Hello and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast. My name is Anna and you're listening to Week 44, Day 4 of Your English Five a Day. It is my mission to help you to improve your English listening skills, expand your vocabulary and be relatively entertained doing whatever it is you're doing right now. So let's start today's episode with the verb unsettle. Unsettle. Unsettle. We spell this U N S E T T L E, unsettle. To unsettle someone is to make them feel worried or uneasy. Sometimes you don't have to do much to unsettle someone. Sometimes, just body language or certain type of behaviour can be unsettling to others. For example, if you visit London and you sit on the Tube, it's generally the kind of unspoken rule that you just don't look at anyone. No one makes eye contact. Everyone just looks at their phone or at their magazine or down at the floor. Nobody looks at each other. So if you sat there and stare at someone, then you're going to unsettle them. They're going to feel unsettled. Okay, so here's another example,"The creepy noise from the attic started to unsettle Max, especially when he was home alone." Alright. What unsettles you? To be honest, I am the kind of person who is easily unsettled at night if I hear a creak or any kind of bang. And I do have a slightly mischievous kitten. I say kitten, he's one now, so he's a young cat rather than a kitten. But he tends to bang around downstairs and knock things over, and sometimes he can make a loud crash noise downstairs. And I still, even though I know it's probably the cat, I still feel a little bit unsettled by it. So it still unsettles me, any kind of noise at night time. I should probably just wear earplugs and forget about it. Next on the list is a phrasal verb and it is pass down, pass down. We spell this P A S S, pass. Down, D O W N, pass down. To pass down is to give something to a younger person in the family and it usually goes from generation to generation. So, a grandfather may pass down a family heirloom to his child, the parent, and then the parent may then pass that down to the children in the family once they are old enough to be responsible for this family heirloom. In some families, there are certain items of jewellery that are passed down, so a ring, a wedding or engagement ring, may be passed down from generation to generation for many, many years, for decades. My grandmother passed away and I have many items of furniture. I even have a statue in my garden that was from my grandmother's garden, but that's different. My grandmother passed away. She hadn't given these things to me. She passed away and they were left behind. And so when we had to clear her home and sort out all her belongings, we divided up some of the nicer items between the family. She hadn't given any of these items to me. There was an item of jewellery that my grandmother passed on to me. So that, I can say, was passed down. She wanted me to have it and I will pass something down to my children. Okay, so here's another example,"Grandma passed down her secret cookie recipe to me, and now everyone says I bake the best cookies in the family." Okay, next on the list is the noun reflection, reflection. We spell this R E F L E C T I O N, reflection. A reflection is the image of something seen in a mirror or shiny surface. So we've all seen our reflection. We've all seen many things reflected. Have you ever done that thing where you're walking down the street and you walk past a big shop window that's slightly shiny or a car window and you just need to check yourself? You need to check how you're looking. I did it the other day. I was on my bike and I was cycling quite fast and I know that I look quite ridiculous in my cycling helmet. Although I don't have many mirrors in my house, I used to have a huge mirror by my front door so I could check myself before I left to make sure I looked good, make sure I look presentable, respectable. But that fell down off the wall and smashed and I've never replaced it. So now I don't have a way of checking myself before I leave the house. We only have one mirror upstairs in the bathroom. I was on my bike and I realised that I probably looked quite ridiculous. And so I was trying to catch a glimpse of myself in one of the car windows. But I was going so fast that I was just constantly turning my head past every car, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, trying to catch a glimpse of my reflection in a car, but I was cycling at great speed, so it didn't work out. I just looked even more ridiculous with my crazy head switching and my silly helmet, but silly in appearance, not silly from a safety point of view. Very sensible from a safety point of view. You must wear a helmet when you cycle. Okay, here's another example,"When I looked into the pond, I could see the reflection of the bright blue sky and fluffy clouds." Oh, I love it when you come across a body of water that's absolutely still. It's so still it looks like a mirror and it reflects the sky and the surrounding area. Beautiful, especially if you're out on a hike and you're in the mountain and it's just absolutely gorgeous, like a glacial lake or something reflecting the mountains and the sky, the trees. Beautiful. Okay, next on the list is the adjective inexplicable, inexplicable. We spell this I N E X P L I C A B L E, inexplicable. Inexplicable. I like that word, inexplicable. Inexplicable. If something is described as inexplicable, then it's impossible or very, very hard to explain or understand. It's inexplicable. Absolutely inexplicable. I can't understand