Well hello and welcome to this English lesson where we're
going to learn how to describe situations and experiences that
we have had. So you may have had different experiences in
your life and you might describe them in this way right
now. It was fun or it wasn't fun. Or I liked doing that or I
didn't like doing that. In this English lesson we're going to
look at a whole bunch of other ways to describe experiences
and situations that you've been in Let me just repeat that for
a sec. We usually say experiences that you had or
situations that you've been in. So we kind of use each word a
bit differently but they both refer to the things that happen
in life or the things that you do in life. So once again
welcome to this English lesson where we're going to talk about
how to describe situations and experiences. One way to
describe something is to say that it was confusing but often
we use the little phrase hard understand. This is a huge
classroom probably at a university. And maybe the
professor isn't very easy to understand. The professor is
hard to understand. If someone said to you how was the class
that you went to today? You could say oh it was really
confusing. The professor is hard to understand or the class
was hard to understand. Uh this happened to me in university
when I took my second calculus class. I think I mentioned that
before. When I took kelp one it was easy to understand. When I
took kelp two calculus two it was hard to understand. I
passed but my grade wasn't very good at all. You can also in
English in a very informal way say that it was something else
when you're describing something. So let me use this
in a few example sentences because it's kind of a weird
little little phrase. If I went kayaking on this beautiful
lake. If someone said what was that like? What was that
experience like? I might say it was somewhere Something else.
So what this means is that it was amazing. It was wonderful.
Uh it was just awesome. It was really really fun. Uh when you
say an experience or a situation was something else.
It just means you really really enjoyed it. Uh maybe you went
to a concert and it was just amazing. You saw Ed Sheeran.
You might say oh it was something else. It was amazing.
So kind of an informal way to describe something that is
really cool, really fun, really amazing. And then we have a
simpler way to describe something here and it's just to
say that something is enjoyable. We often use this
when we talk about having a meal with others. So if you
have the experience of having a meal with friends or family you
might say oh it was a very enjoyable meal. Um it was just
an enjoyable time. We went to a restaurant. The the food was
delicious. Uh we had really good conversation. It was a
very enjoyable time. Or it was a very enjoy enjoyable thing to
do. Sorry I'll Try to pronounce the English words correctly as
I do this lesson. Um by the way when I do these lessons it's
very enjoyable for me. I hope it's enjoyable for you. Eerie.
So when I think of the word eerie I usually think of being
alone usually not somewhere like not in a city. Usually
like out in a country. If I walked down this path at night
and there was just a little bit of moonlight coming through the
tree branches I would describe that walk as an eerie
experience. I if someone said how was your through the forest
at night. I I would say oh it was eerie. There were little
sounds I could hear and the wind was blowing a little bit
and making this funny noise or I couldn't quite see it was a
little bit dark. It was just very eerie. I thought I was
hearing things all around me. So when something is eerie it
means a little bit scary a little bit spooky might be
another word that we would use. Uh but certainly a walk through
the forest at night would be eerie. Uh so this is a very
informal word. I had to look it up to make sure that it's
actually a word in English but when something is really boring
sometimes we call it a snooze fest. So I'll use the example
again of a classroom but it this time a teacher who's
really boring where as you're as you're listening you might
actually be starting to fall asleep or you might just use
the word snooze fest to describe something that was
really boring and you didn't actually fall asleep sometimes
when sitting and listening to someone talk for a long time.
Uh you could describe it as saying oh that lecture was
really boring or that talk was was just a snooze fest. Um
which means it was so boring you could have fallen asleep.
Or it might even mean you did fall asleep. That can happen as
well. Again a very informal word snooze fest. Um but I
thought it was just a word I made up but it if you look it
up on Google you'll actually find a definition for the word.
Outstanding. So when you describe something as
outstanding it means that it was done at a very high level.
It means that if you're watching a performance the
dancers or actors or singers were perfect. They just you
were just amazed at how good of a job they did. So if I went to
see a show maybe some kind of stage show. If someone said oh
what was what was the play like? I can say oh it's
outstanding. It was just amazing. It was one of the best
plays I've ever seen. So when you something as outstanding.
