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  • So, as many of you know, the ideas for these English lessons come from my own life, and today I'm tired.

  • So today you get an English lesson about being tired.

  • So let's start by talking about the reason why I'm tired.

  • And as I give you my three reasons, they're also common phrases that all English speakers use when talking about being tired.

  • I was up late Friday night.

  • I stayed up late Friday night.

  • I went to bed late Friday night.

  • Those are very common ways to describe why you are tired.

  • My school went to a baseball game.

  • We went to see the Toronto Blue Jays, and I didn't get home until quarter to two, and

  • I went to bed at 2 a.m.

  • So three common phrases you can use to describe why you're tired.

  • You can say I was up late, you can say I stayed up late, or you can say I went to bed late.

  • So of course it's not just going to bed late that can make you tired.

  • Sometimes you have to get up early in the morning.

  • This past Saturday I was up early.

  • This past Saturday I had to get up early.

  • This past Saturday I got up early.

  • I went to bed late and I got up early.

  • It's a bad mix, so I think that's why I'm extra tired.

  • My son needed to be somewhere, so I got up early. I had to get up early.

  • I was up early on Saturday in order to bring him to where he needed to go.

  • So sometimes you're tired because you go to bed too late, sometimes you're tired because you have to get up early, and sometimes it's actually both.

  • Now of course in English we like to emphasize sometimes, and in the sentences I just taught you I would use the words way too in order to emphasize.

  • I would say that "Friday I was up way too late."

  • "Friday I stayed up way too late."

  • "Friday I went to bed way too late."

  • "Saturday morning I got up way too early."

  • "Saturday morning I was up way too early," and "Saturday morning I had to get up way too early.

  • So you just add those two little words and it really emphasizes what you're trying to communicate.

  • So you might think I'm wearing sunglasses because I have bags under my eyes.

  • I don't actually, at least not too bad.

  • It's Monday today and I was up late Friday night and I got up early Saturday, so you think I would have recovered by now, but no, I'm not wearing sunglasses to hide the bags under my eyes, which is a common thing to have when you're tired.

  • I'm just wearing them because it's really sunny.

  • So if someone was to ask me why I seem so tired, I would probably answer kind of abruptly, not even using a complete sentence.

  • If someone said, "Bob, you seem really tired today, what's up?"

  • I might just say, "Ugh, lack of sleep."

  • And then that would communicate to the person that I'm tired because I didn't get enough sleep.

  • I might also just say, "Ugh, not enough sleep."

  • Basically the same thing, indicating to them that I'm tired because I didn't get enough sleep or because of a lack of sleep.

  • So how do you actually say that you're tired in English?

  • Well, you use the word tired.

  • If someone said to me, "Bob, how are you feeling today?"

  • I would say, "Oh, I'm tired because I stayed up way too late on Friday night."

  • You might also say, "I'm exhausted."

  • Like if you're really tired and you want to emphasize how tired you are, you might say,

  • I'm exhausted.

  • I need a nap.

  • If you actually feel like you might fall asleep, like maybe you're sitting in a meeting and they turn the lights off, or you're in a classroom and they turn the lights off to show a movie or something on the projector, you might say, I'm drowsy or I'm sleepy.

  • That literally means that you might fall asleep.

  • Like your eyes might just kind of go shut and you might fall asleep.

  • And then the phrase we use to describe that is, "I can hardly keep my eyes open," or I'm barely able to keep my eyes open.

  • Sometimes you're just so tired, your body kind of takes over and says, "Hey, we're going to sleep right now."

  • It's usually bad when that happens, but sometimes when you're really tired, you can hardly keep your eyes open.

  • So there's a couple older words that mean that you're tired that we don't really use anymore.

  • And they're the words fatigued and weary.

  • Now I should say, I don't really use them anymore.

  • You might actually hear them if you watch an old movie or if you're reading an older book.

  • Someone might say, "Oh, I'm very fatigued" or "I'm very weary."

  • But to me, they sound like older words that aren't very common anymore.

  • I think English learners like to use the word fatigued because it is common in other languages, or it's, you know, it's equivalent.

  • It might even look the same in your language.

  • But two words that we don't really use very much anymore, fatigued and weary.

  • So sometimes you're tired because of a lack of sleep, but sometimes you're tired because you just did something physical.

  • Maybe you worked out at the gym or you went for a long hike and you're feeling tired.

  • In those situations, we use slightly different phrases.

  • You might say, "I'm pooped," which is kind of a funny phrase.

  • I'm not going to tell you what poop means, but when you say I'm pooped, it means you're really tired, usually physically tired.

  • You might say, "Oh, I'm beat."

  • The other day I had to dig in the ground for Jen.

  • I had to dig a trench.

  • And when I was done that, I was like, "Whew, I'm beat."

  • Basically saying I'm physically very tired.

  • And then you might say, "I'm worn out."

  • After a long day, you might be both physically and mentally tired and you would say,"Oh, I'm worn out."

  • If you went on a really long hike, at the end of the hike, you might say, "Oh, I'm worn out. That was very, very difficult. And now I'm tired. I'm worn out."

  • Sometimes when we're tired from a lack of sleep, we'll say that we need to catch up on sleep.

  • We need to catch up on sleep, which I don't think is actually possible.

  • If you sleep for six hours one night, you can't just sleep for 12 hours the next night and then feel like everything is 100% again.

  • At least that doesn't work for me.

  • But what you can do is you can have a nap.

  • When you have a nap or when you take a nap, it means you sleep for 10 minutes or 30 minutes in the middle of the day.

  • Instead of sleeping at night, maybe after lunch, you sit on the couch or you lie down on the couch and you take a nap or you have a nap.

  • Just a short one, not too long.

  • If I sleep for more than an hour, like if I have more than an hour nap, I usually don't feel good.

  • 10 minutes is just the right amount of time for me to have a nap.

  • Well, hey, thank you so much for watching this English lesson about how to talk about being tired and how to explain why you're tired and little things you can do if you're tired, like take a nap.

  • Hey, if this is your first time here, don't forget to click that red subscribe button over there, give me a thumbs up.

  • If you have some time, leave a comment below.

  • I love reading them.

  • Sometimes I actually have time to respond to them, but in June, it's hit or miss.

  • And of course, if you have some extra time and you want to learn some more English, there's always more lessons to watch.

  • Bye.

So, as many of you know, the ideas for these English lessons come from my own life, and today I'm tired.

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