I'm going to teach you about one of my favourite activities – sleep! I will teach you some of the most common expressions about sleep, such as 'toss and turn', 'hit the sack', 'get some shuteye', 'sleep in', and many more. You will learn how to talk about sleeping well and sleeping poorly.
TRANSCRIPT
Hi, there. My name is Teacher Emma, and in today's lesson, I am going to teach you about sleep expressions. One of my favourite activities is sleeping, and so for me, these expressions are very important because I do so much sleeping. So I'm going to first teach you some expressions that have to do with when you get a good night's sleep and you're happy in the morning, I'm going to teach you some expressions for when you get a bad night's sleep and you wake up looking like this, and then I'm going to teach you some common expressions that just have to do with sleep in general.
So let's get started. The first expression I want to teach you is referring to a good sleep, and it's when you are "out like a light". Okay? This is when you go to bed, and [snaps], right away, you're asleep. It's very easy to fall asleep; you have no trouble falling asleep. As soon as you get into the bed, you fall asleep, that means you are "out like a light". So let me give you an example. After I exercise, after I go to the gym, I'm very tired. As soon as I get into my bed, I am out like a light Okay? Now, this expression, you need to say the whole thing. It's an expression that you need to use the whole thing for. Okay?
The next expression I want to teach you: "sleep like a log". I'm not the best artist, but this picture I've drawn. This is a log. So a log, if you can't really tell what this is, I guess it kind of looks like a battery, but actually this is part of a tree. So when you have a part of a tree, like you cut wood, you get something like this. This is what we call a log. So if you sleep like a log, it means you sleep like this. Nothing can wake you. You're so sleepy, you're fast asleep, nothing will wake you up. So it means you've had a good night sleep. Last night, I was so comfortable. I slept like a log. Okay?
The next expression I want to teach you: "sleep like a baby". So, "sleep like a baby" and "sleep like a log" have the exact same meaning. It means you have a great night sleep. You have no trouble sleeping. Your sleep is perfect. So, I sleep like a baby every night. It means I have a very peaceful sleep. This expression is kind of a little bit strange, though, because if you think about babies, I don't really think about them having great night sleeps. I usually think of babies crying all night long. But in this case, "sleep like a baby", it's a good thing.
Finally, the last good sleep expression I want to teach you is to "be a deep sleeper". If you are a deep sleeper, again, this means that you don't wake up during the night. You're very fast asleep. You're in a very deep sleep, which means you have a very good sleep. Okay? When we add... Okay. When we add "er" to a word, this means person. So if you are a good sleeper, "sleeper" is you, it means that you're able to sleep well.
All right, now let's look at some expressions that mean you've had a terrible sleep. So, again, bad sleep. The first one, very common: "I tossed and turned" all night. If you toss and turn, it means you keep moving during the night. Maybe you're sleeping like this, it's uncomfortable, then you sleep like this, then you sleep like this again. You're moving the whole night and you're not getting a good night sleep. So if you toss and turn all night, maybe you have a lot of stress, maybe you're thinking about work the next day, you can't sleep - you toss and turn all night. So it's another way to say you have a bad sleep.
Another expression: "I didn't sleep a wink". So this word right here means wink, okay? It's when you close your eye. "I didn't sleep a wink" means I did not sleep at all. So I have no sleep. Didn't sleep a wink means... Didn't sleep a wink-sorry-means no sleep.
The next expression is kind of opposite to "deep sleeper": "I'm a light sleeper". I'm a light sleeper, this means during the night, I don't have a good sleep; I wake up a lot. If I hear any noise, it wakes me up. So if my cat meows, I wake up. If the refrigerator starts making noise, I wake up. If somebody enters my house, I wake up. So, a light sleeper means you wake up very easily.
Okay, our last two expressions for bad sleep is "insomnia" and "insomniac". "I have insomnia" means I can't sleep at all. For some people, this is an illness. Maybe they have too much stress, maybe there's something going on in their bodies, but they're not able to sleep. Usually this means that if you have insomnia, maybe for two nights, you don't sleep at all. Maybe three days, you don't sleep. I can also say: "I'm an insomniac". So the pronunciation: "in-som-ni-a", so it's four syllables, "in-som-ni-a". Here: "in-som-ni-ac", again, four syllables.
