Hello and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast. My name is Anna and you're listening to Week 32 Day 2 of Your English Five a Day. In this series, we are exploding your vocabulary and improving your English listening skills by focusing on five items every day of the working week from Monday to Friday. We start today's list with a noun and it is knack, knack. This begins with a silent K. Let's spell it K N A C K. Knack. Knack. Knack describes skill or ability to do something easily. So, we often say that someone has the knack or has a knack for something. So has the knack or has a knack for something. Here's an example sentence,"She has a real knack for learning languages she speaks five of them and she's only 20." My grandma had a knack for learning languages. She knew many languages and in fact, taught German and Japanese, which I just think is amazing. And I have a knack for reading people, for understanding a social environment, to get a sense of what someone is feeling or thinking. I also have a knack for hearing accents and nuances within pronunciation, which is why I do my pronunciation assessments. I can hear very easily what's going on and how certain sounds are being made within different people's vocal presentation. I have a knack for that. What do you have a knack for? Next on the list is the adjective domestic. Domestic. We spell this D O M E S T I C. Domestic. Domestic describes issues or matters relating to a family, a household, or your personal life. So for example, we often talk about arguments that are between family members or between a husband and a wife as a domestic argument. So, if you see two people shouting and screaming at each other on the street, you might wonder what's going on? Has a crime just happened? Has someone been assaulted? Was there a traffic incident? Did someone bump into someone else and now this is what we call road rage? And I might turn to my friend and say,"What's going on over there? Should we go in and help? What's happening?" And my friend would turn around and say,"Oh no, I know them. They're a couple. They're having a domestic, that's a domestic argument." Which we often shorten to simply domestic."They're having a domestic." But it's not just all about arguments. Domestic can be used to describe any kind of household or family administration or anything relating to household. For example, domestic residence would be a property in which a family live. Okay, so here's an example sentence,"The domestic dispute between Carla and Matt became increasingly heated last week. We even had to call the police out to settle things down." Next on the list is a noun, and it is chore. Chore. We spell this C H O R E. Chore. Chore. A chore is a job, or some sort of work, that is often boring and unpleasant, but needs to be done regularly, especially jobs that need to be done in the home. So, I might describe tasks and jobs that I do at work as being a chore because it's boring and repetitive and I don't want to do it."Oh, it's such a chore!" But when I say to you,"I've got chores to do, I'm spending the afternoon at home, I've got chores to do." Then I'm talking about the laundry, maybe cleaning the bathrooms, scrubbing the toilets, washing the bedding, changing the bedding, dusting, all that kind of thing. Chores. Here's an example,"Hoovering is one of my least favourite chores." That's not true actually. My least favourite chore is, as you might have guessed, cleaning toilets. We have three toilets in my house. One downstairs, a little kind of guest loo that's under the stairs. Tiny. One in the main bathroom and one in a separate shower room that we have. And, I just hate cleaning toilets. Especially when you've got three boys in the house. It's just always so messy. Not saying that boys are generally messier in the loos, but young children certainly are. Anyway, moving on from toilets, let's go on to our next item, which is an idiom, and it is, if the cap fits, wear it. Now, this is sometimes shortened to simply, if the cap fits, but the extended version is, if the cap fits, wear it. Cap, C A P. Fits, F I T S. If the cap fits, wear it, W E A R. Wear it. So, if the cap fits, wear it. This basically says that, if you're being criticised and that criticism is true, if it's based on truth, then you should accept it. So, if we're having a disagreement about household chores, domestic chores, and you turn to me and say,"Are you saying that I'm lazy?" Because I'm complaining that you never do anything around the house to help me with the chores. And you say,"Are you saying that I'm lazy?" I might simply say to you,"If the cap fits, wear it." And I'm just saying, accept the criticism because you know, it's true. Accept the criticism. Don't defend yourself. Don't fight back. Just accept it. And let's make a change. Okay, so, if the cap fits. Here's another example,"I know you don't like being called clumsy, but if the cap fits!" Last on the list is a phrasal verb, and it is clear out. This could be separated, so you clear something out, clear out. We spell this C L E A R, clear out. O U T. To clear something out is to tidy a place usually by removing the things that you don't want or need. For example,"I might clear out my