it and I certainly don't know how to explain it. Here's an example,"It was inexplicable how the cat managed to open the door by itself, but there it was, walking through like it owned the place!" Okay, last on the list is the phrase catch a glimpse. Now you heard me saying that earlier. I was trying to catch a glimpse of myself in the car windows. Catch a glimpse. We spell this C A T C H, catch. A glimpse, G L I M P S E, glimpse, glimpse. To catch a glimpse. To catch a glimpse means to see something for a very short time. Okay, so you try to catch a glimpse of something if you're just trying to quickly look at it, or you might accidentally catch a glimpse of something as you're just walking around, just doing your thing, and then you catch a glimpse of something. You just see something very quickly. Here's an example sentence,"I was lucky to catch a glimpse of the shooting star before it disappeared into the night sky." There has been many sightings recently of The Northern Lights, The Aurora Borealis, because there's been a lot more activity. I don't know the proper vocabulary for it, but that kind of scientific stuff that I find quite inexplicable has been happening more and more this year that means on a clear night, we've been able to see some of The Northern Lights here in the UK, which is really exciting. Unfortunately, I've been unable to catch a glimpse of it because I live in, well, on the outskirts of London, I live in Greater London, and there's a lot of light pollution here, so it's very hard to find a spot that's dark enough to really see the night sky. Plus, I think you have to be up very, very late. And I've got children who wake up around 6 am every day. So I have to get to bed by about 10 o'clock. So I've missed out. I haven't been able to catch a glimpse of it. But that's our five for today. So let's do a quick recap. We started with the verb unsettle. Which is to make someone feel worried or uneasy. Then we had the phrasal verb to pass down, which is to give something to a younger person in the family, and it usually goes from generation to generation, something special. Then we had the noun reflection, reflection, which is the image of something that's seen in a mirror or on a shiny surface. Then we had the adjective inexplicable, which is something that's impossible to explain or understand. Then we had the phrase catch a glimpse, which is to see something for a very short time. Okay, let's do this now for pronunciation purposes. Please repeat after me. Unsettle. Unsettle. Pass down. Pass down. Reflection. Reflection. Inexplicable. Inexplicable. Catch a glimpse. Catch a glimpse. Fantastic. Okay, if I'm sitting in my living room, it's 11 o'clock at night, I'm alone, and then suddenly I hear a crash in the kitchen, and I feel quite worried suddenly. I feel uneasy. What verb could I use to describe what this sound did to me? It unsettled me. Yes, absolutely. And as I run into the kitchen, I run past a mirror and I suddenly see something for a very short time in the mirror. What phrase would I use to describe seeing something for a very short time? I catch a glimpse. Yes, I catch a glimpse of something in the mirror and it frightens me. I don't know what it was. I go back and I realise it was just an image of myself in the mirror. What is it in the mirror? It's my reflection. Yes. I realise my worry was just unfounded. It was all in my mind. And then when I'm in the kitchen, I see a glass jar full of flour has been smashed all over the floor, but in the flour, there is a message. And this is impossible to explain or understand how this message was written in the flower on the floor. How can I describe this message being impossible to understand? It's inexplicable. It's inexplicable. I obviously run out of the house screaming never to return again. Now, finally, if my mother gives me something that her mother gave to her. What is she doing? She's passing down, she's passing something down to me that was passed down to her. Fantastic. Alright, listen out for these items once again in today's storytime. The old mirror in Emily's room had always unsettled her. It was an antique, passed down through generations, with a tarnished silver frame and a glass surface that seemed to ripple like water when she looked too closely. She tried to avoid it, but every time she walked by, her reflection caught her eye, drawing her in with an inexplicable pull. One night, as she was getting ready for bed, Emily noticed something strange. Her reflection didn't move with her. She blinked, sure she was imagining things, but when she turned away, she caught a glimpse of her reflection smiling, a wide, eerie grin that didn't match her own expression. Her heart raced. She slowly turned back to the mirror, but the reflection was normal again, mirroring her terrified face. She told herself it was just her imagination, the product of too many late-night horror movies. But as the nights wore on, it happened more frequently. The reflection would linger after she moved, staring back at her with those cold, knowing eyes. And then, one night, as she stood frozen in fear, her reflection stepped out of the mirror, leaving Emily to scream in silence as the darkness consumed her. And on that very light and cheerful note, I'm going to wrap up today's session. I do hope you enjoyed it and I hope that that story didn't unsettle you too much. Hopefully, you're listening to this in the broad daylight, in the middle of the morning commute, and so you're not feeling unsettled and nervous now. Okay. Until tomorrow, take very good care and goodbye.