Hi there, this is Harry and welcome back to advanced English lessons with Harry,
where I tried to help you to get a better understanding of the English language help
you with your conversational skills help you to prepare for those proficiency exams. Or indeed,
if you wish to, or you're planning on going for another job or job interview with an international
company, and you want to prepare and improve your English ahead of that particular interview. Well,
we're here to help you. And if you need to contact me, then you can do
so on www.englishlessonviaskype.com and I'll help you as much as I can.
So in this advanced English lesson, we're looking at adjectives used for describing sounds,
and noises. So so this will make it easier for you to describe those types of sounds to describe
those sorts of noises. particularly good for your written English. And particularly good if you're
preparing for proficiency exams, you've got some different words that you can use when you have to
describe a noise, or you have to describe a sound. So that's such just a bang, okay, so we just have
different ways in which we can do it. So I'll give you examples as we go through these. And if you
have any other questions on them, I've given you the contact details, you can contact me I can give
you more information if you need it. So we've got nine particular words connected with sound,
and another four connected with noises and if you need more than I can prepare other videos
if you just drop me a line and let me know what you want to hear. Okay, let's start.
So we'll start off with sounds. The first one is buzzing. Buzzing is a buzzing like a bee. So you
get the sound of the bee or you can have a buzzing in your ear. So if you've got a bit of a headache,
you might hear a buzzing in your ear. Now this is not anything connected with
Toy Story that great wonderful series of movies, I think for Toy Story 1,2,3 and
4. I watched him with my kids when they were growing up. So his name was buzz.
But this is buzzin it's the sound the noise the buzzing of the bees. Buzzing, buzzing.
Number two crashing crashing like a car crash or glasses falling to the ground. big crash
you know if you're sitting in a coffee shop and you hear this tray dropping and all the sources,
the cups, the glasses are broken, but they there's a crashing sound. Okay,
so it's you feel very embarrassed and sorry for the poor waiter or waitress that has to sweep up
the mess but these sorts of problems happen. Okay, so crashing sound a crashing of broken glass.
Number three creaking an eerie sound the creaking usual usually of doors
or floorboards in old castles or old mansion houses. So you get
that creaking sound you know if you're watching one of these thriller movies,
I don't really like those sort of horror movies. But you always get that or the noise of the door
opening and nobody's there or the creaking of the stairs as somebody is trying to creep up
the stairs or down the stairs or along the hallway. But the old floorboards seem to
be speaking or you hear that noise that the word has expanded over the years. So the creaking now.
The next word is to describe not a particular noise, but it's a distant sound. Okay, a distant
sound could be a distant sound of thunder. So it's not right overhead, but it's something
you can hear that's many many kilometres away, but it's very recognisable, the distant sound,
the distant sound of a car horn you know exactly how a car horn sounds, but it's not outside your
window. It's in the distance. Yeah, so the distant sound something that's not so close.
The next is a distinctive sound. And again here it's not a particular sound,
but it's a distinctive sound of something like a particular bird,
the distinctive sound of a goal. You know, the seagulls that make a lot of noise and
they're looking for food. Their noise is very distinctive. The calling of that seagull is
it's trying to find food distinctive, the distinctive sound of a train, you know,
when you hear a train coming along the tracks. It's a very distinctive sound. It's not the same
as a car or a bus. It's very distinctive to a train travelling on the track. That distinctive
sound when you're sitting on a train, and you hear the noise at the train goes over the tracks.
And then number six is a faint sound. And again, a faint sound is a very,
very slight sound something you can almost not hear. When you might say to somebody,
Did you hear that? No, I didn't hear anything. I'm sure I could hear something the faint sound
perhaps of a baby crying in the distance or the faint sound of a dog howling or barking
when the dog is in pain or in trouble or has been left abandoned. That faint sound
you can just pick it up. It's just about audible but not so clear, faint sound.
Number seven is a muffled sound and a muffled sound is where somebody tries
to prevent the noise from annoying somebody so they speak under their
breath and muffled sound. Or if there are two people in the room beside you,
they are speaking but because you've got a big thick wall between you and them,
you don't hear distinctly what they're saying. But you certainly hear the muffled sound of a
conversation or the muffled sound of laughing you're not quite sure who is saying what you're
whether it's a man or a woman or it's somebody who knows somebody who don't know because it's not so
distinctive, but it is muffled muffled by the thickness of the wall or the glass between you,
but you can hear it and it can be quite annoying, but unfortunately, it's not so distinctive that
you know exactly who has said what are what has been said exactly. Okay, so the muffled sounds.
Number eight rumbling now this is a particular sound that we hear all the time. When there's a
storm in the area. We get the rumbling of thunder as it rolls across the sky and you you're waiting
for that flash of lightning that will invariably follow Yeah, so the rumbling of the thunder,
then the flashing of the of lightning as it lights up the sky. Okay, particularly at nighttime really
nice when you're at home, watching out the window or listening as you're in bed to the rumbling of
the thunder. You can also have rumbling, as big heavy articulated lorries go through the town or
the streets of your, your town or your city is a very busy thoroughfare and the road runs through
the city and when big articulated trucks are travelling, you can hear that rumble you know
the noise they make their big heavy wheels and four or five trucks coming together makes a lot
of sound almost like thunder, but the rumbling of the big wheels of these articulated trucks.
