Picture yourself sitting in a flight, ready to take
off and it's a four hours long flight, you have your newspaper in place and you even
have a neck pillow to rest and relax for four hours, so you're sitting on the seat and the
flight has taken off and you open up your newspaper to read and you're in a mood to
relax and then there is this kid behind you screaming, howling and pushing your chair
with their feet, what a surprise, no, not a surprise? Okay, what a nightmare… yes,
such a nightmare, as bad as a bad dream. Well this is a word that you can use to talk about
difficult situations and today in this lesson I'm going to teach you words and phrases that
you can use to talk about a difficult situation. Well after this lesson your problems are not
going to end but you can definitely talk about the difficult situations that you are having.
So keep watching with me my name is Michelle and you're watching me on your favorite Channel
Let's Talk. Great! Now let's start with the first word that we have, we are firstly going
to look at words and then some phrases, so the first word that we have as “predicament”.
Yes you say it like predicament. So predicament is a problem which is very hard to get out
of. So think divorce, is it easy to get out of divorce? No. Think of a financial problem,
can you easily get out of a financial problem? No. So both of these are examples of predicaments,
which means problems that are hard to get out of. Let's write it, ‘problems hard to
get out of’. So to use it in a sentence you could say that, “Bella is trying to
come out of her financial predicament”, which means financial crunch or financial
problem. Now let's look at the next word that we have to talk about difficult situations
“dilemma”. So dilemma is a problem when you have to choose between two options, right
or left, here or there, John or William, oops! So when you have to choose between two options
you're in dilemma. Let's write it ‘to choose between two’. So when it's very hard or
very difficult to choose between two situations or two options you use the word dilemma. Think
of a friend who has a job and then he got another offer, so this person got a new job
and they have also got another new offer which appears to be better. So that person is in
a dilemma you could say that “Rosh is in a dilemma because he doesn't know which job
to pick.” Okay with this we move on to the next word, “ordeal”. So ordeal is a very
very very bad experience which goes on for a long time, okay? ‘A bad experience that
goes on for a long time’. This word is used for very serious situations, like “when
terrorists capture some people, that's an ordeal” or “when someone is suffering
from a long-term sickness that's an ordeal”. So the worst disease that can come to my mind
is cancer. So a person suffering from cancer is going through an ordeal, an extremely difficult
situation and you use this word for serious situations. With this we move on “teething
trouble”. So have you seen a child who has his or her teeth coming out and they always
want to chew on something that's because it's paining in their mouth, when the teeth are
trying to come out, okay? So that is teething problem. Whenever you start a project or something
new there are always initial problems. So the first problems, first few problems when
you start something new are called teething problems or teething troubles. So you could
say that, “when we started the project we had the usual teething problems as expected.”
Which means the problems that come up when you start something. Now the next kind of
problem is a “juggling act”. So when you have to deal with too many things at one time
that's a juggling act. Basically too many problems at one time so think of a parent's
life, they have to deal with work and family as well so that is a juggling act. The life
of a parent is a juggling act and to use it in a sentence you could say that, “my life
is a juggling act between work and home”, this means you have to deal with too many
problems at once. ‘Deal with too many problems at once.’
Let's move forward the next word is “dead end”. So dead end means something to which
there is no progress. So for something where there is no progress you use the word dead
end. Let me tell you where this word comes from so when you're going in a car and you're
on your way to someplace and you see that there is one way for which there is no exit,
you mean it's closed, you can't get out of that way, the way is only till there, you
can't see what's ahead because there is nothing ahead of it. So when there is no progress
and you cannot go ahead in a problem that is a dead end. So to use it in a sentence
you could say that, “they have reached the dead end of their marriage”, which means
they can't go on anymore and there is not going to be any progress in the future. Okay,
now let's look at some more options this world is, “impasse”, yes! We do not pronounce
the last ‘E’, we only say impasse, so what is impasse? Impasse is also another kind
of problem, okay? It is a kind of problem to which there cannot be any agreement. So
when the people involved, cannot agree on anything that's an impasse. ‘Cannot agree’.
So to use it in a sentence you could use it in a more written way or when you're writing
something you could use the word impasse, you could say that, “the two countries have
reached a political impasse”, which means a political disagreement which is definitely
a very difficult situation. Now let's look at the next word this is pronounced as “stalemate”.
Yes! I'll repeat it for you stalemate. Now stalemate has a very similar meaning as impasse.
It means that a situation where no one can win, okay? ‘No one can win’. With this
one also you can use the verb ‘reach’, as you can use it with impasse. You could
say that, “the two countries have reached a stalemate”, which means none of them can
win from each other. Okay, so both of these words are used when you're writing an essay,
especially a political essay. Okay, now let's look at some very easy and fun words the first
one is a “headache”. So a pain in your head. When something is very boring to do,
it's called a headache. So you could say that, “filling the forms was a real headache”,
okay? Fine! Now let's look at the next one which is “pain”. Pain means something
which is very hard to do, okay, for which you need to put in a lot of effort. Something
which is hard to do. So what do you think is hard to do? Do you think it's easy to get
a visa for US? Not so easy. So you could say that, “getting the visa for US or for any
other country was a pain”, okay? Getting the visa for US was a pain or you could also
replace it with the word drag. Drag could also be used for something which is either
boring or something that is hard, so you could say that, “filling the forms was such a
drag”, it was so boring and so hard. Now we have the final word with which I started
the lesson I said, what a “nightmare”, which means ‘what a bad experience’. So
if you had a bad experience when going somewhere you could say that, “I hope the journey
back, would not be a nightmare”, which means I hope it would not be bad. Well I hope the
day is coming ahead for you would not be a nightmare and you will have a stress-free
easy and good time. I hope you get rid of your difficulties and if you can't then be
strong, deal with them, use all these vocabularies to talk about difficult times. So thank you
so much for staying with me till the end of the lesson, I'll see you guys very soon with
another lesson till then you take care bye-bye and have fun