This is the All Ears English Podcast, Episode 2422. Don't be loathe to speak English. Welcome to the All Ears English podcast downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become... fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection with your American host. Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA.
Reach the top 25% of all native speakers by understanding these three ways to say that you dislike something in English. Do you ever wish that you could just hang out with native speakers and pick up real English naturally? That's what it's like here on All Ears English, where two friends having real conversations.
No scripts, no lectures, just fun, honest talk about life, culture, and how to connect in English. It's like grabbing coffee with us and leaving with better English every time. But if you're not following All Ears English, then you're probably missing. some episodes. So go ahead and hit the follow button now, wherever you listen to the show, hit follow now and come check us out five days a week. Hey there, Aubrey, what's shaking?
not much how are you lindsay feeling great today but i have a key question for you today you ready yeah let's hear it so aubry in your daily life or just maybe right now in this moment is there anything you are loathe to do You know, I am loathe to swim with my kids right now. Our pool is still ice cold, in my opinion. It's way too cold and they are ready to swim. They're getting in. They're like, mom, come swim with me. And it's way too cold for me. So I try.
make excuses. And I really I'm like, I'll just dip my toes in. Yeah, it's crazy. So I am really loathe to get in that cold swimming pool. It's funny how we lose our nerve as we get older, it becomes harder and harder to get into swimming pools or cold lakes or the ocean.
run in like we didn't mind at all i know it's maybe our nerve endings are less sensitive when we're younger i don't know or we just don't care we just don't care i don't know we don't think about it i don't know we think a lot as adults don't we yeah for sure well this
is interesting. This word loathe came up in a recent episode. Stay to the end and we'll share which one it is in case you missed it. But I realized when proofreading the transcripts that it is spelled differently if it's an adjective or a verb. That's a really good insight.
misspelling and I was like but usually I thought it did end with an e so this is interesting we're going to share this today this is a common error by native speakers as well so not something you really need to stress about but if you can make this improvement there will be times where people are impressed. If it's an email or a written memo or something, especially at work and you spell this correctly, you're doing better than probably 80% of native English speakers.
oh for sure and i think even beyond just spelling it correctly just using it is going to put you probably in the top 25 percent of native speakers i think i i don't think this is an average word i think this is an above average word to use aubrey don't you think yes it's an impressive word we're going to go into both the verb and the adjective and we're also going to share a few more interesting ways to to share this because
connection isn't just about things you have in common and things you like we also connect about things we loathe things we dread things we hate yeah so this is interesting too you need to also have this vocab yeah and it doesn't mean that you're a negative person If you're always connecting, there can be very positive connection around something you don't want to do, especially if you share that in common with someone else. That can be a true connection moment as well.
Yes, for sure. We also want to give a shout out. There was a comment on YouTube from Rehman from India. And there wasn't a question, but they just said, I love all your podcasts. Could you please call out my name in your next? podcast. So hello, Rahman. Thank you for the YouTube comment. And we wanted to give you a shout out. Wonderful. And guys, don't forget to go ahead and hit that follow button wherever you're listening. Now, if you're over on YouTube, you can hit the subscribe button.
Just subscribe right there. However, if you're on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, go ahead and hit follow. So you make sure you get Allers English five days a week. Okay. Yes. Awesome. All right. Let's dive in with this interesting vocabulary. So when we use the adjective loathe, it's always in this chunk loathe to, loathe to do something. And this means to intensely dislike.
or hate something. So like at the top of the episode, I'm loathe to swim in our pool. Or you might say, I'm loathe to go through haunted houses. I really don't like them. This is true for me. I don't like jump scares. I don't want to be like, that's not fun. do you like the same way? I love opposite word. I love going on ghost tours. Yeah, you could be on the sidewalk and you're safe and it's happening in that house, right? It's not happening to you. It's very different.
you're in a haunted house and things are jumping out at you. Right. I think this is for my brother would do this when I was young. He would jump out from behind a door and grab you and scream. And I really hate that now. I'm like, please don't jump scare. Yeah, no jump scare. I love it. But what's interesting is loathe this way as an adjective. is spelled without an E. It's just L-O-A-T-H, loathe to do something. So that's tricky. What's another example of using it this way?
so someone's habits right they're nocturnal how how awake are they what is their what are their habits he has always been loath to get up early okay yes he's just a nighttime person not a morning person exactly right and like lindsay said this is a little less common but it is impressive it's impressive vocabulary you will hear it you definitely can use it but the spelling's a little tricky because there's no e there what about when there is an e lindsay this is when it's a verb
the sentence to be honest this is a good review for me too right remembering where the e goes uh so we put an e at the end in this case right l o a t h e and that becomes a verb okay so for example i loathe driving in snowy weather and i think native speakers tend to punch that loathe too i agree
That almost would be strange because it's like intense hatred or dread. So it would be strange to be like, I loathe driving in snowy weather. Yeah. We emphasize it. I loathe the driving in snowy weather. And it's also one of those kind of full mouth words. You need everything happening. So we really indulge in saying that word.
