Speaker 1: 0:04

Well, hello there. You're listening to the English Like A Native podcast, the podcast that's designed for lovers and learners of English. I'm your host, anna, and today we are doing some pronunciation. Hello everyone, in this episode we will be learning how to correctly pronounce some tricky words that are commonly used in conversations with medical professionals. Though these words may seem specific to doctors, many of them are, in fact, widely known and used, so today we shall be focusing specifically on cardiovascular health Vascular. Now. That in itself is a big word. Let's just take a quick look at this. Let's break it down. So we have cardio Cardio.

Speaker 1: 1:03

This refers to anything heart related. You'll often hear people in the gym talking about doing a cardio workout. They may say, oh, I'm not going to lift weights today, I'm just going to do cardio. In this context, cardio refers to exercise that greatly raises your heart rate. You're exercising your heart. A cardio workout could involve activities such as running, rowing or cycling. It's a workout that raises the heart rate, makes you feel out of breath and, if you're doing it properly, it should make you sweat. I always use that as my measure of how much I've worked. When I've finished doing my cardio, I look at myself and say am I sweaty enough? Have I done enough work today? So cardio doesn't really focus on building muscle. Cardio is all about the heart.

Speaker 1: 2:10

Now, vascular, cardiovascular. Vascular refers to your blood vessels. Your vascular system is your body's network of blood vessels. Therefore, cardiovascular refers to your heart and blood vessels. These two things are part of the same network. Your heart is the pump that pumps the blood around your vascular system. Now, doctors who specialize in these areas of the body are called cardiologists. Cardiologists. Cardiologists are heart specialists and vascular surgeons Vascular surgeons. A vascular surgeon is a blood vessel specialist. Hopefully, you'll never have a reason to visit a cardiologist or a vascular surgeon, but if you do, fingers crossed that you are in good hands. Now I promised you that we would look at pronunciation, so let's begin with that word that we've just been looking at Cardio vascular. It has six syllables. Repeat after me Cardiovascular, cardiovascular. Now the tricky part of this word is the end Vascular Killer, killer. We need that. It's quite tricky to explain this on podcast, so we need that. Y sound as if you're saying the word you Y, y. So the back of your tongue is touching the roof of your mouth. So it's you, not me, but you, you-la Cula, vascular, vascular. And then you've got to move your tongue tip up to touch the roof of the mouth, the tip of the mouth, for the la Vascular Vascular. Many students will struggle with the L sound. The L is made with the tip of the tongue at the front, touching the roof of the mouth. So here you've got the y, which is the back of the tongue touching the roof of the mouth, followed by la, the tip of the tongue. So you've got to move the back and then the front, the back, the front, the back, the front, like a seesaw Vascular, vascular, vascular. And you may notice that I don't pronounce the final syllable, which is a-r. We don't pronounce this as r vascular, vascular. Instead it's pronounced as a schwa sound, the uh sound.

Speaker 1: 5:12

Vascular, vascular, vascular, vascular. Okay, vascular Vascular. So the whole word is cardiovascular, cardiovascular. All right, so here are 10 words that are related to cardiovascular health. Now the first one is hypertension. Hypertension. You might also know this as high blood pressure, high blood pressure. So whether you're saying I've got high blood pressure or you're using the medical term hypertension, you must pronounce the h and this is just like a breath out, an audible breath, hypertension and high blood pressure, high Per Ten Shun. Hypertension, hypertension, hypertension have you ever had hypertension Right?

Speaker 1: 6:27

Moving on from hypertension, we're going to something that we all should keep an eye on, which is our cholesterol. Cholesterol is the fatty substance in the blood that can contribute to heart disease. So you want to keep your level of cholesterol low. You don't want lots of fat in your blood because it can block your vessels, can block your veins and cause you to have all sorts of problems with your heart. So we often work towards having low cholesterol Cholesterol. Now, this is a strange one because it starts with the letters C-H, which would normally be pronounced as ch-ch-ch-, like chair ch-ch-ch, but here it just represents a c sound, which is quite unusual. Cholesterol, cholesterol, all right. So this one is really tricky, probably the hardest one, for me as well Atherosclerosis.

Speaker 1: 7:42

Atherosclerosis Now atherosclerosis is very much a medical term. This refers to that buildup of plaque in the arteries that leads to reduced blood flow. So if you have high cholesterol it might lead to atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis Notice how I stop before saying it each time, because I have to prepare myself for that pronunciation. So this one has one, two, three, four, five, six syllables again ath, ath is the first one we have that th, ath, the th should be pronounced with the tongue between the teeth Ath, ath, ath, ath.

