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  • Hi. I'm Vanessa with SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com. Do you like cleaning? Let's talk about it.

  • Do you love cleaning? Is it your dream to do the dishes and take out the trash? Okay,

  • probably not, but these are necessary parts of daily life. Today you're going to learn

  • how to explain over 30 common household chores. The word chore means a necessary cleaning

  • activity. Maybe when you were a kid your parents made a chore chart and you had to check off

  • the various chores whenever you finished them, or maybe they just said, "Doing chores is

  • a necessary part of daily life, so do them." Now that you're an adult, they definitely

  • are. You're invited to my mother-in-law's house to clean. Today I'm going to be showing

  • you around her house and we're going to be cleaning around it using these important expressions.

  • All right. Let's get started with some daily household chores. Good morning. It's time

  • to make the bed. Maybe I'll put the pillows here at the top. I got to pull up the sheets,

  • pull up the comforter, put some decorative pillows up. Looks pretty good.

  • Now it's time to change the sheets. All right. I'll probably take the pillowcases off. Got

  • to wash the pillowcases. Take the comforter off. Take the flat sheet, take that off the

  • bed. Take the fitted sheet off the bed, and I got to put some new sheets the bed after

  • that. Next, I got to scrub down the tub and the

  • shower. I'll probably use a rag, maybe some kind of cleaning solution, and scrub the walls,

  • scrub the tub, get around the bottom of the drain. The drain is where the water goes down.

  • Maybe I'll clean the shower head, I'll clean the faucet. All of these are important parts

  • when you're cleaning out your tub. Next is everyone's favorite thing, cleaning

  • the toilet. We could use the verb scrub, just like we used with the tub and the shower.

  • You might first start by lifting the lid, then taking a scrub brush, scrubbing around

  • a little bit, and then you might pour some kind of cleaning solution into the toilet

  • bowl, letting it sit for a little while, scrubbing it out. You might scrub around the toilet

  • bowl. Maybe you'll scrub behind the toilet bowl, making sure that everything is clean.

  • We have so much laundry in our hamper. It's time to do the laundry. The first step is

  • to take your dirty clothes, take them out of the hamper. The hamper is usually that

  • thing that you use to carry your dirty laundry in your bedroom, or maybe in your bathroom.

  • We got to load the laundry into the washing machine.

  • Now, we can use two different verbs for this. We could just simply say, "Put laundry into

  • the washing machine." Put. Or, we could say, "Load the washing machine. I need to load

  • the washing machine." It means you're putting stuff in, so I'm loading things in. What do

  • you think happens when it's all done? Let's imagine it's finished washing. Well, you need

  • to unload, unload the washing machine. Great. There's a couple items that we use. This is

  • washing detergent. Usually we use the word detergent to talk about the soap that you

  • put into the washing machine. You put the soap into the washing machine.

  • Then, when it's done you have two different options. One option is you might hang it on

  • a clothesline. A clothesline is a rope, and you might hang it on the rope to dry usually

  • outside, or you might have a clothes rack. This is just one piece of metal or wood that

  • you hang your wet clothes on to dry. Here in the U.S. it's most common to have

  • a dryer. It's pretty interesting why some other countries don't use dryers. I'm curious

  • in your country do you have a dryer? Do you use a dryer often? In the U.S. it's often

  • used. It's used almost every single time. As you can see, these are huge machines. These

  • are not small. I know other countries I've lived in you have a small washer. Maybe it's

  • a washer dryer combo together, but in the U.S. they're pretty big.

  • Then, we'll take the clothes, we'll unload the washer, and we'll put them into the dryer.

  • Here we have a front-loading dryer. That means you load the dryer from the front, so if you

  • need to buy a dryer or washer in the U.S. you'll definitely hear these terms, front-loading

  • dryer. Maybe you have a front-loading washer, but this is a top-loading washer. Those are

  • just some very specific terms about washers and dryers.