You just mean that it's really really well done. I would use
this to describe I don't know if you know English with Lucy.
English with Lucy is another YouTube channel and she teaches
English and her lessons are outstanding. That's how I would
describe them. They are really well put together. She's very
well spoken. Very logical. That's always important to me.
I like people who are logical. So I would say her lessons are
outstanding. Now the opposite would be what we call a
letdown. Maybe you've wanted to go to a concert for a long time
and you bought tickets and you went to the concert and it
wasn't very good. Maybe the musicians sound really good
when you listen to a recording but when they play live they
just don't do a good job. You would say oh it was a let down.
How was the concert? It was it was a let down. It was kind of
a let down. They they weren't as good as I thought they were
going to be. Another example would be If you were going to
see a play and there was a famous actor in the play and
then the day you go that actor is sick and they have someone
fill in the understudy performs instead you would say the play
was really good but it was a bit of a let down because the
main actor wasn't there. So a let down. Hope my lessons
aren't a let down for you. I hope they're outstanding. Now I
wouldn't describe my own lessons that way. Hey when you
have a lot of fun when you go out with friends or maybe go
out with family and you really enjoy yourself. We sometimes
say that it's a blast. Uh How was your day at the beach? It
was a blast. We had so much fun. We played volleyball. We
laughed. At night we had a campfire on the beach. I had a
blast or it was a blast. You can use either way to describe
it. Um so definitely when you really enjoy something when it
is a lot of fun we would say that it's a blast. Mesmerizing.
When you describe an experience as mesmerizing you're basically
saying you couldn't look away because it was so interesting.
It was so cool. It was so fun to watch. When I think of the
word mesmerizing I usually think of musicians who are
really good at playing their instrument. When I watch
someone who's a really good guitar player and I watch their
fingers on the guitar and I hear the sounds it's
mesmerizing. I can't I can't help but just watch them play.
Um I'm not how would I say this? It's not hypnotizing.
That's a little bit different but mesmerizing just is a time
when you're in a situation or experience where you just watch
what's happening and you just really really enjoy it. And
then out of this world. I think I talked about this phrase in
another lesson a few weeks ago. I think I described a trip as
being out of this world. When you say something is out of
this world it just means it was like so fun, so enjoyable, so
awesome. It was one of the most amazing things you've ever done
in your life. So if you ever went on a trip and you stayed
on a lake like this. And if someone said whoa whoa what was
that like? You probably would say oh it's out of this world.
Like at night we could see the northern lights. Uh at night we
could see lightning bugs flying around. You might describe it
as out of this world. Something that was just really really fun
enjoyable and beautiful I think. All of those things.
Captivating. So I would say captivating fits in the same
category for me as mesmerizing. When I think of something
that's captivating it's again when you're appreciating
something so much you you just you just can't stop watching.
When you go to a concert when you go to a show if something
just you know you visually it's amazing. When you hear things
it's amazing. Um we would just say it's captivating. When
people dance it can be captivating. When people play
an instrument it can be captivating. It just means that
They do it well to the point where you just really enjoy
watching them do it. Worth it. So this is a phrase that people
have asked me about people who are learning English. What does
worth it mean? Well worth it means that something you did
something and you're glad that you did it. Hey have you ever
gone to Disneyland? Yeah I went last year. Was it worth it? Oh
it was totally worth it. We had so much fun. And the flip side
would be no it wasn't worth it. We didn't have any fun and it
was really expensive. So when you describe something as being
worth it. We're not Always talking about money but a
little bit. You know. Was the concert worth it? Oh yeah. I
totally would go again. It was totally worth it. I don't mind
that I spent $100 to see Ed Sheeran it was worth it. So
you're what you're saying is the amount of money you spent
or the time you spent was valuable to you. You were like
yes this was a good decision. Uh I was happy that I did this.
