Name: How do we adapt to the cold? ⏲️ 6 Minute English
Uploaded: 2026-03-19T16:33:53.000Z
Duration: 6 min 16 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Six Minute English from BBCLearningEnglish.com hello, this is Six Minute English from BBC Learning English.

Six Minute English listeners are truly global, coming from all over the world, including some of the coldest countries on Earth.

Places like Finland, where winter temperatures drop to -20 degrees Celsius.

Are you good at dealing with the cold, Phil?

I'm not sure, but I do know that I don't like it.

Well, I'd rather be too hot and cool down than too cold and try to warm up.

Here in the UK it never gets as cold as Finland, but

it's not unusual to see some people dressed in T shirts while others are wrapped up in warm clothes.

Why do people feel the cold so differently?

That's what we'll be discussing in this episode, as well as learning some useful new words and phrases.

And as always, you'll find all the vocabulary from this episode, plus a quiz and worksheet on our website, bbclearningenglish.com but now I have a question for you, Becca.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the lowest temperature ever recorded was a, very cold minus 89 degrees Celsius.

A, the Arctic, B, Antarctica, or C, the top of Mount Everest?

Okay, well, we'll find out the answer at the end of the program.

Our experience of cold depends on many things, including our genes, culture and place of birth.

But perhaps the most obvious thing is the clothes we wear.

Professor Gunild Sartran lives on the icy island of Svalbard, 800 miles inside the Arctic Circle.

Here, she advises presenter Caroline Steele on how to dress against the cold for BBC World Service programme Crowd Science.

So what should we consider when choosing our clothes?

First and foremost, I would say that perhaps the gender differs.

So male often are more tolerant, perhaps, than females.

Then it's of course, what you're used to.

Gunhild says that first and foremost, men and women feel the cold differently.

She uses the phrase first and foremost to mean more than anything else.

She wants to emphasize that something, in this case someone's gender, is the most important thing to consider.

There is some debate about whether men or women are more tolerant of the cold.

Being tolerant of something means being able to endure it without getting hurt.

Another important factor is whether you are used to the cold.

If being in cold environments is something you're familiar with, it might sound obvious.

That someone born in Arctic Svalbard would feel less cold than someone born in Brazil.

But apart from environmental factors, are there actual physical differences that allow people to cope better with the cold?

Kara Okabok studies reindeer herders in northern Finland, people who live in cold temperatures every day and have done for centuries.

She measures their reaction to extreme cold and compares it to ordinary fins from warmer parts of the country.

Here, Cara shares her findings with Caroline still from BBC World Services.

CrowdScience okay, and my guess is the reindeer herders deal better in the cold.

The more data we collect within this area, the more confusing the picture gets.

I can say that subjectively at this point, the reindeer herders at least kind of mentally handle the cold far better.

So do the reindeer herders deal better with the cold?

The answer is yes and no, a phrase meaning partly and partly not used when there's no clear answer to a question.

However, Cara does say, subjectively, the herders manage better.

Subjectively means based on your personal inner experience rather than objective facts.

And physically, there are differences too.

Reindeer herders are less likely to shiver, the shaky movement that cold muscles make to try and warm them up.

In fact, how we experience the cold is probably a combination of everything we've discussed, including genetic adaptations passed on from parents to children.

Right, I'm off to find my gloves and woolly hat, so why don't you reveal the answer to the question?

Yes, I asked where the lowest temperature on Earth was ever recorded.

The lowest temperature ever recorded on Earth was at the Vostok Research Station in Antarctica in 1983.

Let's recap the vocabulary we've learned, starting with the phrase first and foremost, meaning more than anything else, a person who is tolerant of something is able to endure it without being hurt.

If you're used to something, you're familiar with it.

The idiom yes and no means partly and partly not and is used when you can't give a clear answer to a question.

The adverb subjectively means in a way that's based on your personal experience rather than objective facts.

And finally, a shiver is the shaking movement made by your muscles when you feel cold or afraid.

But remember, you'll find a quiz and a worksheet for this episode on our website, bbclearningenglish.com See you there soon.

Six minute English from bbclearningenglish.com.