English Vocabulary: House Cleaning

Your house is a mess! I'm going to help you to clean it... in English! In this lesson, you'll learn some common house cleaning verbs and nouns, like "sweep", "mop", "clean", "wipe", "vacuum", "scrub", "broom", and "cloth". This is an easy lesson that will help you talk about your daily chores in English.

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TRANSCRIPT

[Whistling] Oh, hey, guys. I'm Alex. Thanks for clicking, and welcome to this lesson on "House Cleaning Vocabulary". So, most of us, we have to deal with house cleaning. Cleaning our homes is one of the most basic things that we do on our weekends or during the week. So, let's look at some common verbs, as well as some common nouns that you can use to talk about house cleaning.

Number one, obviously the most basic verb, is: "clean". So, you can use the verb "clean" to talk about anything. You can clean the floor, clean the window, clean a wall, clean a table, clean a chair. That's all you need to know about the verb "clean".

Next, we have the verb: "sweep". So: "Sweep the floor with a broom." Does anyone know what a broom is? That's right. This is a broom. Okay? And sweeping is the action of doing this. So, you sweep the floor with a broom. Okay?

Now, once you sweep the floor, you might want to, you know, clean it a little more maybe with some water and some soap. And if you want to clean the floor with some water and some soap, what you are doing is you're probably mopping the floor with a mop. Now, I don't have a mop with me today, but it's best to think of a mop as like a broom with a wet part at the end. So, mopping, you're going whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. You're mopping the floor with a mop. The verb and the noun are the exact same thing.

Next up, we have "vacuum". Now, what is a vacuum? Let me show you. There we have a vacuum. And it's similar to "mop" where the verb and the noun are the exact same thing. So, you can vacuum with a vacuum, just like you can mop with a mop. All right?

Next, we have the verb: "wipe". And "wipe" can be used in many contexts as well. So, if I have let's say... Let's imagine this is a piece of cloth. I can wipe off the table with a cloth, for example. Or you... I can wipe off the board if it's dirty. So, "to wipe" is this action. Okay? And, again, you can use the preposition "off" as a phrasal verb, so you can wipe off a table or wipe off a board, for example.

Next, we have the verb: "scrub". Now, "scrub" is very often used when you're cleaning, you know, your bathroom, or the bathtub, or the walls in your bathroom. And if you have tiles, which are, again, the square pieces like in a bathroom, you can scrub them. Okay? And normally, what you need is a brush to scrub, not a toothbrush, but, you know, a cleaning brush or what you can call a scrubbing pad. So, to really get that hard clean, to scrub stuff around your toilet, or around your bathtub, or around the walls in your bathroom. Okay?

And finally, you can use the word: "Dust (or dust off) the table with a duster." Now, "dust" is something which accumulates over time on tables, on pretty much anything. Imagine it as being the little particles that build up over time if you don't touch something. So, if you can [do this to a book or to a table, you will see dust flying off of it, and you need a duster to dust off the dust. Okay?

So, to review, the most common verb you can use in house cleaning is "clean". You can sweep the floor with a broom. You can mop the floor with a mop. You can vacuum the floor or the carpet with a vacuum. You can wipe a table with a cloth. And you can scrub tiles with a brush or a scrub pad. And you can also dust a table with a duster.

If you'd like to test your understanding of this vocabulary, as always, you can check out the quiz on www.engvid.com. And don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel. Back to work.