So the difference between these two words, they have the same meaning, except... They're both nouns, they're both nouns. In this case, this means a person. She is an insomniac. He is an insomniac. So if you're calling a person this, you'd say "insomniac". The disease or the illness is insomnia. Okay? I hope none of you guys have insomnia, because it's a very terrible thing to have. In fact, I hope you all sleep like a log every night. So now I'm going to teach you some more expressions that just have to do with sleep in general. Okay, so the next expression I want to teach you is very, very common in English: "sleep in".
Okay? So this is a verb, and we use it... We use it all the time. It's where you sleep very late in the morning. So, for example, usually I wake up maybe am, in the morning, am, I wake up early, but on weekends, sometimes I sleep in until am. I sleep late. So I wake up very, very late in the day, that means sleep in. So: "I sleep in on weekends", for me, that means I wake up at am. For other people, it might be am, am. I have one friend, Debbie, she sleeps until pm because she stays up all night, so that's what it means by "sleep in". We also have the next word, very important: "sleep over" and "stay the night". These two words mean the same thing. It's where... Where somebody goes to someone else's house, and sleeps there. So they don't sleep at their house; they sleep at somebody else's house.
Okay? So, for example, I have a friend, Laura. Now, imagine Laura, she likes to drink beer, she drinks so much beer, she's very, very drunk. And she can't find her way home, she doesn't want to take the subway. It's too late, the subway's closed. So what I might say to my friend, Laura, I might say: "Want to sleep over?" This means she can stay with me. She can stay at my house. When my friends come to visit from other countries, when they come to Toronto to visit, I let them sleep over at my house; they stay with me. If it's for one night, they stay the night. Okay? So for some of you, you might have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, maybe they stay the night, maybe they sleep over. It means they stay at your house. Another expression that's actually very useful: "hit the hay" or "hit the sack".
So we have two expressions, here. We can say either: "hit the hay", "hit the sack". So, these are both... "Hit" is a verb. "Hit the hay" is a different way to say "sleep". Every night, I sleep; every night, I hit the hay. Every night, I sleep; every night, I hit the sack. It just means you're going to sleep. So, imagine this, imagine it's midnight, [yawns], I'm tired. What am I going to do? I'm going to hit the hay. I think "hay" actually means your bed, because I think in the past, long, long time ago, beds were made of hay, so I think that might be the origin of this expression. Although, I'm not sure; that's just my theory, my hypothesis. The next expression means, again, the same thing as sleep. It's a synonym of "sleep": "Get some shuteye. Get some shuteye".
So, "shut" is this, and these are your eyes, so "shuteye" means sleep. So, if I say: "I'm going to get some shuteye", just like "I'm going to hit the hay", I means I'm going to sleep. Finally, the last expression I'm going to teach you today: "Sleep on it". "Sleep", here, is also a verb. These are all verbs. "Let's sleep on it" means you have some sort of decision. Okay? We use this when we're thinking about some big decision, and you want to make a decision. Instead of making a decision at night, you wait until the next day. Okay? So, for example: maybe I'm at work, and they ask me if I want a promotion. Now, usually with a promotion, you just... You want to do it. But imagine this: imagine I'm not sure. I don't know if I want to change my position at the company, instead of telling them yes, it means I need time, I will say: "I'm going to sleep on it." It means: I'm going to take some time to decide; to make a decision.
Okay? Another example, imagine you want to come to Canada and you're thinking about coming to Canada to learn English, if somebody asks you about it, instead of making a decision, you need more time to think, you might say to your parents: "You know, mom and dad, I'm not going to make a decision now. I'm going to sleep on it. I will make the decision in the morning." Okay? So "sleep on it" means you make a decision not immediately, but the next day. Okay? After you sleep. All right, so these are all very useful expressions, very common expressions we use when we talk about sleep. Sleep is very, very important. People talk a lot about sleep; hence, this is why it is very important for you to know these expressions.
So I hope you visit our website at www.engvid.com. There, you can practice these expressions, using our quiz. I'll ask you questions about these words, and you're going to tell me what they mean, how to use them in sentences, so it's very, very good practice. I hope tonight you all sleep like a log, I hope you're all deep sleepers. I hope none of you have insomnia. I hope you get a lot of shuteye, and then maybe tomorrow... You can sleep on this lesson. Sleep on this lesson. Tomorrow, you can do the quiz. All right? So have a good night sleep, everyone, and until next time-I'm Teacher Emma-take care.
转自：小芳老师
转自：“英语写作教学与研究”微信公众号
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