Feeling Phrases

Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Gold Forest English Podcast. My name is Jordan, and today I want to talk about describing your feelings - how native English speakers talk about their emotions and their physical feelings.

Many languages, such as French, German, and Japanese, have a very wide range of adjectives to describe emotions. And while English has many as well, the range is a lot smaller. English has a lot more phrases. We use a lot of idioms and fixed phrases for describing emotions and physical feelings, rather than individual specific vocabulary words.

So today I wanted to talk about some different phrases that native speakers often use to discuss their feelings.

Let’s start with a very common, very helpful one. The phrase is:

I’m all over the place today.

This phrase is very helpful when our mind is not settled, not clear, and not focused. Maybe you’re feeling distracted or tired, and you’re having difficulty focusing on something. You’re having difficulty understanding or putting your mental energy into something.

So we can say, “I’m all over the place today.” This is really helpful to explain why you are having problems focusing, listening, or doing something. You are mentally unfocused.

Another good phrase for explaining your problems or your bad behaviour is:

I got up on the wrong side of the bed.

This is a very common phrase that talks about having a bad feeling, but there’s no particular reason. You don’t have a clear cause or a good reason for your bad feeling. But you are in a bad mood. You’ve got negative feelings.

This phrase uses the idea that, in your bedroom, most people have a preferred side of the bed. They prefer to sleep on one side, and they get in and out of bed on that same side.

So when the phrase says that you got up on the wrong side of the bed, it means that you slept in an unusual position, and after getting out of bed on the wrong side - or a different side than normal - your brain is not able to feel comfortable or feel normal. You’re experiencing a bad day because of this incorrect start.

But the basic meaning is simple:

You have bad feelings.

You are in a bad mood.

You’re annoyed, angry, or upset.

But there’s no clear reason for it.

So those are a couple of negative ones. Let’s have a look at one that’s more positive.

That’s a weight off my shoulders.

This is a very common phrase that talks about feeling relief, happiness, or comfort after stress. You’ve been feeling stressed, you’ve been feeling difficulty in your life, and now that difficulty has finished. You can relax and feel good.

For example:

“Today was my last exam. That’s a weight off my shoulders.”

A very positive, good feeling.

Now let’s look at a phrase which is mixed and uncertain.

I don’t know how to feel about that.

Or: I don’t know how I feel about that.

Both have the same meaning.

These phrases are very common to talk about mixed emotions. Some things are good, some things are bad. You’ve got good feelings and bad feelings. You’re happy and sad at the same time.

The situation is complicated. You don’t know which emotion is stronger. It may be a confusing situation with good points and bad points, and you’re not sure what your biggest feeling is about that situation.

So these four phrases that I’ve covered - two negative ones, one positive one, and one mixed one - are all very common in spoken English. They’re very natural. Native speakers use them often, and they’re very helpful in daily life.

As I said at the beginning, English doesn’t have as many specific adjectives for talking about emotions, so we use lots of these phrases, idioms, and fixed expressions to talk about our feelings.

So if you want to sound more like a natural native speaker, definitely use these phrases.

And if you want to know more phrases like this, I really recommend checking out the blog post on the website, goldforestacademy.com. This week’s blog post is all about these kinds of natural English phrases for talking about emotions and feelings.

There are many examples in the blog post, much more than the four that I’ve talked about in this podcast. So if you want to know more, I definitely recommend checking out that blog post.

Thank you very much for listening to today’s episode. I hope you’ve had a good day today, and I hope that this podcast has helped you in some way. I hope that you will listen again to the next episode next week.

Thank you very much for listening, and I’ll see you next time. Goodbye.