Over the top. When we say something is over the top. We
mean it's amazing but it might even be like almost too much. A
good example would be this. If you go to a concert and you see
that they have giant screens everywhere. Like they actually
have more screens than they need. You could say oh that it
was just over the top. They went over the top for that
concert. I mean there were 27 big screens in the stadium. So
when you say over the Top. You mean you were expecting
something to be this good and it was even better but maybe in
a slightly crazy way. It was over the top. My lessons are
not over the top. My lessons are as good as they need to be.
That's how I would describe them. Hard to follow. Now this
one is similar to the first one we look at looked at we talked
about hard to understand. When you say that something is hard
to follow. If you said well the class it was hard to follow. Or
the prof he was hard to follow. Um it doesn't mean you're
walking behind them. It means you're having trouble
understanding. You might be experiencing this when you
watch my videos I might talk too fast for you and you might
find that it's hard to follow the lesson. So when you
describe something as hard to follow it means you're having
trouble understanding it. Maybe your why a lot of English
television and in some cases you can understand what's
happening but with other shows you find it hard to follow,
hard to understand. Nasty. Now the word nasty has a lot of
different meanings. When I think of describing a situation
and using the word nasty I usually think of a storm. So
sometimes we'll just have a really nasty storm at night.
That means there's lots of wind and lightning and rain and
thunder. Uh it's just a crazy storm. So when you describe
something as nasty. It means that it's not pleasant. So you
would describe something nasty as being enjoyable. You would
say oh that was a nasty storm last night. I hope trees didn't
blow over in the wind. It was nasty. Remarkable. So when you
describe a situation as remarkable. Um you're basically
saying it's something you'll remember for a long time.
You're saying that you did enjoy yourself. Let's say you
visit a city somewhere. And you just really enjoyed all of the
buildings you saw. You could say oh it's just remarkable. I
went to Toronto and it was remarkable. Um it could also be
that you're impressed. Like maybe you just thought wow
they've built some really beautiful buildings in this
city. Uh it is definitely remarkable. So memorable would
be another word you could use. But remarkable simply means
that you liked it a lot. Puzzling. When you find a
situation puzzling it means that you were somewhere and you
needed to figure out something and you had trouble figuring it
out. I find it puzzling when I'm in a traffic jam because I
don't understand why it's happening and I don't know how
to get out of it. You just have to wait. So when you say
something is puzzling it means it's hard for you to understand
either why it's happening or it's hard for you figure out
how to get out of the situation. Um let's say you
were sitting in a class in school and it was the wrong
class. You might say oh this is really puzzling. Why am I in
the wrong class and how do I what do I do now? So it's when
you're in a situation where you don't know how you you don't
know necessarily how you got there and you don't know how to
get out of it. By the way that was a pretty bad explanation of
puzzling. You should look that one up online to get a better
definition Um inspiring. When something is inspiring it makes
you want to do better things in your life. So the best example
would be maybe you went and listened to someone talk and
they talked about things you could do to do a better job at
work. Maybe your work sent you to a workshop and they had a
speaker there who taught you some techniques to be more
efficient at work. You could say that that that experience
was inspiring. It Caused you to change how you do certain
things in your life. It's why we have the term inspirational
speaker. Sometimes you go and hear a speaker and the person
can be described as inspirational. Um and you could
use that to describe the event as well. You could say oh that
workshop was inspiring or the workshop was inspirational. It
made me want to do things in a better way. Creepy. Whenever I
think of creepy I think about there's a lake close to my
house. And when I was a teenager there was an old house
on the lake. This is not it. This is just a picture. Uh it
was an old house on the lake and it had like all the windows
were broken. And one of my friends like to go there at
night to explore that house. And I found the house really
creepy. And I found the experience really creepy. Um we
would go with flashlights and we would kind of he was always
looking for old coins and those kinds of things. So I found it
very creepy. Um mostly because noone lived in the house. The
house was starting to fall apart. Uh and we would always
go at night. By the way if you watch any kind of horror movie.
You would probably say the movie was really creepy. And we
even have a phrase in English you could say oh it creeped me
out. So when something creepy it's a little bit scary. That
would be how I would describe it. Too much or overwhelming.
