Daily Dose of English 47
Blankets
Daily Dose of English 47
Intermediate
Hey everyone, my name is Ben and you're listening to a Daily Dose of English. This is a short, simple podcast that you can listen to every day to improve your English. You can find the transcripts for all episodes and more on benslanguagelab.com. I'm glad you could make it today. In this episode, we're going to be talking about blankets. Blankets or sometimes might be called covers. There's a couple different names for them. But I want to talk about blankets. A blanket is a large piece of cloth or fabric that you cover yourself with or something else with. Although I think the most common use is to cover yourself or to sleep with or to keep warm. Lots of different uses for blankets, lots of different materials that you can use to make blankets. However, they're typically a little bit thinner, right? So they're not super duper thick blankets. Those would usually be called like a comforter or a duvet or something at a certain point because it's just so thick. They're also not too thin, because those might be called sheets of some kind. But that depends more on the use of the blanket or the sheet than the actual thickness, necessarily. And so blankets are a pretty common thing. Everybody has at least a blanket, probably. I'm sure there's some people that don't have any. But they're really, really common because they're a basic thing that we use for keeping warm. Plenty of other uses, but that's the most basic use, to keep warm and to not be cold, which is keeping warm. I've used plenty of blankets in my lifetime for various different things, and I want to talk about some of the common uses of blankets and just blankets in general until the time runs out on this episode. So let's start with my favorite blanket that I have. which is made of wool. Wool is the fuzzy stuff that is on sheep. Bah, right? Wool. And so I have a big wool blanket that I use on my bed when it's too warm. Typically, I like to sleep with a sheet and a comforter, like I said, so a big thick blanket with feathers inside. But this one, when it's too hot in the summer, I like to use a wool blanket instead because it still keeps me nice and warm, but not too warm. It's breathable. That's breathing. And when something like a material is breathable, that means that air can get inside and out because it's sort of like it's breathing in a sense. And so when you want breathable materials, when it's hot outside or when you're going to be doing exercise. That really large blanket of wool that I have is pretty nice. My grandma got it for me for a gift and I quite like it. It's very useful. I don't use it every single day, like during the winter, it's not really as needed because it's not as warm. However, it does make for a nice couch blanket if I need. Another blanket that I use pretty much every day is actually right here with me right now. It's a pretty small, it's not huge, blanket and it's just like some simple polyester material. It's just fuzzy. But I use it when I'm at my desk because sometimes my legs get cold or my feet get cold, but I don't necessarily want to put on, well, I mean, I'm already wearing pants, but I don't, so like I need something else to cover myself with. I don't really know why my legs get colder when I'm working at my desk, but they do. And so it's really nice to have a blanket to be able to cover myself with and keep warm. And it's also really nice in the mornings when it's a little bit colder and I'm immersing in learning Czech, I like to cover myself a little bit more when I'm watching some YouTube videos or whatever, because I don't need to move as much. And so I get a little bit colder. And so it's nice and cozy. And so that's a blanket that I have. I have some other blankets, but those are mostly just for like putting on a bed or whatever. I wouldn't say they're anything interesting. But that's another just general common one is to have blankets on a bed. Another fairly common thing in the US, at least, I'm not sure about other places, is to put a blanket on the end of the bed. If you think about your bed, there's the head of the bed, which is where you put your head and where there's the pillows, typically has a headboard as well. That's the thing that sticks up from the bed and where you might lean on or something like that, the headboard. At the bottom, at the base of the bed, the foot of the bed, however you want to call it, sometimes people will put a decorative blanket on there, and they'll lay a blanket down just at the end, right a couple of feet at the end, to look nicer, to change the color of the bed, and maybe even to use if it gets too cold at night. That's pretty common if you go stay somewhere that's not your bed, right? So a guest bed or a hotel or something like that. They'll often put an extra blanket at the end of the bed just in case you get cold. And so that's another common use of a blanket. Other uses are, like I said, on the couch if you're going to watch some TV or just hang out. Um, sometimes it's nice to have a little blanket and get cozy, right? You put the blanket on, you put on a movie and you watch something in English for a few hours and enjoy it. Um, and it's nice to have a blanket for that. Some people also put down blankets for their pets. If they're going to get on the couch or a chair or something like that, or it might have a permanent blanket on, on a couch or bed or couch or a chair. because sometimes they just don't want the chair to get dirty itself. And so you can put a blanket down. Another good use of a blanket is to go on a picnic. A picnic is when you go to the park, or usually somewhere outside, and you eat there. And so you might have a basket, which might be called a picnic basket. You put some food in it. You go out to the meadow, or to the forest, or just to the park. And you put down a blanket to have a little picnic. There's actually a stereotypical picnic blanket. You can actually Google that, and you'll see plenty of the same color pattern picnic blanket, which I think the standard one is white and red in a checkerboard pattern, where it's alternating squares of white, red, white, red, white, red. And that's often called a picnic blanket. picnic blanket, picnic basket. Picnics can be very lovely, but I don't think I've gone on a picnic in a long, long time. But they're pretty fun. They can be fun because you don't usually eat outside and you have to think about what you're gonna bring. Are you gonna bring some bread and cheese and fruit or are you gonna do something a little bit more special or whatever? Sometimes people bring a bottle of wine and they have wine on their picnic and they enjoy it. Maybe watching the sunset or something. Or you can go to the beach and you can put a blanket down on the beach to sit down and enjoy. Um, sometimes it's also a beach towel, but I think a lot of people nowadays like to have a bigger blanket that is more for the beach because you use your towel to dry off when you go into the ocean or whatever body of water there is. And so you don't really want it to be covered in sand. And so it's nice to have a blanket that is specifically meant for, um, putting down on the ground. And so you don't necessarily have to worry about it being clean or whatever. And so you might have a beach blanket to go enjoy the beach with. A lot of people also keep blankets in their car just in case, right? Blankets can be really useful if you're out somewhere and it starts to get cold, right? If you're camping, for example, you're going to want an extra blanket. And so having an extra blanket somewhere accessible is pretty common. And I'm talking about car camping, by the way. Car camping is when you take your car, you drive to a campground, and then you leave the car there and you put up a tent. That's what it's called. You put up a tent and you stay there for a day or two or whatever. And that's called car camping. And it's nice to have extra blankets then. There's also plenty of other blankets. There's emergency blankets, right? Emergency blankets are usually very, very thin and made of a material that is reflective, so it's shiny, which means that heat can't get out or in very easily. and they're useful because if you need a blanket, because they fold up really, really small, I forgot to say. They are like the size of a credit card when they're folded up and a little bit thicker, no, quite a bit thicker, but they can be really, really useful if you're stranded somewhere or lost or whatever, and you really, really need some emergency heat or a blanket of some kind like that. And so those are pretty frequent to find in emergency kits or camping gear or whatever it is, because it can sometimes get really, really cold very, very quickly. And it's, it's pretty useful to have a blanket like that to keep yourself warm or keep your family warm or whatever it is. There's a ton of other different kinds of blankets. However, I'm not gonna just keep talking about blankets for the end of time because we've come to the end of this episode. And I wanna thank you for listening and enjoying this episode and maybe learning a thing or two about blankets. Let me know down in the comments, do you have a favorite blanket or any blankets that you use every day? If so, what are they made of and what do you use them for? Anyway, that's all for this episode. Thank you very much for being here and I'll see you again for another episode of A Daily Dose of English tomorrow at the same time. See you then. Bye.
For email updates, subscribe to my blog via email or RSS feed.