ESP 1158

1. We begin our dialog with Boris telling Kay: “Come on, keep climbing!”. To climb ‘c-l-i-m-b’
means to go up, usually a hill or a mountain. Boris says: “This is the best exercise you’ll get all
winter”. Boris is telling Kay that climbing whatever it is, that climbing a hill or a rock or a
mountain is going to be good exercise. Kay says: “My face hurts and I can’t stop shivering”.
Kay says her face hurts, it’s painful, probably because it’s so cold out. She says she can’t stop
shivering. To shiver ‘s-h-i-v-e-r’ means to have your body move, or we would say, shake ‘s-h-a-
k-e’ uncontrollably because you’re so cold. If you’re really really cold, sometimes your arms will
start moving, your body will start moving because you are so cold, that’s called to shiver. Boris
says: “If we pick up the pace, you’ll warm up”. To pick up the pace ‘p-a-c-e’ is an expression
meaning to increase your speed, especially when you are talking about walking, to walk more
quickly. Boris is telling Kay that if she moves more quickly, she will warm up, she won’t be as
cold. To warm up is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to become warmer. Kay doesn't believe it.
She says: “I doubt it (meaning I don't think so). I can feel my core body temperature dipping”.
Your core ‘c-o-r-e’ body temperature refers to how warm or cold the center of your body is.
You’re not talking about how cold your arms and legs are, but rather the middle part of your
body, what we might call, your torso ‘t-o-r-s-o’. To dip ‘d-i-p’ means to go down. So if your core
body temperature is dipping, the temperature is decreasing, we might also say it’s dropping. Kay
says: “I feel hypothermia coming on”. Hypothermia ‘h-y-p-o-t-h-e-r-m-i-a’ is when your body
is too cold, it gets so cold that you could even die. It’s a condition of the body having too low of
a temperature. To come on here is another way of saying it is beginning to happen. Kay says she
feels hypothermia coming on. Boris says: “Don't be silly (meaning you’re wrong, you’re
exaggerating, you’re not being rational)”. He says: “You’re dressed in layers, with fabric that
wicks moisture away from your skin and insulates your body from the cold”. If you are dressed
in layers ‘l-a-y-e-r-s’, you have different pieces of clothing on, one over the other, so that you
keep warmer. If you live in a cold area, you know that a good way of keeping warm is to put
different pieces of clothing on your body, one shirt and then another shirt over that, and then a
sweater over that, this is called dressing in layers. A layer is a different section of something, one
on top of another. To wick ‘w-i-c-k’ moisture ‘m-o-i-s-t-u-r-e’ means for a piece of clothing to
take the wetness, that what moisture is, from your skin and move it away from your skin in order
to keep your skin dry. It’s not a very common expression to wick moisture, I don't think I’ve
ever used it before in my life, but it is the technical way of describing what clothing can do to
keep your skin warm. Certain kinds of clothing, certain kinds of fabric ‘f-a-b-r-i-c’, the material
from which clothing is made, can help remove the moisture from your skin, preventing you from
getting even colder. To insulate ‘i-n-s-u-l-a-t-e’ something is to prevent something from getting
too hot or too cold. In many houses in The United States, there is insulation in the walls, it’s a
material that helps the house retain or keep the heat inside. In houses in the Northern part of The
United States, this is very common to help your house insulated. Well, your body can also be
insulated in such a way that the warmth of your body, the heat of your body doesn't escape and
therefore make you cold. That’s what Boris means when he says that the clothing that Kay is
wearing is insulating her body from the cold, it’s also keeping the cold there out, so that the body
doesn't become cold. “The worst you’re going to get”, Boris explains, “are dry skin and cracked
lips”. Dry skin is when your skin doesn't have enough moisture, that can sometimes cause you to
have itchy skin, where you wanna scratch your skin because it is so dry. It can also cause, what
is called, peeling ‘p-e-e-l-i-n-g’ where the outer layer of your skin begins to come off. Cracked
‘c-r-a-c-k-e-d’ lips ‘l-i-p-s’ is when your lips which are the two things that are the outer part of
your mouth become so dry that they have little tears in them, the skin might even begin to bleed

