Simplified Speech #229 – Things that get on our nerves

Culips Everyday English Podcast

Culips English Podcast

Self-improvement, Education, Language Learning, Courses

4.8 • 968 Ratings

🗓️ 3 October 2025

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, Andrew and Indiana get honest with each other about everyday things that annoy people. They talk about habits that “get on their nerves,” such as loud chewing, people using their phones while talking, overused clichés, bad driving habits, and even dog owners who don’t follow the rules. Along the way, your hosts explain useful expressions like “gets on my nerves,” and “grinds my gears,” so you can understand and use them the next time you want to complain to a friend!

What you’ll learn with this episode:

* How to use natural English expressions for talking about annoying habits and situations
* Real-life examples of common, idiomatic ways to complain in English
* Vocabulary for describing irritation, such as annoying, irritating, and rude

This episode is perfect for:

* Intermediate English learners who want to practice real conversational English
* Students who want to expand their vocabulary for everyday situations
* Anyone who wants to sound more natural when talking to friends about small problems and annoyances

The Best Way to Learn with This Episode:

* Culips members get an interactive transcript, helpful study guide, and ad-free audio for this episode. Take your English to the next level by becoming a Culips member. Become a Culips member now: Click here.
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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Culep's English podcast. You're listening to Simplified Speech,
0:06.3	our series, which features clear, natural, and easy to understand English conversations that are
0:11.4	designed to help take your English to the next level. Joining me today is my co-host from the USA. It's
0:19.0	Indiana. Hey there, Indiana. How are you? Hi, Andrew. I'm doing really good
0:24.2	today. How's it going with you? I am doing excellent. Thank you for asking. And Indiana, in this
0:30.7	episode, we're going to complain. We're going to talk about things that get on our nerves, things that get on our nerves.
0:43.2	And maybe we should start with a definition.
0:45.5	What does this mean if something gets on your nerves?
0:49.1	When something gets on your nerves, it just means that it affects you in a way that makes you feel really
0:56.7	irritated or annoyed or aggravated. All of these are negative adjectives to describe that you're
1:05.3	upset and a little bit angry about something. Like, why is that guy doing this? Why did she say that? It's just sort of
1:13.8	rubs you the wrong way, another difficult expression, but it makes you feel just kind of upset in
1:20.3	this angry way, gets on my nerves. What would be a typical example of something that would get on
1:25.9	someone's nerves? Not necessarily your nerves,
1:28.9	Andrew, but a common one that is annoying, irritating. First one that comes to mind is like people
1:35.3	with bad table manners, maybe chewing with their mouth open, making a lot of sounds when they
1:41.9	eat. In the culture of English-speaking countries, we usually
1:45.9	feel like that's a rude thing to do. And that kind of gets on my nerves if somebody is like
1:51.8	really chewing loudly and making a lot of mouth sounds. Yeah. I would agree with that. I can be pretty irritating.
2:02.8	Something that gets on my nerves is actually, you know, I'm going to get on my own nerves here in this episode because I don't really like it when people complain a lot.
2:13.4	But I think I'm going to complain a lot in this episode.
2:16.2	So I'm going to get on my own nerves and bother myself here in this episode.
	...

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