The five senses are sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste.

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We see with our eyes, but "to see" can also be used to mean "to understand" or "to realize." "To watch" something takes longer, like when we watch television. The verb "to look" can be transitive or intransitive. You can look at something to examine it or look (as in “outwardly appear”) a certain way. 

Finally, I can see you crystal clear.

Caption 3, Adele: Rolling in the Deep

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Now I can see that we've fallen apart

Caption 27, Backstreet Boys: I Want It That Way

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Make sure you guys watch the whole video if you want to see all that footage.

Caption 22, Aspyn Ovard: What To Pack for Vacation! Tips + Essentials!

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Just look at all those acorns!

Caption 22, America's National Parks: Grand Canyon

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This may look like a massive body of water.

Caption 9, BBC News: California ‘crippling drought’ leads to strict water restrictions

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The difference between "hearing" and "listening" is a little like the difference between "seeing" and "watching." If you listen to a sound, what someone is saying, or music, you pay close attention rather than just noticing it with your ears. 

Did you hear that?

Caption 54, Abiventures: Sandwich

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And then I always listen to music because it helps me work out better.

Caption 41, Harvard: A Day in the Life of a Harvard Student

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So, now listen to how I pronounce the following words.

Caption 8, British vs American English: Pronunciation Lesson

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Our sense of touch is about physical contact and how things feel. There are many phrases that use the idea of touch to describe different types of physical and metaphorical contact. "keep in touch" (remain in contact), "lose their touch," (lose their ability to do something), or "have the right touch" (have certain skills)."

If we touch his tail, he'll get frightened.

Caption 10, Nature & Wildlife: Wild Sharks

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He must be losing his touch.

Caption 42, ALF: Some enchanted evening

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And, of course, a pineapple just to add a touch of the tropics. 

Captions 15-16, Tara's Recipes: Delicious Fruit Salad with Greek Yogurt

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Like "to look," the verbs "to smell" and "to taste" can be either transitive or intransitive. They can be used to talk about the action of smelling or tasting, but also to describe how something smells or tastes. 

I think I can smell chocolate.

Caption 23, Peppa Pig: Easter Week

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And they smell so good.

Caption 35, Blippi: Cool Science Experiment for Kids

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I'm gonna open up a restaurant, so people can taste my food!

Caption 16, Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives: Pam's Trinidadian Caribbean Kitchen

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I wanna see what the lambsquarters taste like, first of all.

Caption 38, Food Talk with Sigrid: Foraging

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You may know that "taste" is also a noun meaning someone's idea of what's good or bad and their ability to choose well. It can also refer to a short experience of something. 

This show is all about the three Ts of New York: The talent, the trends, and the taste.

Caption 2, On Deck with Lucy: TV Host Jeremy Hassell

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Another thing to be aware of: While "tasty" is a positive adjective, "smelly" means that something smells bad!

Further Learning
There are several videos on the senses on Yabla English where you can learn even more about this topic, including a detailed overview from Sigrid and a fun video about a dog's sense of smell.

Today we're going to focus on a BBC news report from last year about water shortages in the Western United States, but the topic applies to many places in the world.

The Western United States is now entering one of the worst droughts ever seen.

Captions 24-25, BBC News: California ‘crippling drought’ leads to strict water restrictions

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A drought (rhymes with "doubt") is a prolonged period of dryness that is usually caused by a shortage of rainfall or snowfall.

Then, in a place like the West, we get wildfires.

Caption 29, BBC News: California ‘crippling drought’ leads to strict water restrictions

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A wildfire is a large and sweeping fire in a wilderness or rural area. When a wildfire happens in a forest, it's called a "forest fire." The Canadian wildfires that filled many US cities with smoke starting in March 2023 are also a result of drought. The smoke from the fires made many cities issue warnings to residents to keep their windows closed and not go outside.

But thousands of acres are now lying idle, because they're unable to irrigate.

Captions 35-36, BBC News: California ‘crippling drought’ leads to strict water restrictions

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An acre is a unit of measurement, used primarily in the USA and the UK, that is around 4,000 square meters. The verb "irrigate" means to supply land and crops with water by artificial means, such as pumps and diverting river flows. The noun equivalent is "irrigation."

We're looking at food shortages in the United States.

Captions 44-45, BBC News: California ‘crippling drought’ leads to strict water restrictions

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Because of the lack of water for farms, there's a possibility that some kinds of food made with ingredients grown in the USA may be in short supply.

The government has urged Californians to conserve water.

Caption 46, BBC News California: ‘crippling drought’ leads to strict water restrictions

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The verb "to conserve" means to avoid the wasteful use of something. Water conservation measures are essential during times of drought. According to the BBC, the first three months of 2022 were the driest on record in the Western United States, but during this period, water usage actually increased!

So you see how a shortage of precipitation (rainfall and snowfall) has a domino effect: it hurts farming, causes wildfires and forest fires, and has a major impact on health and the economy. The city of Phoenix, Arizona has even suspended previously approved house-building projects due to the projected lack of water for them. Cities like Las Vegas, Nevada have even banned lawns as "nonfunctional," since maintaining them requires so much water. Phoenix has not yet implemented such drastic measures. Similar programs are taking place all over the Western United States.

Further Learning
Go to Yabla English and watch the video above in its entirety. You can also watch the Sigrid "Slow News" video in New Videos above. Then you may do a search for other videos using some of the keywords above. What can you and your family do to conserve water?