Hello. This is 6 Minute English. I’m Rob. |
And I’m Neil. |
Now, Neil, are you a tidy person? |
Me? Oh dear no! You should see my floordrobe! |
Your floordrobe? |
Yes. Tidy people keep their clothes in a wardrobe. |
I just dump a lot of my clothes on the floor, so – a floordrobe. |
Ah yes, well it sounds as if you could use a bit of decluttering. |
Clutter is the word for general mess and untidiness when you have too many things, too much stuff. |
These days the idea of decluttering is very popular. |
Oh, I love a good declutter - trouble is, I hate throwing things away. |
Well, we might have some advice for you in today’s programme. |
But first, a question. |
It’s about cleaning up. |
The vacuum cleaner is a machine we use to clean our houses. |
When were the first mechanical floor cleaners, which later became vacuum cleaners, invented? |
Was it: A) the 1860s? B) the 1890s? Or C) the 1920s? |
Well, you know what? I have no idea! So, I’ll say the 1890s. |
OK, well, I’ll have the answer later in the programme. |
The decluttering techniques of Marie Kondo are very popular these days. |
A UK decluttering expert, Lesley Spellman, appeared on the BBC radio programme You and Yours to discuss the topic. |
She was asked to describe the basics of the Marie Kondo method. |
What’s the first thing she recommends people start with? |
She basically says you have to do things in a certain order. |
You have to start with your clothes. |
Then you move on to your books. |
Then you move on to paperwork. |
Then you go on to something called ’komono’, which is kind of everything else: kitchens, bathrooms, garages, lofts etc. |
And then finally you tackle sentimental things. |
She says that you have to start with your clothes before moving on through different categories of clutter. |
The verb she uses for dealing with these things is to tackle. |
To tackle something means ’to deal with it, to sort it out’. |
And the last things she says you need to tackle are sentimental things. |
These are things that you have an emotional connection to, such as old letters and photographs. |
I have to say those are the things I find most difficult to get rid of! |
I’m very sentimental like that. |
I think you just have to be ruthless, Rob! |
Either that or buy a bigger house. |
Right, let’s listen to Lesley Spellman again. |
She basically says you have to do things in a certain order. |
You have to start with your clothes. |
Then you move on to your books. |
Then you move on to paperwork. |
Then you go on to something called ’komono’, which is kind of everything else: kitchens, bathrooms, garages, lofts etc. |
And then finally you tackle sentimental things. |
So why is it that decluttering is such big business these days, and there are many people and companies offering advice and services? |
Here’s Lesley Spellman again with her thoughts on this. |
I think there’s been a big shift really. |
So my generation, my parents, you know, definitely came from that ’make do and mend’ era post war in the sort of 20th century. |
And then all of a sudden people started to get a little bit more money. |
Things became more affordable. |
You can buy five tops for five pounds each and people have done that. |
And that’s allowed the consumerism to kind of go crazy in the 21st century. |
So what does she put our need for decluttering down to? |
Well, first she says that there has been a shift in our behaviour. |
This is a way of saying that there has been a change in the way we behave. |
We used to make do and mend much more. |
This phrase means that we made full use of what we had and if something broke, we tried to fix it. |
And these days, we seem to have more money and many goods have got cheaper, and we just like buying stuff – or as she says, consumerism has gone crazy. |
Let’s listen to her again. |
I think there’s been a big shift really. |
So my generation, my parents, you know, definitely came from that ’make do and mend’ era post war in the sort of 20th century. |
And then all of a sudden people started to get a little bit more money. |
Things became more affordable. |
You can buy five tops for five pounds each and people have done that. |
And that’s allowed the consumerism to kind of go crazy in the 21st century. |
Time to tidy up today’s vocabulary, but first, let’s have the answer to the question. |
Earlier I asked you: When were the first mechanical floor cleaners invented? |
Was it in: A) the 1860s? B) the 1890s? Or C) the 1920s? |
And Neil, you said? |
I guessed at the 1890s. |
Sadly not! The correct answer is the 1860s. |
So, well done anyone who got that right. |
Now on with today’s vocabulary . |
The first word we had was floordrobe. |
Yes, this is a word to describe a pile of clothes that someone keeps on the floor rather than in a wardrobe. |
Well I don’t have a floordrobe, but I do have a chairdrobe – I guess you can work out what that means! |
Anyway, it seems we both have too much clutter, which is the untidiness caused by having too many things. |
And this leads us to the popular pastime of decluttering, which is throwing away things to make our homes neat and tidy. |
Clutter, in my life, is an issue I haven’t tackled yet. |
I haven’t tried to fix it or sort it out. |
One area that the experts say you need to tackle is sentimental things. |
These are things which you have an emotional connection to – maybe old letters and photographs for example. |
We then looked at the word shift, which was a way of saying ’change’. |
There has been a shift or a change in the way we think about things. |
Yes, rather than an attitude of make do and mend, which means an attitude of ’being content with what you’ve got and fixing things if they break’, |
we have become part of a consumerist culture where we like to buy more and more stuff. |
But we still find it hard to throw things away! |
Yes, indeed, we do. |
Well it’s time for us to collect our scripts and declutter the studio. |
We look forward to your company next time and until then you can find us in all the usual places online and on social media, just look for BBC Learning English. |
Bye for now. |
Bye-bye! |