6 Minute English / Why smells make us feel at home

Note: This is not a word-for-word transcript.

Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I m Phil.

And I m Beth. Phil, what makes home special for you? Maybe it s sleeping in your own bed, the view from the window, or a loved family pet. What makes you feel like you're home, Phil?

You know what? I think it's just relaxing on my sofa, in my living room.

Very nice!

Well, you may not realise it, but for your brain one of the strongest identifiers of home is smell. Listen as BBC presenters Marnie Chesterton and Tristan Ahtone describe the smells which give them the feeling of home:

Marnie Chesterton My grandad's house smelt of pine and damp and musty books.

Tristan Ahtone I know my mom's perfume, my dad s preferred soap.

In this programme, we ll be finding out why our sense of smell is so important to feeling at home, even when we don t notice it. As always, we ll be introducing some useful new vocabulary, and if you head over to our website, bbclearningenglish.com, you ll find a transcript of the programme to read along with as you listen, and there's a free worksheet too!

Good idea, Beth! But now it s time for my question. The sense of smell is incredibly powerful but not everyone has it. A small amount of the population is anosmic, meaning they can t smell. So, according to research at the University of Reading, what percentage of people have no sense of smell? Is it: