Learn New English Vocabulary – Feeling Homesick
Today, I teach you 3 ways of handling homesickness. I also share a couple of English expressions: Take Things For Granted and Starting From Scratch. Enjoy :)
Episodes mentioned
[049] Take Things For Granted (English Expression)
[026] Talk With Native Speakers (Meetup.com)
Transcript
Hey guys, you are listening to the English Made Simple show, this is episode number 142, number 1-4-2, numero ciento cuarenta y dos.
What’s up guys? Welcome to episode 142 of the English Made Simple show, my name is Milena from www.englishmadesimple.net, www.englishmadesimple.net.
Hope everyone is doing well.
I was doing well until I started brushing my hair this morning and I saw a couple of grey hairs sticking out. They started to show. They are new. Two new grey hairs. The two grey hairs appeared out of nowhere. This in Spanish would be Apareicieron de la nada.
Two grey hairs!
Aaaaah, o m g – what’s happening to me?
I started to console myself, having grey hair just means that I am becoming wiser, or is it more wise, I think it’s wiser. Anyway, I am supposed to be smarter with grey hair.
Grey hair in Spanish is cana. I had two grey hairs, so that’s dos canas.
Anyway, I think it’s time I start dying my hair. To dye hair means to colour hair. I should colour my hair, that’s what I meant. Or in Spanish is Teñirme el pelo.
But that’s a topic for another day, another time, another day.
Let’s get straight into today’s show.
Today’s topic is about Homelessness.
No, that’s wrong, who wrote that… I lie.
It’s not about homelessness it’s about feeling homesick. Big difference! It’s a huge difference.
Homelessness is a noun and it means no home, without home.
People who are homeless usually live on the street and beg, homelessness is a noun btw.
Anyway, today’s show is not about homelessness it’s about being homesick.
However, being homesick means something completely different.
And to help me explain it better, I will have to bring my associate Weon Inteligente to the show, he’s been eager to join us, he can tell us what it means to “feel or be homesick”
So, according to Weon Inteligente or Online Dictionary, to be homesick means …
“If you are homesick, you feel unhappy, because you are away from home and are missing your family, friends and home very much“
If you are a migrant or an expat, someone who travels for work or lives overseas due to work commitments, you might suffer from something called homesickness.
Being away from your familiar surroundings, from your family or friends…. Well it can make you homesick.
Today’s topic is about being homesick. Homesick is one word.
So we will talk about everything related to the feeling of homesickness.
Homesickness is a noun.
BTW, let’s just do something fun in today’s show ….ok? Every time I mention the city of Adelaide today, I am going to do it in a very funny voice. Just like this…. Adelaide.
As some of you already know, I moved from Melbourne to Adelaide recently. I spent the majority of my life in Melbourne and now I moved to Adelaide. The reason for the move was my husband’s new job.
So let me cut the long story short, I am here in Adelaide now. Yeeeeey, Adelaide.
Today, I had a moment where I thought to myself – damn I really miss Melbourne.
I started to feel nostalgic.
That’s another word for you to know, nostalgic and homesick. Same thing.
I really took things for granted back home in Melbourne.
What do I mean by this? Well, I did mention this expression back in episode #49 called Take Things For Granted. Yup, that was episode #49 – it feels like long time ago now.
So yeah I took things for granted back in Melbourne. Now I miss my friends, my family, the family cats, my neighbourhood, the food, my routine, just the overall familiarity.
And what do I have here in Adelaide?
Ok, I am not going to complain ok…. My husband said, don’t complain Milena. Don’t be a wuss. Adelaide is not too bad.
I said shoosh, it’s pronounced Adelaide…. this is my show I will say whatever the heck I want to say.
I just feel like I have to start everything from scratch, my routine is all messed up – I have to create a new routine, find new places where I could have a nice cup of coffee, meet new friends, find a nice place to have brunches, go for a walk without being attacked by agressive birds, you know just simple things. That’s all I ask for.
Miss my routine and all the things I am used to doing, things I used to enjoy.
Maybe I do sound like a spoiled brat. That’s what my husband calls me, a spoiled brat. And he said I should just get over myself. Ha! How dare you….
Whatever.
So let me just explain this guys, what it means to start everything from scratch…
This is an expression and it means to “begin something from the beginning.” To start from zero.
And I bet that some of you are feeling the same.
I have a question for you amigos y amigas, how many of you have felt homesick? How many of you are feeling homesick now?
I know I have listeners of the show who are migrants, who have moved to live overseas either in the UK, the US or Canada, I get listeners from Australia and New Zealand as well who had moved just recently.
You guys might be feeling homesick or at least felt a bit homesick.
Look it doesn’t have to be overseas, you could move to another city in your country – just like I did when I moved from Melbourne to Adelaide. You will feel homesick as well.
How do we overcome this feeling of homesickness? How do we fix this? Tell us Milena! How do we fix it?
Here are my tips on how to feel “less homesick” – we can’t completely fix it but at least we can do something about it.
1. Go outside, get out of the house, explore the city. Go sightseeing. We went for a drive, my husband and I, on the weekend, we only drove 10mins from the city and we ended up on a hill. They call them mountains here in Adelaide, but you can’t compare these mountains to the Andes in Chile. These are just hills. As we were driving up this hill, a kangaroo jumped in front of us, crossing the road. It was a wild kangaroo. Just jumping up, up the hill!
It was nice to be in the nature, the landscape in Adelaide is really beautiful. When I say landscape, I mean paisaje in Spanish. It’s just beautiful scenery.
If I had to compare it to Melbourne… well Melbourne is pretty flat, you have to drive 3 hours to get to a mountain or a hill for that matter.
Right, tip #2. I am only going to share 2 tips. How to overcome feeling homesick.
Episode #26 Talk with Native speakers – meetup.com, you can find more about meetup.com in that episode, episode #26!
You can go to meetup.com and find a local meetup group and meet some like minded people.
2. Join Meetup groups – meet like-minded people. This is on my to-do list at the moment, I found some groups online but I haven’t met with them yet.
And number 3, the last tip I will share with you how to feel less homesick:
3. Do something that will distract you, create a new routine. Start a new project. I started a new project called Project Adelaide – I am on a mission to find the best coffee in town. Wish me luck.
And I forgot to mention as well, something really important about Adelaide – it’s full of vineyards.
One sec, let me change my plan – I am on a mission to find the best wine in town. Done. That’s it. Project Adelaide has now been born.
Aaaah I feel a lot better, a lot better.
Well I hope this helps some of you…some of you who might be feeling homesick this very moment. I hope you make fun of the situation, embrace the situation you are in and find something fun to do.
And stop complaining.
Ok, ok, I will. One day…I’ll stop complaining one day.
Before we finish today’s show, I’d like to send a special hello to a listener Marcos Santana from Brazil! Marcos Santana has a really cool name and he is also listening to English Made Simple, he is enjoying the podcasts and thanks very much for your nice comments. Thank you very much, Marcos Santana! I think I should change my name to ….Lady gaga or something like that! Haha just a joke :)
So this brings us to the end of today’s episode. Hope you learnt a couple of new things.
Thanks for joining me today, you’ve been an awesome as always. Let’s catch up again soon. You’ve been jamming with Milena from www.englishmadesimple.net. Until next time, hasta la proxima!