In this mini episode, you will learn the differences between “sick,” “hurt,” and “broken.”
Episode 300 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you the differences between “sick,” “hurt,” and “broken.” Send your questions about English and your suggestions for future episodes to EverybodyESL@gmail.com! (And let me know if you’d like to record the introduction to a future episode.)
Intro
“Hello. This is Katherine, from South Korea. And you’re listening to Everybody ESL.”
Welcome to episode 300 of Everybody ESL, the podcast for everybody who wants to improve their English, practice their English, or just learn more English. My name is Ben, and I have a mini episode for you today, where I am going to teach you about one English topic. You can subscribe to the Everybody ESL podcast at Apple podcasts, on the Stitcher app, and wherever you find your podcasts. If you like Everybody ESL, leave it a good review so other people can find out about it too. And if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for me, please send an email to everybodyESL@gmail.com. Okay! Let’s get on with this mini episode.
The episode
In this episode, I am going to tell you about three words that have similar meanings, but they also have important differences. The three words are sick, hurt, and broken. Sick, hurt and broken.
And they are spelled s-i-c-k, h-u-r-t, and b-r-o-k-e-n. Sick, hurt, and broken.
Sick is a word that only refers to people and animals, and even plants. It refers to living things. If something is sick, that means that it does not feel good or it has some kind of disease or illness.
The important thing to know about the word sick is that it refers to the whole thing. It refers to the whole person or animal or plant. And so you can say things like, “I feel sick today,” or “I think my cat is sick.” But you cannot refer to only a part of somebody. You cannot say, “My head is sick,” or “My arm is sick,” or “My stomach is sick.” You can only use sick when you are talking about the whole creature—the whole person or animal or plant. “I am sick.” “I feel sick.” “My friend is sick today.”
And that brings us to one of the differences between sick and hurt.
When we use hurt, at least when we are talking about a physical kind of hurt, we refer to one piece or part of something being hurt. If something has happened to your arm or your stomach or your head or any other part of your body, you can say that that part is hurt. And that means that it has been injured in some way. Something bad has happened to it.
When we use hurt, we usually talk about a part of something, not the whole thing. And so I might say, “My finger is hurt.” Just a part of me. Or just a part of an animal, or even a plant.
And the last word in this group of words is broken. How is broken different from sick or hurt?
Broken can refer to a part of a person. It can also refer to part of a machine or part of any thing. You could say that your front door is broken, or your car is broken, or your computer is broken. This means that the thing does not work properly. Or maybe it does not work at all.
You can also refer to a part of a person as being broken. If somebody has a very bad accident while they are skiing or something, maybe they will break their leg. And they could say, “My leg is broken.” And that means that the part—or something inside the part, like a bone—broke. It’s no longer in one complete piece. And it now does not work properly.
And so this is what I can say as a summary about these three words:
Sick and hurt only refer to living things. Sick refers to the entire living thing, and hurt refers to a part of a living thing. And broken refers to anything that does not work anymore or does not work properly, or is no longer in one piece.
And that is sick, hurt and broken, three important and common words that you should know.
Outro
And this is the end of episode 300 of Everybody ESL. You can contact me at EverybodyESL@gmail.com if you have questions about English, if you have comments for me, if you’re interested in private lessons, and if you would like to record an introduction that I can play at the beginning of future episodes—the same way Katherine recorded the introduction you heard at the beginning of this episode. I’ll be back soon with a new episode, and until then, keep going, keep practicing, and keep learning. I’ll see you soon. Goodbye!