Children in English: Nappies, Toddlers and Telling Off

One of the speakers in this episode is explaining why she never needed a dummy as a child — she sucked her thumb instead, and her parents painted something horrible-tasting on her thumbnail to stop her. It didn't work: "just between you and me, I still do it every now and then". That's the kind of admission you get when nobody is reading from a script. Around it, we build fifteen words for talking about babies, children and everything that comes with them.

What you'll hear in this episode

The episode is built from short unscripted clips recorded with Kim, Katie and Kami. In each one, a speaker describes a word without saying it, and you guess before we give the answer.

The first set covers nappies, dummies, cots and three phrasal verbs. One speaker remembers her mother using "not the disposable ones" but washable cloth nappies, and says "I have an enormous amount of respect for her, for that reason alone". Another describes a niece whose doll has its own cot, painted pink with the doll's name on the end — and stumbles beautifully on the past tense along the way: "writed…er wrote". A third clip explains why Spain would be a lovely place to bring up children, because "there's a very relaxed attitude to children here" and small children are still out at eleven or midnight at a fiesta. Another speaker admits she got told off mostly for not saying please and thank you, or for arguing with her brother.

The second set moves through babysitters, infants, toddlers, childhood, pregnancy, cravings and birth. A little sister who has just learned to walk "makes an absolute mess when she's trying to eat" and puts food in her hair — "everything is a new adventure for them". A pregnant sister swings from chocolate to salt to wanting nothing at all. And on being naughty: one speaker says her boyfriend got away with everything, because "he looks like an angel".

Quick facts

Episode	3.2 – Children
Pack	Vocabulary and Pronunciation 3
Level	3
Duration	18 minutes 49 seconds
Audio	Free
Workbook	Included in the €39 all-in-one pack

What you'll learn

Two skills at once: recognising vocabulary from context, and saying it properly.

The guessing format trains something specific. Because the speakers can't use the target word, they talk around it — "one of these", "this person", "this stage of life" — so you have to hold the whole description in your head and work out what it points to. That's exactly what you do when a native speaker uses a word you don't know.

The pronunciation half is detailed. We practise the endings that learners over-pronounce: infant is not /fænt/ but /fənt/, and pregnant ends /ənt/. We compare British and American -er endings in babysitter and childminder — /ə/ in British English, closer to /ɜː/ in American. We separate grow and up, then join them, so you can hear how grow up links in "Where did you grow up?". With to tell off, the stress sits on tell and off, not on the pronoun in the middle: "He told me off."

You'll also repeat full sentences after the beep, including "Phew! Her nappy needs changing." and "I'm craving chocolate." — short, usable, and enough to fix the stress pattern in your mouth rather than just in your notes.

Vocabulary from the workbook

The workbook glossary gives all fifteen items with phonetics. A few of them:

a nappy / a diaper – things babies wear when they have not yet learned to go to the toilet (the cloth-nappy clip)
a dummy / a pacifier – babies and young children put these in their mouths to stop them crying, to calm them (the thumb-sucking clip)
a cot – the special bed a baby sleeps in (the pink doll's cot)
to bring up children – to teach children how to behave as they grow, to take care of them until they are adults
to tell off – to say things in an angry way to show a child he/she has done something wrong
naughty – a naughty child does not do what they should do or what you want, they behave badly
spoilt – they get everything they want and behave badly if they do not get it (the "hundreds of pounds worth of…Christmas presents" clip)
a toddler – a child who is at the age of learning to walk
to crave / cravings – to really want, especially because you are pregnant

In the workbook

The PDF workbook that goes with this episode contains the full audio transcript, so you can read every clip after listening and see exactly which words the speakers avoided. Then there's the fifteen-word glossary with phonetic transcriptions and plain-English definitions, and three practice sections.

Practice 1 asks short questions that check you've understood the meanings rather than just memorised them — Who is younger, an infant or a toddler?, Where do you put a dummy? Practice 2 is a matching task where you join sentence halves, which forces the grammar of the phrasal verbs: My parents brought… me up to be polite, I got told… off for making too much noise. Practice 3 is a pronunciation sort: nine words to place under three stress patterns, so you can see that dummy and toddler behave one way, childminder another, and pacifier and babysitter another again. Answers for all three are included.

The workbook is part of the Zapp! English all-in-one pack — every episode, every workbook, one price.

Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39

Common questions

Is the audio free?

Yes. The English conversations and the teaching are free to download. The workbook comes with the €39 pack.

Are the conversations scripted?

The clips from Kim, Katie and Kami are unscripted — you can hear the hesitations and the self-corrections. The teaching sections that set up the tasks and give the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.

Is this British or American English?

Both. We give the UK and US pairs — nappy/diaper, dummy/pacifier, babysitter/childminder — and compare the British and American -er ending directly.

What level is this?

Level 3, from Vocabulary and Pronunciation 3. It suits learners who can follow a natural-speed description and want to fill gaps in everyday vocabulary.

Do I need to do the units in order?

No. Each unit covers its own topic, so you can start with the ones you need most.

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