Speaker 1: 8:27

It doesn't have to come far out, but just touch the teeth with your tongue Tha, tha, tha, tha, tha, ath. And then we have a schwa, uh, atha, atha. Then we have row, like to row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Athero, athero, athero, athero. Life is but a dream. Athero, athero. And then we have this really tricky consonant cluster. We've got S K, l, s-k-l, s-k-l, s-k-l, s-k-l, s-k-l. Can you do that? S-k-l, s-k-l. And then we have row again, row, row, row again. Athero, s-k-l row, athero, s-k-l row. And we finish with a-sis Athero, s-k-l, row, s-s-s-s, athero, s-k-l, row, S-s-s-s, athero, s-k-l, row, s-s-s-s.

Speaker 1: 9:31

Okay, let's move on from that one to an easier, much easier phrase or word. It's not a phrase, it's a word, anna, come on. It's the word angina, angina, angina, angina, angina, angina is like a pain in your chest, or a discomfort in your chest, where your heart is, which is caused by reduced blood flow to the heart. Oh, oh, pain, pain, pain, my angina. I need my angina tablets.

Speaker 1: 10:10

Another slightly tricky one is o-rhythmia, o-rhythmia. This has another T-H in it and it has an awful spelling O-rhythmia, o-rhythmia. So uh, schwa, uh rhythm. Here we have a voiced T-H, this time A-rhythm. So I want to hear that vibration. A-rhythm Me, uh, uh, rhythmia, O-rhythmia, o-rhythmia it's similar to word rhythm because it's all about the rhythm of the heart. It's an irregular heart rhythm O-rhythmia. Many people suffer with o-rhythmia later in their life.

Speaker 1: 10:59

Okay, so next we have myocardial infarction. I don't know why I find this funny. I think because I used to see this when I'm dyslexic, so sometimes I don't see words fully, I kind of skim them and then misinterpret them and I always used to read this as myocardial infaction, infaction. And then, when I was preparing for this video, I realised that it's infarction, which just seems a bit funny to me Infarction. So for that second word, infarction, we have to open our mouth wide.

Speaker 1: 11:47

Infarction this is a technical term for a heart attack. Most of us would just say heart attack. I'm having a heart attack, he's going to have a heart attack. Don't play squash, you'll have a heart attack, heart attack. But if you're a doctor, speaking to a doctor or reading your medical notes, you might see the words myocardial. There's the word cardio, slightly different cardial Infarction. So this is a heart attack that occurs because the blood flow to the heart has been blocked Sounds very scary.

Speaker 1: 12:30

And then, even scarier still, we have congestive heart failure. Congestive heart failure you might notice that when I'm saying the word heart, I'm giving you a long R vowel and I'm not pronouncing the letter R or the sound R. I'm not saying heart, heart, heart. I'm just giving you a long vowel followed by a T Heart, heart, like. The art is beautiful. Who painted this? This is the most beautiful piece of art I've ever seen. This art is depicting a heart. Okay. So congestive, con con. Notice how C-O-N con I'm making it weak and saying con con. Congestive, congestive heart failure. Okay, and then I think this is the last one on the list. Maybe it's not. It's a list of 10, isn't it? I can't keep count.

Speaker 1: 13:41

Next we have coronary artery disease. Coronary artery disease Now, important. The word disease is quite a common word. It has two S's, but they are not pronounced as S. They're pronounced as a Z, disease, disease. So that is a really common mispronunciation that I hear. So if you take nothing else from this particular lesson, remember disease is full of Z's, or, as we say in British English, z's disease. So coronary, coronary, coronary. It's got lots of schwa sounds. So you have co car run, er re coronary rather than coronary, coronary coronary and then we have along ar for artery. Again, it's like the art of the heart artery artery, coronary artery disease. This is a condition in which the coronary arteries, which are the important blood vessels that supply the heart with blood the really big ones they become narrow or they become blocked, which is obviously a huge problem. So try to avoid getting coronary artery disease.

Speaker 1: 15:15

The next one is very common. It's a much smaller word and it's the word stroke. Stroke to have a stroke. If you have a stroke, then it means that the blood vessels supplying blood to the brain become somehow blocked or you have some sort of clot or bleeding that affects the supply of blood to the brain and this will cause you to have all of these terrible symptoms and if it's not caught early, it can be fatal. So this is often talked about. There's been a campaign running quite a lot recently reminding you how to spot a stroke in time, because you've got very little time to react when someone's having a stroke. So stroke. You've got that O and you've got STR at the beginning STR, str, str, str, str, str. Stroke, not stroke. It's not an O in the middle, it's an O stroke, stroke, stroke. Unfortunately, someone in my family had a stroke a few months ago. It was a complete shock, came out of nowhere. He is recovering but it's a long road back, unfortunately. So stroke very common, not a nice thing to deal with.

