Is 'man flu' real?
Реален ли «мужской грипп»?
BBC podcast episodes with phrase-by-phrase playback and parallel translation.
Эпизоды подкаста BBC с пофразовым воспроизведением и параллельным переводом.
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6 minute English from BBClearningEnglish.com
I’m Dan,
and joining me today is Neil.
Hi Neil.
everyone!
Are you ok?
It comes from the sniffing sound people make when they have a runny nose.
usually when we are sick.
I’m afraid you’ll just have to soldier on Neil.
I’m dying!
What’s it about anyway?
and whether it’s actually real,
or just something men like to complain about.
We’ll give you 6 words and expressions –
and,
of course,
our quiz question.
fire away.
where women put an average of 1.5 days,
what did men put?
a) 1 day
b) 2 days
c) 3 days
The threat of ‘man flu’
is real.
we’ll find out later,
but let’s clarify.
‘Man flu’
is the tendency that many people believe men have to complain about a minor illness,
such as a cold or flu,
and act as if they were suffering from something a lot more serious.
But science cannot say whether men do actually suffer more than women,
or if men just tend to complain more.
let’s hear from this British couple about whether they think ‘man flu’
is real or not.
I think,
than women do when we get flu.
I’m not so convinced.
I feel like they just complain more.
And when Chris had got sick recently he was on the sofa and couldn’t really do anything,
so…
Listen to this BBC Journalist interviewing a woman from Europe.
Have you ever accused your boyfriend of having man flu?
absolutely yes.
Yeah.
So,
there certainly seems to be something there…but nothing has been proven,
right?
a recent scientific study has indicated that there could be something to ‘man flu’
after all.
Doctor Kyle Sue,
an assistant professor of family medicine at Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada,
has suggested that there could be a difference between men and women when it comes to respiratory diseases.
He says that there was already a lot of evidence from existing studies suggesting men experience worse,
longer-lasting symptoms.
Listen to him explain why this is.
the lower the immune response to these types of infections,
whereas the higher the oestrogen level,
the stronger the immune response.
Neil.
There are two problems.
First of all,
the Royal college of GPs in the UK says that there is no such thing as ‘man flu’.
And secondly,
even Dr Sue admits that these results,
including his own,
are only ‘suggestive’
and are not ‘definitive’.
basically he’s saying that there is a suggestion that ‘man flu’
exists,
but the evidence so far cannot say for sure.
More studies need to be done.
But you know what we can be sure about?
The answer to this week’s quiz question.
I asked you in a survey conducted by Nuts magazine that asked its readers how long they took to recover from a cold or flu,
where women put an average of 1.5 days,
what did men put?
a) 1 day
b) 2 days
c) 3 days
Let’s review our vocabulary,
shall we?
If you have the sniffles,
you have a cold,
informally speaking.
What’s the best cure for the sniffles Neil?
my mum always said.
Just make sure you have lots of tissues to deal with your runny nose.
That’s when a person’s nose leaks mucus,
usually because they are ill.
Yuck!
6 minute English from BBC.