When you describe something as being too much or when you say
something was overwhelming. You're basically saying that
you weren't comfortable there. For me when I'm in a crowd of
people it's too much. It's too much for me. When I go to a
sporting event and it's crowded like this it's too much. When I
go to the a store and if the music's really loud it's too
much for me. So it's when something is uncomfortable it's
when you don't like something it's when usually your senses
maybe your sense space or your sense of touch or hearing or
smell there's just too much happening and you would say you
would use too much to describe it like oh I went to the
concert and I was in the front row but it was too much for me.
It was it was too loud. It was too crowded. It was too much. I
did not like it at all. It was overwhelming. And we use this
phrase a lot by the way. Too much. Um yeah it was just too
much for me. Mystical. Whenever I think of an experience that's
mystical it's usually something that happened early in the
morning. I was on a trip once for school. Uh and I couldn't
sleep because of the time change. And so I went for a
walk before the sun came up. And I would say that walk that
experience was very mystical. Um I saw the sunrise. Um there
were no people around. I was just in nature. So I would say
Mystical is a beautiful feeling you get usually from being in
nature at a time when something cool is happening like a
sunrise or a sunset. Um maybe you're walking along the ocean
hearing the waves and watching the sun go down. You might say
that it's that's a very mystical experience. And then
of course we have magical which is very very similar. Magical
would again be used to describe an experience that you just
really enjoyed and was really fun it was very very
interesting and it made you feel really really cool inside.
Like if I visited this castle I would probably say the
experience of visiting the castle was very magical. Um I
felt like I was in another time and place.
A zoo. So I used this phrase in a short lesson a few weeks ago.
I said ah it was a zoo. So the best example I can come up with
for describing a situation as a zoo would be Black Friday in
North America. So Black Friday is a day in November where the
stores have really cheap things. So for one day you can
buy all kinds of things like TVs and other items for not
very much money. But it's a zoo. People line up in the
morning. When they open the doors it looks like this
literally. People run in and they they fight over things and
they get mad and they yell at each other and everyone's
trying to buy the same thing at the same time. I would describe
that as a zoo. Ah it was a zoo. Sometimes my classes my
students have lots of energy. And they're having trouble
sitting in their seats. And when I come home I might say
Jen Might say how were your classes? And I might say oh it
was a zoo today. Um you do know what a zoo is right? A zoo is a
place where there's lots of animals. So when we use this
phrase when we describe something as a zoo we're
basically saying people are acting crazy in that situation.
Nuts. So this is a very informal way to describe
something similar to when you say something was a zoo. Every
time Apple comes out with a new phone people line up for hours
at the Apple Store in their city to get the new phone. And
I just think this is nuts. When you say something is nuts. It
means you're like I don't know why people do that. They're a
little bit crazy maybe. I wouldn't do that. I just think
it's nuts. You can also use nuts to describe something like
this. You could say oh it was nuts at the store. There were
so many people there and they were all trying grab the same
thing. So when you say something is a zoo or when you
say something is nuts it's very very similar. Both very
informal. Uh but both quite common. A ghost town. So a
ghost is like a spirit of someone after they've died. I
don't really believe in ghosts. But when you have a town with
no people in it we call it a ghost town. We also describe
something where there are no people as a ghost town. If I
went to the grocery store in the middle of the night it
would be a ghost town. There wouldn't be any people in the
store except for the cashiers. So you can use ghost town to
describe anything I was going to say that is devoid of
people. Do you know the word devoid? Uh this when something
is devoid of something it means that it's not there. But when a
store is empty in the middle of the night you might describe it
as a ghost town. And then of course one other word on the
same level is packed. So we're talking about a place being
very crowded. Uh what was it like at the grocery store? It
was packed. There were so many people there. What was it like
at the restaurant? The was packed, we had to wait an hour
to get a seat. So when you say something is packed, it means
it is very very crowded. It means that there are a lot of
people there. And then pleasant. When you describe
something as being pleasant it means that you enjoyed it. I
lot of times I think about conversations. We sometimes
describe conversations as being pleasant. Oh I had a really
pleasant conversation with my mom the other day. That means I
had a nice conversation. An enjoyable conversation. It
means I smiled a lot during the conversation. So when you
Describe an event a situation or an experience as pleasant.