  • There's a couple of other items that some people use when they're drying things in the

  • dyer. You might use dryer sheets. These are just little sheets. They're supposed to help

  • your clothes get softer. Dan and I ... I don't think we've ever used these. Some people feel

  • like it's essential. We don't use them, but it's just personal preference.

  • What happens after the laundry is finished drying? You need to fold the laundry, or fold

  • the clothes and put them maybe in a drawer or put them in the laundry basket. Then we

  • can take that to the bedroom or where you're going to put them away. We say fold the laundry

  • or fold the clothes, and then put it away. It's a great phrasal verb for cleaning. Put

  • it away. Whose job it is it in your house to prepare

  • the meals? We might say "Prepare the meals," or before you prepare a meal you might need

  • to make a meal plan. Some people do this. It means that you write down Monday through

  • Sunday and you decide what am I going to eat on Monday? I'm going to eat spaghetti. What

  • am I going to eat on Tuesday? Tuesday I'm going to eat fish tacos.

  • Then, you write down each day so that when you go grocery shopping, which is another

  • chore, you can easily decide all of the things that you need to buy and you don't need to

  • keep going back. I'm curious, do you make a meal plan? Who

  • prepares the meals at your house? After you've finished preparing the meal, maybe after you

  • finished eating your meal, you need to wipe down the counters, or we could say the kitchen

  • counters. This is a kitchen counter, so we need to wipe

  • it down. This phrasal verb, wipe down, is useful for almost any room. You can wipe down

  • the kitchen counter, you can wipe down the bathroom counter. You could wipe down the

  • kitchen table. You can wipe down a lot of surfaces. It just means you have a wet cloth

  • and you are wiping that surface. What do you have to do after you cook? You

  • got to wash the dishes. You might use a rag, like this, or you might use some kind of steel

  • wool, depending on how tough the dishes are. Or, you might use a scrub brush or you might

  • use a sponge. My mother-in-law doesn't have a sponge here, but you might use a sponge.

  • You might use a rag like this. After you wash them with some soap, or some

  • dish soap we could call it, you have a couple options. You might air dry them, so we could

  • put them on the drying rack. Put them on the drying rack means you just set the things

  • here to dry and let the air dry them, or, if you're extra lucky you might have a dishwasher.

  • It's true, my mother-in-law has a dishwasher, so you can load the dishwasher. It's the same

  • verb that we use for the clothes in the washer in the dishwasher. We don't call this simply

  • the washer. We always call it the dishwasher, because the washer is for clothes and the

  • dishwasher is for dishes, for things that you use for eating.

  • You might put them on the top shelf, maybe the bottom shelf. Maybe you put them in the

  • silverware rack at the bottom, and you load up the soap, the detergent in here, and turn

  • it on and it's done. So easy. If you don't have a dishwasher you have to wash them by

  • hand and you need to set them in the drying rack. You've got two options. What do you

  • use at your house? Whose job is it in your house to take out

  • of the trash? Maybe this is something that you do every day, maybe it's something that

  • you do weekly. If I can figure out how to get my mother-in-law's trash, aha. I did it,

  • open. Maybe it's something that you need to do weekly. Maybe it's something that you need

  • to do daily. You need to take the trash bag out of the trash can. Maybe you put it in

  • a dumpster, maybe you put in a bin outside, but you need to take the trash bag out.

  • If you're already taking out the trash you should probably take out the recycling, too.

  • This is another great phrasal verb. We use phrasal verbs a lot for household chores.

  • Take out the trash, take the trash out, or take the recycling out, take out the recycling.

  • What about your refrigerator? Or, we can call it just a fridge. There might be a couple

  • things that you do. The first simple step might be to simply wipe down, using that great

  • phrasal verb, wipe down the fridge. It means inside you're just wiping the surfaces,

  • but maybe you've got a lot of food in your fridge. My mother-in-law has a lot of food

  • in her fridge, which is always exciting whenever we come to visit. You might find some food

  • at is expired, or maybe it's old, so you need to go through the fridge and clean out the

  • fridge. Clean out the fridge means you're taking things that are old or expired and

  • throwing them away, so you need to clean out the fridge.