I agree. Absolutely. Or maybe she loathes doing homework, right? It can't be something that you just sort of don't like a little bit. It really has to be a pretty intense feeling. love it love it all right aubrey where to now what else do we need to know yeah so just the main thing is that these are pronounced exactly the same so when you're speaking you don't have to worry about this at all it's like effect and effect that we've talked about recently yes doesn't matter when you're speaking
but they are spelled differently so when you're writing if you see the word loath you need to take a second okay is this being used as an adjective or a verb and the big pro tip here is if it's loath to loath to do something that's when there's no e because it's an adjective
Really good to know. So if we're taking the IELTS exam, for example, or if we're just writing a business email, we need to know, or even a text message to a friend, we need to know the difference here. Okay. Absolutely. But let's share some other interesting options because...
if you're talking about being upset about something or angry or something you dread or hate doing there are so many interesting words to ways to say this right yes i really like the word abhor and this is actually even stronger than low if you can believe it, because loathe is pretty strong. But if you say you abhor something, that's like the most intense dislike that you can get.
Oh, okay. So for example, I abhor small spaces. I'm definitely claustrophobic. Are you claustrophobic, Aubrey? Do you mind being in an elevator? What about you? No, I don't think so. I had an apartment in New York or Tokyo too. If ever you lived in New York, you can't be claustrophobic. Basically living in a closet. Yeah, for sure. But if I had to be in an elevator for hours and hours, then I might start getting claustrophobic. I can imagine the length of time definitely would affect that.
Yeah, because your mind would start running, right? That's the key. Okay, what's another? Maybe this is about Michelle. She pours olives. She doesn't even like the smell of them. I love them so much. And I'm sure a lot of our listeners love it's a Mediterranean food. I love olives. I can't imagine a life without olives or olive oil. I mean, I eat so much olive oil.
feeling Michelle does eat olive oil. I think it's just the taste of like actual olives, a bowl of green and Kalamata olives, but oh, she is missing out. I love them so much.
so abhor is a good one and then disdain is good this is a noun right well this is tricky it exists as a noun and a verb so let's go over the noun first so this is the feeling that something isn't worthy of respect or consideration so maybe like she looked at him with disdain so this is a noun here right it's the it's what she's using to look that her expression has disdain in it disdain like not giving the person a chance very close-minded very negative right
Absolutely. Or he's always treated her with disdain. Oh, it's a strange word. Yes. Yeah, it is kind of a strange word. And it also exists as a verb. They are spelled the same, luckily, unlike loathe. Okay, good. So this is like if you treat someone like they're not worthy of respect.
you can use this as a verb so the main way i've seen this is if you disdain to answer questions okay this is very rare in english that we use this as a verb when i saw this in the dictionary there's a verb and a noun i had to think I'm like, I don't hear that very often. So maybe if someone say like, I disdained to answer the questions or in present, and this is like, because you dislike the questions or maybe if it were like on a crime show, be like, oh, she disdained to answer, but this is.
definitely a connotation of you're not answering them because you disagree with them. Something like that, right? Interesting. You don't respect the questions for whatever reason. yeah i mean the courtroom idea i know in a courtroom well at least on courtroom dramas we hear the word sustained a lot right a different word but maybe in a similar family sort of thing i don't know this is really interesting too to think about some of these we use more often in the past tense, right?
we wouldn't really use abhor in the past tense to be like i abhorred that film right and i loathed that restaurant not really right instead we usually use these in the present because they're such strong feelings it's more like this something I always will always abhor or loathe because it's a strong it's hard to like hate something that strongly that just happened once like one trip to a restaurant or something right I see what you're saying so it's almost almost like a state of being this
yes almost like exactly that's how strong it is right if it's something we don't like we probably would say like oh i really hated that i absolutely detested it or i would say i couldn't stand it yes i really didn't like it Yes, I love that. That's a really important point. So it's the things that we really hate and we've always hated. We just don't identify with those things. We're using abhor or loathe. Whereas it's a single experience or a movie or a meal.
lighter things like hate I mean light is not hate is not light but like we don't get that passionate about like an individual experience right so these words this is what's important to to pay attention to here is these words really signify that passionate dislike and so it is strange if you use them we don't even really use them jokingly to talk about how much we dislike something i guess you could be like oh i love spinach and you're just joking right but maybe
most part it's for things that you really hate feel very strongly about all right good to know excellent Okay, Aubrey, we are back from break. Let's do a role play for today. Here we are discussing the foods that we dislike. Okay, let's see. I'll start us out. I'm not usually picky, but I absolutely abhor eel.