It means it made you happy. It was nice. Energizing. When I go
for a walk it's energizing. You would think if I went for a
walk I would be tired after my walk. But any kind of exercise
I do actually gives me more energy for the day. When I go
for a walk I'm more alert. I'm more awake. I'm very very
energized. So you could say that working out is energizing.
It gives you energy. Refreshing. When you describe
something as being refreshing it means that you've done
something differently or you've done something that just makes
you feel very very calm and peaceful. Um when you go to
maybe yoga class which I've never really done I don't
think. I think you would think it's very refreshing. You might
even say it's a breath of fresh air. So at work sometimes we do
something different. And it's very refreshing. Sometimes we
eat lunch outside instead of eating lunch inside and it's
very refreshing. We're doing something new in a different
place and it's kind of a breath of fresh air. Exhausting. So I
tried to find a picture of someone babysitting or taking
care of young children. Uh because that can be exhausting.
When you do something that makes you very tired. When you
do something that makes you unhappy tired. Maybe you have
to do it for a long time. We describe it as exhausting. You
could describe your job as exhausting. If I had a job
where I had to lift bricks all day. I would come home say work
was exhausting today. The experience was exhausting. So
it just means something that made you very very tired.
Harrowing. So a harrowing experience is an experience
that was very stressful. A car accident would be a harrowing
experience. If you were in a store and the store got robbed
that would be a harrowing experience. When we say
something is a harrowing experience it's very stressful
it's probably something bad that has happened. Um and it's
probably something like the two examples I just gave you. Um
certainly if you are in a car accident it's a very harrowing
experience. It's frightening. It's stressful. It is not
pleasant at all. Exhilarating. I'll say that word again.
Exhilarating. Probably a hard word for English learners to
learn to pronounce. But when something is exhilarating it it
means it's very very exciting. So when you go on a roller
coaster it's definitely exhilarating. It's something
that it's not that you're afraid but it's something that
gives you an adrenaline rush. Do you know what adrenaline is?
Your body releases adrenaline when you do something slightly
scary or exciting or fun or extreme like going on a roller
coaster. But certainly at the end of each school year as a
school we sometimes go to an amusement park. And when I go
on the roller coaster it's exhilarating. So I want to say
it's like scary but in a good way. Does that make sense? Like
it's a little bit scary but it's also a lot of fun. It's
kind of a mixture of the two. Well organized. I love going to
events that are well organized. I love it when I'm in a
situation at work. And someone has organized something and
it's just well organized. It's so nice it's just a better
experience when it's well organized. I sometimes go to
teacher conventions. And I really like when the convention
is well organized. So everything runs on time.
There's a schedule for the day. Lunch is ready when lunch
starts. You don't have to wait for lunch. So everything
whoever is in charge has organized the event well and
it's well organized. As opposed to a mess or a disaster. So you
can describe something as a mess. Even if it's not messy.
Okay so a mess is when let's say after you eat in your
kitchen. Maybe you eat takeout and there's just stuff
everywhere we say it's a mess. But if you go to an event
that's not well organized you could say it's a mess. So maybe
it was supposed to start at nine and it doesn't start till
ten. Um maybe they they had a microphone and the microphone
stopped working. And then everyone was supposed to have
lunch at noon but lunch wasn't ready until 1230. You would say
ah the whole day was a mess. It was a disaster. It was not well
organized. So when you say something's a mess it's the
opposite of saying that it's well organized. Excruciating.
Another word that's probably hard to pronounce.
Excruciating. When something is excruciating it's really hard
to watch or listen to because it might be boring. It might be
very badly done. It might just be maybe you can tell they
weren't well prepared. A good example Would be listening to
someone play a musical instrument when they're not
good at it but they play a really long song. So when I was
I used to go to piano recitals. And children would play piano.
And most of the children would have really good songs and play
them. But every once in a while one of the kids would play a
song and you could tell they hadn't practiced very much. And
it was excruciating Basically means it was it's really hard
to sit there and listen to because it wasn't well done and
they weren't well prepared. Excruciating.