2. ‘b-l-e-e-d’, which is when blood comes out. To have cracked lips is to have lips that are so dry,
that the skin begins to crack, it begins to open up, and that’s what causes the bleeding and can
also be quite painful. If you live in a cold area, you often have to put something on your lips so
that they don't become too dry. The thing you put on your lips to prevent them from becoming
too dry is called lip balm ‘b-a-l-m’. Anyway, Boris is telling Kay that her situation is not going
to become serious in terms of getting too cold. Kay says: “Then why do I feel pins and needles
in my hands and numbness in my feet?”. The expression pins ‘p-i-n-s’ and needles ‘n-e-e-d-l-e-
s’ refers to a sensation or a feeling that part of your skin is perhaps being pierced or stuck with a
pin or a needle. A pin is a small thin piece of medal that can be used for a number of different
purposes. The important thing to know is that both pins and needles have sharp points that if you
were to put it against your skin it would hurt. Kay is describing a feeling of pain that she is
getting on her skin or if not pain, at least a weird feeling on her skin because she’s getting cold.
She also describes numbness ‘n-u-m-b-n-e-s-s’ in her feet. If you are numb in some part of your
body, you are unable to feel any heat, cold or touch to that part of your body typically. We would
say you lack any sensation in that part of your body, your body isn’t able to feel the things that
would normally feel, such as heat and cold. If you go to the dentist, the dentist will usually put
something into your mouth, the dentist will inject something with a needle into your mouth in
order to make part of your mouth numb ‘n-u-m-b’, so that you won't feel the dentist doing his or
her work. Kay thinks that she has numbness in her feet due to the cold. Boris says: “Maybe
you’re just getting used to the cold (meaning maybe you just need a little more time and your
body will adapt to the cold)”. “You’ll feel warmer in a minute”, he says. Kay responds: “But
what if they're signs of frostbite?”. She’s worried that this numbness, for example, is a sign of a
very serious medical condition called frostbite ‘f-r-o-s-t-b-i-t-e’. Frostbite is a medical condition
where part of your skin begins to die, in effect, because it's too cold. It can be very dangerous.
Kay says: “I think I’ll turn back before I freeze”. To turn back is a two-word phrasal verb that
here means to return to the place you left, to go back to where you came from. Kay wants to go
back to where she came from before she freezes. To freeze ‘f-r-e-e-z-e’ means for a liquid to
become a solid. However, Kay isn’t referring to the more scientific definition of freeze, she just
means getting very very cold. You may walk into a room that is very cold, then say it’s freezing
in here. You don't mean it’s actually below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the freezing point for
water, you mean it’s really really cold. And that’s what Kay means here. Boris says: “And miss
out on these awe-inspiring winter views?”. He’s saying that if Kay returns, she will miss out,
that is she will not be able to benefit from or appreciate these awe-inspiring winter views. A view
‘v-i-e-w’ refers to something you can see, usually something that’s nice to look at. If you have a
hotel room near the ocean, you may have an ocean view, you may be able to see the ocean from
your window, the window of your hotel room. Boris is saying to Kay that if she returns back
home or back to wherever she came from, she will miss out on some awe-inspiring ‘a-w-e
hyphen i-n-s-p-i-r-i-n-g’ winter views. Something that is awe-inspiring is something that is very
beautiful, something that is very powerful, that affects you in a good way. Awe-inspiring could
be used to describe a view, it could be used to describe a piece of art or a piece of music even.
Kay says: “I prefer the awe-inspiring views of a blazing fire!”. Blazing ‘b-l-a-z-i-n-g’ means
burning brightly and warmly. If you have a fire that you make from say several pieces of wood
and the fire is large or strong, it might be described as being blazing, burning brightly and
creating a lot of heat, so that if you stand near it, you will become warm. Kay says she would
rather be in front of a fire than in front of the awe-inspiring winter views that Boris wants her to

3. see. I think if I were Kay, I would do the same thing. Now let’s listen to the dialogue this time at
a normal speed.