Really, I love eel rolls at a sushi place. Eel sauce is delicious. Yeah, it's not for me. I'm loathe to even think about eating eel. What about you? Are there any foods that you can't stand? Yeah, I've always had disdain for masago. Oh, that's fish eggs, right?
Yeah, I don't know what it is, but I loathe it. Okay, nice. So this is possible that you like really dislike certain foods and we would use, you know, abhor, loathe, whatever. But if you just mean to say like, I don't really like that very much. We wouldn't use these bigger, stronger words. I think a lot of people have issues around texture.
Right. The texture of things. Even some people don't like the texture of eggs, but sort of fish eggs, the texture, I think people probably struggle with. That's why I like eel, but I know someone who doesn't, and I think it's a texture thing.
Yeah. No, eel is great. When I lived in Japan for my last meal there, my friends, my Japanese friends took me to an eel restaurant, a place like in the mountains that specialized just in eel. It was amazing. Yeah, it was awesome. And I do love eel sauce. This is me. i think it's so tasty it's a little bit sweeter on some rolls oh so delicious yes exactly let's go through this so again you said i'm usually not picky but i absolutely abhor eel it's kind of a weird word too because we are kind of
pronouncing the h aren't we operating yes we do have to right you you hit that h kind of hard abhor and this is another one where you have to like hit the word hard you have to emphasize it just like loathe it's a little strange we're like i really abhor that no you need
intonation needs to be powerful because the emotion the passion about the dislike is powerful the word implies that yeah we don't want to have that flat affect right we want to make sure we're putting life into our words here what else Yeah. And then I said, oh, it's not for me. I'm loathe to even think about eating eel. So this is where it's an adjective. I'm describing myself as loathe to think about something.
Mm, very interesting construction too. I'm loath to even. Yeah, so it would be written without the E there, right? Okay, no E there, good. And then I said, hmm, yeah, I've always had disdain for masago. Yes, I've always and this is an interesting thing to say, like disdain, because it does often imply.
More of like a lack of respect. So this would be sort of joking even to say this about food. Be like, oh, I have such disdain for masago. Like I would probably laugh at that. Like that's really funny because it usually does imply more like.
um you you you are critical of something you you disrespect something right for bigger things than just food like food is just a taste that's all it is it's sort of one-dimensional right but right for example like political parties or certain ways of thinking would be more common for disdain right that's where you would use it more literally
right? This is kind of more joking. But yeah, you could say you have disdain for a certain political candidate or people who agree with a certain policy. That would be more because it's more of a lack of respect for that. For sure. And then the last thing that was said was, yeah, I don't know.
it is but i loathe it right so they just mean like i really hate it yeah and this is because it's a verb this would be spelled with an e l-o-a-t-h-e all right good high-level episode for our listeners today the b2c1 level I love it
Yes, absolutely. We want to make sure that you don't miss the episode that inspired this. And 2402, right here on Allers English, should you call someone cheap in English? Where we said sometimes people are loathe to spend money. So we used it as an... adjective there, so it wouldn't have an E.
Yes. And the connection piece here, guys, for today is it's not always, it doesn't have to be about these positive, amazing things that you're connecting over. You can build just as strong of a connection over things that you loathe and have disdain for.
okay absolutely yes right i feel like that would even bond you closer with someone if you are sort of willing to admit these more negative things i don't love everything right the people i'm close to i want to build a stronger connection with i'm going to admit the things that i really abhor
Especially if it's very, like most people love this thing, but you actually have disdain for it, right? Yeah, hot take. Yes, exactly. That could build a really strong sense of trust and connection right there. So that's what we're going for. All right. Good stuff, Aubrey. We'll see you in the next episode of All Yours English. And guys, hit the follow button now. Yes. Awesome. We'll see you guys next time. All right. Take care. Bye. Bye.
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