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Hello, this is 6 Minute English
from BBC Learning English. I'm Neil.
And I'm Georgie.
As we get older, many of us notice
our sense of hearing getting worse.
Maybe we need to concentrate harder
or ask people to speak more loudly.
Has that happened to you, Neil?
Not really. A while ago I thought
maybe my ears were getting worse,
but I had a check-up and
everything was fine, thankfully.
Oh, that's great!
In the UK alone,
hearing loss affects 18 million people
and that number is increasing.
In this programme, we'll discover
why we lose hearing with age
and, as usual, learn
some useful new vocabulary.
And you can also find a transcript
of this episode
on our website:
bbclearningenglish.com.
But now listen up, Georgie,
because I have a question for you!
Did you know that the three
smallest bones in the human body –
the hammer, the anvil, and the
stirrup – are all located in the ear?
But which one
of those is the smallest?
Is it a) the hammer, b) the anvil,
or c) the stirrup bone?
Hmm. That one's a difficult one.
I'm going to say the anvil bone.
OK. Well, we'll find out
the answer later on.
To understand
why our hearing gets worse with age,
it's useful to know a little about
how the ear works in the first place.
Here's Mr. Nish Mehta,
an ear, nose and throat surgeon
at the Royal National
ENT Hospital in London,
giving a beginners' class to BBC
Radio 4 programme Inside Health:
Hearing is an amazing sense.
It's a special sense, and
the ear is really the hearing organ.
So, the ear is split up into three
main parts – there's the outer ear,
the middle ear and the inner ear.
The outer ear is the bit that you see –
it's on the side of your head.
We call that the pinna.
Think of that as the satellite dish.
It collects the sounds and it funnels
them in towards the sense organ.
That then gets transmitted
to the middle ear.
The middle ear's main job is
to amplify those sounds.
That's done by having an eardrum,
which catches it
and then vibrates sympathetically
to the vibration
of the noise that you heard.
And then that's passed on to the
three smallest bones in the body –
the hammer, the anvil,
and the stirrup.
The ear is made up of outer,
middle and inner parts.
It's one of our sense organs –
specific parts of the body –
your ears, eyes,
tongue, nose and skin –
which allow you to experience
the outside world.
The visible part – the outer ear or
pinna – acts like a satellite dish,
collecting sounds which it funnels
into the middle ear.
The verb funnel means to move or
direct something through a narrow space.
Once in the middle ear,
the eardrum amplifies the sounds
before transmitting them
to tiny hairs in the inner ear,
which then sends
electrical signals to the brain.
It's an incredible system,
but unfortunately one
that can go wrong at any stage.
Here, James Gallagher, presenter
of BBC Radio 4's Inside Health,
asks Nish Mehta
when problems tend to start.
We're going to spend a lot
of today, Nish,
thinking about
age-related hearing loss.
When does that start?
Wear and tear of your hearing starts
from around the age of eight. OK?
OK. So, we're doomed already!
We're already on a downward spiral,
but we've got a lot of redundancy
in the system.
And the speed at which
our hearing declines is partly based
on the genetics that you're born with
and then partly based on the
environment that you're exposed to.
So, someone who has really
strong genetics to protect them
from hearing, but spends
their life on a pneumatic drill,
may have a much faster decline
than someone on the other side.
You can imagine that your brain is doing
so much computation behind the scenes
just to listen to someone speaking and
understand the words they are saying.
So, whilst hearing is going, the brain
tends to increase its listening effort,
and so often it's a very slow process
for you to realise
that you're struggling with hearing.
Wear and tear of our hearing
starts as young as eight.
Wear and tear means the damage that
comes from ordinary, everyday use.
When Nish says this, James exclaims:
We're doomed! –
an informal way
of saying we're destined to fail.
From the age of eight,
our hearing is on a downward spiral –
a situation which gets worse and worse.
But don't worry just yet!
Human hearing has evolved
with redundancy in the system –
a technical phrase meaning
that there are many ways to achieve
the same outcome so that a backup system
can take over if other systems fail.
Here, for example,
the brain works harder to compensate
for a weaker sound signal reaching
the inner ear.
And there are other ways hearing loss
can be helped as well,
including hearing aids, surgery or
even just removing extra earwax –
not a job I would like very much!
After that fascinating journey
into the world of hearing,
I think it's time to reveal
the answer to your question, Neil.
I asked you: Which is
the smallest bone in the body?
And they are all in the ear.
Is it a) the hammer, b) the anvil,
or c) the stirrup bone?
I said the anvil, didn't I?
You did, but I'm afraid you obviously
weren't listening in Biology class
because you are wrong.
It is, in fact, the stirrup bone.
Ah!
OK. Let's recap the vocabulary
we've learned,
starting with sense organs –
specific parts of the body,
like your ears and eyes, which allow
you to experience the world.
To funnel means to move or direct
something through a narrow space,
and a funnel, the noun, is
a cone shaped tool which does this.
Wear and tear refers to the damage that
comes from using something every day.
If you say we're doomed, you mean
we're going to be defeated or fail.
And a downward spiral is a situation
which continuously gets worse and worse.
And finally, redundancy in the system
refers to having more than one way
to achieve an objective so that a backup
can take over if other methods fail.
You'll be sad to hear that,
once again, our six minutes are up,
but why not head over to our website,
bbclearningenglish.com,
to try the quiz and worksheet
for this episode.
Goodbye for now!
Goodbye!
Vocabulary
Word 1 of 15check-up
word
0:27
"a medical examination to make sure you are healthy."
More Listening Practice
About this lesson
Learn about the main causes of hearing loss and what steps you can take to protect your hearing in this 6 Minute English episode.