And last number nine rustling. Now that's the noise we hear when the wind blows particularly in
the autumn time. You've got a lot of dry leaves around the ground, the leaves have fallen but
there's not so much rain around so the leaves are quite dry. When the wind blows, you get the
rustling sound of leaves. And then they blow here they blow there and then the people come
to sweep them up or clean them up. Or if you're going for a run or a walk what kids love to do,
they still do it. I did it. They love to run through the big piles of the leaves in the park
and you get that rustling sound as they kick the leaves here and there and the wind picks them up
and blows them around. Okay, the rustling of the leaves. And even when the wind blows through the
trees and the leaves are a little dry you get that rustling sound also it's nice to listen to
on a quiet windy day. rustling Okay, that's the nine particular words adjectives connected with
sound. So let's look now at just noise. I've got four particular words connected with noise
adjectives as to how we can describe it. Number one banging while usually a door bangs Okay, so
if somebody hasn't closed the door correctly and the window is open, and the wind blows in, bang,
the banging of the door bang, the banging of the heavy door. So you have to close the door properly
or close the window or close both to avoid that really irritating noise you're sitting trying to
study and you hear this constant bang, bang, bang some doors left open and you're getting a little
bit frustrated. Or when the children when I was at school, we had these old old desks that used
to lift up the front and used it just let it drop and bang and the teacher used to get really really
good idea so that that banging of the tops of the desks as used to open it to get your pencils or
your books out banging number two constant. So we use this a constant noise is something that
is continuous, okay, the constant noise of birds singing in the morning. It's really beautiful to
hear in the spring in the summer. But if you've got lots of birds nests in the trees beside you,
particularly the bigger birds like crows, you're magpies and the noise can be really,
really annoying and frustrating, you've got this constant noise, particularly between your five in
the morning and seven, when they all seem to wake up and they're looking for foods,
the constant noise and a constant noise, something that is continuous, we're going to have a constant
hum so that the traffic going by the window if you live near a main street, then there's
always the noise of traffic constant there, the the traffic going up and down the street,
the screeching of tires or somebody breaks, then the screeching tires or somebody accelerates away
from the traffic lights. So that's constant noise, particularly in the big and the really busy busy
cities excessive well excessive noise means noise over and above what you'd expect. So on a building
site for a period of time that can be excessive noise, particularly at the beginning when they
are drilling down to make the foundations or they are digging the holes to the foundations and they
come across some rock then have to use these pile driving machines to break up the rock.
So you hear the duh duh duh duh duh and you get the drilling and the banging and the knocking and
the screeching all the noise is associated with a very busy building site in case of this excessive
noise. And you see warning notices, you know neighbours or occupants of apartments are told
to avoid excessive noise. They don't disturb the other neighbours. So if you've got an apartment
block of 10 floors and you're living on the fourth of fifth and somebody above you or somebody below
you constantly playing music late at night and this is excessive noise that is not normally
acceptable in by the management companies who run these apartment blocks. You can't use dishwashers
or washing machines after a certain time because the noise is excessive. And it disturbs people.
So excessive noise is to be avoided at all times. And then finally incessant, while incessant means
continuous, but usually in a negative way really, really aggravating, annoying, or I had to listen
to the incessant ranting and raving of my boss he went on forever, or it seemed to go on forever. He
got really annoyed and frustrated about something and of course he went on and on it was incessant
almost non stop, or the incessant noise of a baby screaming in her apartment near you know
we've all had it when our children scream and we can put up with it because they're our children.
But it's very strange when the baby is somebody else's baby and that y'all you hear all night or
appears on night, a baby crying It's an incessant noise. So something that is continuous, something
that you might find a little bit aggravating or a little bit annoying. Okay, so there are particular
adjectives connected with noise, and also then are adjectives connected with sound. I'll run through
them one more time quickly. Okay, so the sounds the buzzing noise like buzzing of bees, crashing
the crashing sound of waves crashing against the rocks. creaking the creaking of my bones as I'm
old and I tried to walk out creaking my bones seem to creak. The distant sound of thunder distant.
Distinctive, very clear, Distinctive sound that a girl makes the faint sound something really far
away the faint sound and muffled sound of voices in the room next door. The rumbling of the thunder
and the rustling of the leaves and then the noises banging the banging of the door the banging of the
window the constant banging all of the time. Constant. Excessive noise. Excessive shouting,
excessive screaming and finally incessant that something that continues hour after
hour after hour after hour incessant something really irritating and annoying.
Okay, so they're all our sounds and noises, practice them. Use them in your particularly
in your written English if you're doing exams and IELTS or the Cambridge exams,
whatever it is, these are the sorts of words that you need to know you need to
practice and you need to understand and look out for some other words that mean the same
or different noises and different sounds because there's something you know roar,
the roaring have lines, bark, the barking of dogs, these are all different sounds. So see
what other sounds you can find out and if you need to contact me, or you can do so.
And if you do, and like this particular lesson, then please like the video and
if you can subscribe to the channel, because it really really helps. Okay, this is Harry saying,
Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. And as always, join me for the next lesson.