In life one of the most important things you can do is to look after your health. When we feel well, we are happy. When we have a health problem we can go and see a doctor. Here we take a look at the English you need to discuss about feelings and health.
| How’s the weather today? How do you feel? How are you feeling? Is everything okay? What’s wrong? What’s the matter? Are you all right? What happened? | It’s really cold. I’m fine. Not too good. I feel sick. I have a headache. My leg hurts. I cut my hand. He broke his arm. | Let’s stay inside. That’s good. Sorry to hear that. That’s too bad. Here’s some aspirin Let me help you. That looks serious. Call 911! |
More information on feelings and health issues
Explaining your problem
Look at these two forms we can use to talk about our health problems:
‘I have been coughing a lot these days / recently / for the last few days / since yesterday.‘ (PRESENT PERFECT CONTINUOUS)
‘I have a cough.’ (PRESENT SIMPLE)
Both of these are used to describe our health problems. The present perfect continuous is used to show that something started in the past and is still happening now. We use ‘I have been + -ing verb.’ Other examples of this form include:
‘I have been sneezing.’
‘My head has been hurting.’
‘I have been having headaches.’
‘I have been feeling tired.’
‘I haven’t been sleeping well.’
The present simple is used to focus on a situation at the present. It is more common to use the present simple than the present continuous when we see a doctor: ‘My head hurts’ is more common than ‘My head is hurting’.
We also use:
I have + noun
‘I have a bad back’
‘I have a sore throat.’
‘I have a fever.’
I feel + adjective
‘I feel dizzy.’
‘I feel under the weather.’
‘I feel rundown.’