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Health and Fitness in English: Vocabulary and Pronunciation
Taught by Katie Wood — Cambridge CELTA · Cambridge DELTA · Cambridge-accredited Teacher Trainer
Recorded and taught by a team of British and North American English teachers, based in Oxford (UK) and Barcelona (Spain).
In this episode: Katie, Stuart and Alec talk yoga, aching joints and swimming while you learn fifteen health and fitness words, plus tricky sounds like strength and muscles.
What you'll hear in this episode
There are two unscripted English conversations. In the first, Katie and Stuart talk about yoga — where you bend from, being told to straighten your back, and whether yoga counts as aerobic exercise. Katie decides it does when she does it: after a few sun salutations she's out of breath, so it "gets your lungs working as well as your muscles". Stuart prefers riding his bike, described as "dangerous and exciting". They then wander into high blood pressure, cholesterol, cutting out fats — and red wine, before the disclaimer arrives.
In the second conversation, Katie asks Alec whether he has an exercise routine. The answer is a lovely piece of dry English: "there is a, consistent routine of not doing very much". He walks over an hour a day and doesn't stroll — he powers along, to the dismay of the people trying to keep up. Katie says her joints have "really started complaining" since she took up running, and the two of them compare aching joints, swimming as a whole-body workout, building strength, and eating better. Katie admits the word training makes her think of "misery, pain and suffering"; the reply is that it "sounds like boot camp" and that the first job is training the brain to get started.
Between the conversations, the teaching sections check each word and drill the pronunciation with a beep for you to repeat.
Quick facts
| Episode | 3.14 — Health & Fitness |
| Pack | Vocabulary and Pronunciation 3 |
| Level | 3 |
| Duration | 15 minutes 16 seconds |
| Audio | Free to download |
| Workbook | Included in the all-in-one pack (€39) |
What you'll learn
The vocabulary covers the body (lungs, muscles, bones, joints), what you do with it (to stretch, to bend, to straighten, to train, to warm up, to cool down, to sweat) and the health words around it (cholesterol, high blood pressure, aerobic exercise, nutrition, strength, a routine, flexible).
The pronunciation work is the other half. You'll hear why muscles is a trap — "the spelling and the sound are very different" — and that flexible is written with -ible but said /əbəl/. Strength begins with the /str/ cluster and ends /θ/, and we point out that "we don't really hear the g". Cholesterol has four syllables with the stress on the second; nutrition also takes the stress on the second, ending /ʃən/. There's a nice bit of connected speech in warm up, where the /m/ of warm runs straight into the /ʌ/ of up — listen for it, then copy it.
Beyond the words, the conversations give you practice with real spoken English: hedging ("I could probably be doing more"), false starts, and Katie's very British "Well that's me told" after Stuart flatly contradicts her.
Vocabulary from the workbook
- flexible /fleksəbəl/ (adjective) — able to move around easily and bend you body. The word Katie uses about Stuart before he corrects her.
- to bend /bend/ (verb) — to move your body down towards the ground from your waist. Stuart asks Katie where she bends from.
- to straighten /streɪtən/ (verb) — to make straight, the opposite of to bend.
- lungs /lʌŋz/ (noun) — you have two of these organs, air goes into them when you breathe.
- cholesterol /kəlestərɒl/ (noun) — something that the body can get in the blood which is bad for you and can cause heart problems.
- joints /dʒɔɪnts/ (noun) — where two bones meet and bend.
- strength /streŋθ/ (noun) — the noun of strong, having power.
- a routine /ruːtiːn/ (noun) — what you usually or regularly do.
- to sweat /swet/ (verb) — for water to come out of the body to cool it down when it is hot.
In the workbook
The workbook for this unit prints both conversations in full, so you can read back anything you missed and see exactly where each word appears. There's a glossary with phonemic transcription and a plain definition for all fifteen items, then three practice sections.
Practice 1 is five quick comprehension questions — if you can touch your toes, are you flexible? Do you warm up or cool down before exercise? Practice 2 is a gap-fill written as a professional athlete's daily schedule, with the first letter of each answer given: train, routine, aerobic, strength, warm up, cool down, sweat, flexible. Practice 3 is pronunciation: deciding whether the final -s in lungs, muscles, joints and bones is /s/ or /z/, comparing the ch of cholesterol with the tch of stretch, and spotting the /e/ sound shared by exercise, strength, flexible, sweat and to bend. Answers to everything are at the back.
Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39
Common questions
Is the audio scripted?
The conversations are completely unscripted — Katie, Stuart and Alec are just talking. The teaching sections that set up the tasks and give the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.
What level is this episode?
Level 3 of the Vocabulary and Pronunciation series. You'll need reasonable listening skills, as nobody slows down for you.
How do I use the pronunciation tasks?
Answer the question aloud before we do, then repeat when you hear the beep. Copying the linking in warm up out loud is worth more than reading about it.
Do I need the workbook?
No — the audio works on its own and is free. The workbook adds the transcript, the glossary and the practice exercises with answers.
What's in the all-in-one pack?
The workbooks for every episode, including this one, for €39.
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