Speaker 1: 16:43

And the last thing on my list, before I move into a very exciting dialogue, is the word palpitation. Palpitation this is something I've probably said quite a lot lately. A palpitation is it's like when your heart does something unusual and you become aware of it. So it could be like a flutter of your heart or like suddenly a rapid heartbeat or an irregular heartbeat. So sometimes if your heart skips or double beats, you might feel it and you go oh, something, I felt something strange. That's a palpitation. A palpitation or suddenly if your heart stops throbbing unusually in your throat or having palpitations. People tend to have palpitations when they're stressed or if something's going on, and they would probably be checked for things like arrhythmia. Palpitations may go hand in hand with angina, that pain that you feel in your chest if there is a problem with the heart, like coronary artery disease. So, pal, make sure you get that. L pal pit te shun. A palpitation, a palpitation.

Speaker 1: 18:14

Okay, I think it's time for you to hear all of these words and little phrases in a dialogue. I had fun writing this one. It's a patient and a doctor. Ladies and gentlemen, here is a dialogue between a doctor with a terrible bedside manner and a hypochondriac. Good morning doctor.

Speaker 1: 18:41

I've been feeling this unbearable heaviness on my chest lately. I'm convinced it's a heart attack. Oh, no need to be so melodramatic, it's probably just indigestion. Have you been eating those greasy burgers again? Well, yes, I do enjoy an occasional burger, but I'm worried it's something more serious. I've had high blood pressure in the past, you know. Oh, come on A bit of hypertension never killed anyone. The World Health Organization says it contributes to around 13% of all deaths globally. Relax, it's not the end of the world. We'll check your blood pressure. But I'm sure it's just your overactive imagination. Should we check my cholesterol as well? Could that be causing this heaviness? Cholesterol, smellesterol I doubt you have an issue there. It's not like you're living on a deep-fried diet. Just cut down on french fries and you'll be fine.

Speaker 1: 19:41

Well, my real concern is atherosclerosis. I've read about it, doctor. It's a silent killer. What if I'm a ticking time bomb? You should be an actor You're so dramatic, unless you're a cheeseburger eating marathon runner. I highly doubt it.

Speaker 1: 20:01

Now let's focus on something more probable like you over reacting to a little discomfort. My mum had arrhythmia and my dad had congestive heart failure. Shouldn't we check for those? Look, if it makes you happy, we'll run an ECG to look at your heart rhythm. But it's more likely that you're just getting ahead of yourself. And of course, there's coronary artery disease. I've heard that that's a silent assassin. You're not exactly a heart disease poster child, my friend.

Speaker 1: 20:30

Just relax, take a deep breath and stop googling your symptoms. Would an ECG rule out a stroke? Doctor, better to be safe than sorry. What makes you think you're having a stroke? Well, my left arm was a bit numb when I woke up this morning. Let me guess you were sleeping on your left side, that's right, oh dear, what is it? A classic case of pins and needles caused by lying on your arm for a prolonged period. Now, is that all? No, I'm also having palpitations Palpitations. It's probably just caffeine addiction playing tricks on you. Cut back on the energy drinks and calm down. Thank you, doctor, for your reassuring words. I feel so much better now. You're welcome, I guess. Just remember not every little twinge means you have a heart problem. Stay calm, take care of yourself and try not to make a mountain out of a molehill. Now, please leave before you convince yourself you're on the verge of a cardiac arrest, or I may be forced to crack out the defibrillator Next.

Speaker 1: 21:46

Now I do hope you found today useful. I hope that it helped you a little with some vocabulary, medical understanding and pronunciation, of course, if you're a plus member. Thank you for your support. If you're a plus member, I will be providing some additional pronunciation resource to go alongside this lesson, so look out for that. I'll be sending it in an email for you. If you're not a plus member and you'd like to support this podcast, then your support would be greatly appreciated. All the support from plus members goes towards paying for the hosting of the podcast and the production of the almost flawless transcriptions that you see. Oh, it takes ages. Anyway, if you'd like to join, then you will be rewarded with bonus material and exclusive episodes and pronunciation resources. So thank you so much. If you're interested, there is a link in the description or in the show notes. I do hope to see you again soon, or I hope to tickle your eardrums. Until next time, take care and goodbye.