wardrobe." So, maybe my wardrobe is full to the brim and I know there are a lot of items in there that I just don't wear. I don't need them and I don't want them to be honest. So, I'm going to clear my wardrobe out. I could also clear out a room, clear out a garden, clear out a house. I could ask people to clear out if they are on my property, in my house, in a room and I need them to leave. I'd be like,"Okay, can everyone clear out now, please?" Here's another example,"I clear out my email inbox once a week so that it doesn't become chaos." I wouldn't even want to show you any of my inboxes. I have multiple emails, as you could probably imagine, with multiple YouTube channels and things going on, and all of them are just terrible. Full of spam and unread messages. It's the outcome of having a very, very busy life. I never get around to fully, fully dealing with my inbox. Anyway, moving on from my chaos, let's recap today's list. We started with the noun knack, knack with a silent K, which is a skill or ability to do something easily. Then we had the adjective domestic. So, something that relates to family, household, or personal life. Then we had the noun, chore, which is a job or work that's boring and unpleasant, but it has to be done regularly. We had the idiom, if the cap fits, wear it. Which we say to someone when they should accept criticism that is based on truth. And last we had clear something out. So, to tidy a place by removing the things you don't want or need. Alright, let's do this now for pronunciation. Please repeat after me. Knack. Knack. Domestic. Domestic. Chore. Chore. If the cap fits, wear it. If the cap fits, wear it. Clear out. Clear out. Very good. Okay, let me test your memory. If you have a skill in something, you're just good at it. You've always been good at it. It comes easily to you. What noun could I use? You have a what? A knack. You have a knack for it. And if my friends are having an argument and you say,"What's going on over there?" And I'm saying,"Oh, well, they're having an argument about a family matter. They're in a relationship together." What adjective could I use to describe the nature of this argument? Domestic. Yes. And if I'm spending the afternoon at home because I need to do lots of boring jobs that I have to do every week, like the laundry, what am I doing? What noun could I use? I'm dealing with my what? Chores. Yes, I've got to do my chores. And if you're being criticised and the criticism is fair, then what idiom could I use to say, accept the criticism? If the cap fits, wear it. And if I say to you,"I need to empty my bedroom and get rid of all the things I don't want or need because I'm going to redecorate." What phrasal verb could I use to describe this removing of things? Clear out. Yes, I'm going to clear out my room, redecorate it, and next week it should look beautiful. Alright, listen out for these items in today's storytime.. Mia looked at the list of chores and sighed. Clear out the cupboard under the stairs."You've got to be kidding me," she muttered to herself. Domestic life wasn't for her. But her mum was away and had left her a list of jobs to do around the house. She said Mia needed to grow up and become more responsible."I'm not irresponsible, nor immature!" When Mia tried to defend herself, her mother had simply said: if the cap fits, wear it. It was one of her mum's favourite expressions. Her mum, of course, could never do anything wrong. But she had a knack for criticising others. As nice as it was to complain about her mother in her head, Mia knew she had to get on with the next job on the list, especially as her mum was supposed to come home that afternoon. She went to the cupboard but struggled to open the door as it was so full of junk. When she finally did, she heard a loud thud as a box fell off a shelf. That could have given me a concussion, she thought! As she got over the shock, she saw that the contents of the box had fallen onto the floor it was her mum's diaries from when she was a teenager, complete with photos. For a second, she wondered if she should read them. But it was too tempting. She had a quick look at the photos. She saw her mum as a teenager, looking annoyed to be in the photos, with her bad hair, spots and glasses such a contrast to how she looked now, with immaculate hair, makeup and clothes. Mia opened one of the diaries. She didn't have to read for long to discover her mum's criticisms of her own parents and family. On one page, her mum had written"I hate my family" in big letters. My mum and I have more in common than I realised, Mia smiled to herself. Feeling suddenly better about herself thanks to this unexpected discovery, Mia managed to find the motivation to clear out the cupboard! And that brings us to the end of today's episode. Remember, you can get your hands on the complete list of every item covered in every single week of the Five a Day Series just by accessing the master sheet, the Five a Day Master Sheet. There's a link in the description for you to get your hands on that. It's a huge Google spreadsheet that you can copy and do what you like with. Okay. I hope to tickle your eardrums again tomorrow. So, do tune in until then take very good care and goodbye.