  • Or, there's another great clean word we might use. We might say, "I need to deep clean the

  • freezer and the fridge." Deep cleans mean you take everything out, you scrub down the

  • surfaces, you make sure that it's spotless, it's clean, and then you put things back that

  • are not expired. You put the things back that you want to.

  • Maybe this happens once a year, I deep clean the fridge. For me, that isn't really happening

  • on a schedule. I think the last time that we deep cleaned our fridge was when I was

  • pregnant and every smell was so terrible. I told Dan, "Our kitchen smells so terrible.

  • I can't go in the kitchen," but really I was just pregnant. It didn't smell terrible, so

  • I asked him, "Please, can you deep clean our fridge and freezer? There's something that

  • smells terrible in there." Really, nothing smelled terrible. It was just

  • my nose because I was pregnant, but thankfully Dan deep cleaned our fridge, and it was good

  • for our fridge. It didn't really help me because everything still smelled terrible, but for

  • this moment you can deep clean if you want to really scrub and make sure it's spotless.

  • If you have any hardwood floors or linoleum floors in your house you need to arm yourself

  • with a broom. You need to sweep the floor probably daily if you have a small child like

  • me, or maybe a dog. You need to sweep three times a day. But, you will definitely need

  • a broom. Something that's really common and easy to

  • use if you have hardwood floors is a Swiffer. Swiffer is actually the brand, but in English

  • we say, "I'm going to swiffer the floor." We use it as a verb, or, I'm going to get

  • the Swiffer, which is this device. Usually there's a little cloth that is the Swiffer

  • brand cloth. You put it over top. It's a disposable thing. It might be dry. It kind of picks up

  • some cat hair or dust, or it might be wet and you can kind of easily mop the floor.

  • If you don't have one of these you might need a mop, or maybe two mops. My mother-in-law

  • has two mops. We have a part at the bottom that collects the liquid, the moisture. You

  • might dip it into a bucket, or maybe you pour some water on the floor. That's usually what

  • Dan does when he mops. He just pours some water on the floor and mops around it.

  • You might mop the floor with your mop, an important activity for hardwood floors. After

  • you're done, you might dry it up with some kind of sponge, or maybe you have a rag and

  • you just dry it up with that. Here you saw that I used another phrasal verb,

  • to dry up something. You could say, "I'm going to dry the floor with a rag," but it's much

  • more natural to use the phrasal verb. I'm going to dry up liquid on the floor with a

  • rag. I'm going to dry it up. I can't remember the last time I used one

  • of these, but if you have some little knickknacks around your house you might want to use a

  • duster to dust around the knickknacks. You might say, "I need to dust," or, "I can't

  • find my duster." This is what this is called. "I need a duster to dust on the mantle, or

  • maybe on some shelves around your things." Of course, don't forget to water the plants.

  • This is not a watering can. This is just our tea kettle, but I couldn't find my mother-in-law's

  • watering can. You can imagine you need to water the plants with a watering can, unless

  • you're me and I always forget to water my plants.

  • If you saw my other video about household words you know that all the plants in my house

  • have suffered a terrible fate. They're not living, but she has a green thumb, so all

  • of her plants look beautiful. Probably because she has remembered to water them.

  • If you have any windows at some point you'll need to wash the windows. You might use a

  • device like this, which has some kind of pad on it so that you can get the window wet.

  • Then, it has a little thing here, a little strip at the top that's usually rubberized.

  • That's called a squeegee. A squeegee, so you can kind of do it like that, and then all

  • of the water flows off of the window and it's nice and clean.

  • This is a perfect device for this. I don't have one of these things, that's why I came

  • here to film this video, but you might need to wash the windows, and then squeegee the