Jack and Jill are two young junior high school students. One day, their parents decided that they should each be responsible for some jobs around the house, so both Jack and Jill were given chores to do. There were a lot of chores around the house: walking the dog, doing the dishes, doing the laundry, taking out the trash, etc. In return, their parents agreed to give them a little pocket money each week. Their allowance was $10 per week. On Saturdays, their parents would run errands and take Jack and Jill with them. The kids liked going on errands because it brought them to the stores where they could spend their allowance.
Today, let’s look at some vocabulary we use to talk about everyday tasks around the house. I used this vocabulary in the paragraph above, so if you like read it again and then check out today’s lesson.
A chore is a task that needs to be done in the house regularly. Some chores are done every day and others maybe once, twice or a few times a week. Here is the vocabulary for some of the most common chores:
When you walk the dog, you put a leash and collar on your dog and take him outside for exercise and so he can relieve himself. Even though you are walking with your dog, we simply say walk the dog or walk my dog without “with” like this:
- I walk my dog every morning at 6:30am.
- Nobody likes to walk the dog in the rain.
- Jenny walks her dogs in the park in the evening.
We say do the dishes, which means wash the dirty dishes and do the laundry, which means wash the dirty clothes.
- Tommy hates to do the dishes when they have pasta because the dishes are hard to clean.
- I don’t need to do the dishes because I just got a dishwasher.
- We usually do the laundry on Saturday mornings.
- If it is a sunny day, we can do the laundry and then hang the clothes outside do dry.
An errand is a task that requires you to travel close to your home in order to get something done. Errands are short trips such as going to the dry cleaners, the bank, the post office, the pharmacy, etc. You can do errands or run errands, like this:
- I have to do a few errands tomorrow before going to the gym.
- Jack was doing errands when his car got a flat tire.
What errands did you run last weekend? Do you have any chores to do at home?
Comments 4
i have not a dog but a cat so i need not to walk a dog and that make me very happy:) or should i say *makeS me..*?
I didn’t do any errand at last week. Yes I’ve to do laundry today.
Wow! you have a lot of chores!
I do the dishes every day, & do the laundry twice a week& dust or polish the furniture every day