't forget to click this subscribe button or the one down below. And if you enjoyed this lesson, please give me a thumbs up. And if you're just sitting there and you're not sure what to do next, let me give you a suggestion. You could always watch another English lesson.
A2 funny smell strange describe lesson sound When Funny Isn't Funny in English 55943 322 林宜悉 posted on 2023/10/01 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary