English Vocabulary: Learn 15 words with the prefix OVER-

194,521 views ・ 2019-12-07

Adam’s English Lessons


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Hi.
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Welcome to www.engvid.com.
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I'm Adam.
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In today's video we're going to look at a bit of grammar/vocab; and more specifically,
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we're going to look at the prefix "over".
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Now, I made a previous video and I looked at the word "under".
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These kind of go together; you don't need to watch one to understand this one; but if
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you like this video, then you can watch the other one, get both sides of the equation
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as it were - "over" and "under".
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So, what we're going to look at is the word "over".
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Now, the word "over" is a preposition.
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Okay?
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And it means more than or too much; or more commonly when we're talking about position
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or location, it's like above.
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So, it's over something; "above" and "over" are a little bit different.
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There's a separate video for that as well.
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So, what we're going to look at is what happens when we join the word "over" with another
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word.
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In most cases, you can probably guess the meaning just by taking the word "over" and
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the second word, and understand that they go together.
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For example, "overachieve".
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If you "overachieve" means you're completing or achieving more than what is expected or
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more than what is standard.
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But sometimes you're going to get words that are joined with "over" that you can't really
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guess because they don't mean what the two parts mean.
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For example, "overtake".
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Now, if you think about "take over" as the phrasal verb, "to take over" means to assume
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the position of.
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So, the... or the company's president is retiring, and somebody else will take over; somebody
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else will become the president and take over that position.
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But "overtake" has a different meaning.
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If you "overtake" someone, it means you pass them.
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So, for example, if there's a race and somebody's in the lead, and somebody else comes from
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behind and overtakes - means they pass them; they take the lead instead.
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So that's what "overtake" means.
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So, you can't exactly guess by looking at the two words separately.
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So we're going to look at a bunch of verbs, and we're going to look at a couple of adjectives
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and nouns as well.
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So, "overcome".
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So, again, no relation between "take" or "come" to somebody's house, for example.
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If you "overcome" something, it means that you are able to successfully get over an obstacle
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or a difficulty.
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So, if you have some trouble, let's say with your English, and you watch engVid videos
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on a regular basis, you will overcome this problem, and you will be a fluent English
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speaker very soon I hope.
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Okay?
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So keep working hard and you will overcome this difficulty.
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"Overestimate".
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So, again, we looked at "underestimate"; now we're looking at "overestimate".
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When you think about something in terms of its size, or its strength, or its value, if
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you overestimate, you think it is more than it actually is.
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Right?
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So that's why we have the more than.
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If I overestimate the value of a ring, for example... if I get a ring, a gold and diamond
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ring, and I think: "Wow, this is really beautiful.
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It must be, like, $10,000."
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But actually it's 5,000, so I way overestimated its value.
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Okay?
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I thought its value way more than it is.
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So it's a bit of a bad guess to the over side, rather than the under side.
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"Overhaul".
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"Haul"...
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"To haul" something means to carry, but "to overhaul" is a completely different meaning.
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When we're looking at a piece of machinery, for example, a car engine-okay?-and we overhaul
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it, it means we completely take it apart, and we replace all the pieces and rebuild
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it to make it like new.
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So we fix something completely; we overhaul it.
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In business, a new manager comes to the office and he wants to overhaul the processes - means
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he wants to change everything, he wants to break them all apart, and build brand new
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processes for the office to increase productivity, for example.
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If you "overhear" something, it's like "hear", but "overhear", it doesn't mean you hear too
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much; it means you heard a conversation that you weren't supposed to hear.
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So, two people over there are speaking and they're speaking a little bit loudly, so you
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can overhear; you can actually hear what they're saying.
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So, nothing to do with above or too much; it's more like they're speaking too loudly
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and that's why you can hear them.
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Okay?
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"Overlook".
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Now, if you say: "Look over" it means, you know, you study something, you look over the
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facts, make sure everything's okay.
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If you "overlook" something, means you missed something.
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So, I was reading all the information, and I overlooked a very important detail - means
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I missed it; I didn't see it at the first time I was reading it.
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It could cause problems later on.
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"Overrun".
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"Overrun" means when there's just too much of something, or people, or etc.
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For example, the situation.
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If you go to a tourist area, it might be overrun with... by... overrun by tourists; not with.
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"Overrun" means there's too many, and it's spread out too much and you don't enjoy the
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tourist location.
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If you go to, for example, in the US they have something called Black Friday.
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Okay?
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Black Friday is a very special shopping day after Thanksgiving where all the stores give
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very, very big discounts on items.
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I personally don't like to go shopping on these days because the stores are just overrun
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by crazy shoppers who want to get the last TV, or the last whatever on a very good deal.
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Stay away from those stores; they're overrun.
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"Override" and "overrule", these are very similar.
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Okay?
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"Override" means to take away automatic control.
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When we're talking about a computer or machinery, if you override a command it means you cancel
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the command and you put a new one.
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When you're talking about overruled, it's about people.
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So, for example, a judge decided A; another judge overruled that judge and decided B instead.
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So, "to overrule" means to put your rule over the other one.
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So, it's a little bit of the above because it's one on top of the other, but the other
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one is superior or has more authority, and that's why it's the one that counts.
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And "override", the new command for the computer or the machine is the one that is actually
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used by the machine or the computer.
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Okay?
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"Oversee" it doesn't mean see over something; it basically means to supervise.
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So a little bit means, like, looking at everything, but nobody actually is seeing anything; they
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are just in control, in charge, managing, so they are supervising staff.
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So you oversee the staff, you oversee the process, you oversee the project means you
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just supervise.
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Okay?
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So these are all verbs.
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Now, sometimes you have adjectives that join two words as well with "over", and the meaning
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is a little bit different.
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When you're talking about "overboard" - two meanings.
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The literal meaning is when you're on a ship in the sea, and somebody falls over the side
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of the ship and into the water, so that person went overboard.
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But if you're talking about a general situation, "overboard" means a little bit too far.
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Okay?
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A little bit more than they should have.
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So, if somebody is basically reacting badly to some bad news, and they start firing or
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they start yelling at people, then they've gone a little bit overboard; they've gone
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a little bit further than they should have, makes other people feel uncomfortable.
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An "overcast sky" means just very grey.
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Not necessarily clouds, but just grey.
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Okay?
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If you're "overjoyed", it doesn't mean you're too happy because there's no such thing as
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too happy; happy is good.
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"Overjoyed" just means happy.
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Okay?
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"Overbite".
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Now, some people, their teeth are not exactly aligned, so their top teeth stick out a little
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bit and then their bottom teeth are behind.
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So, these are the top teeth, these are the bottom teeth, so you have an overbite.
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Okay?
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The top teeth stick out a little bit.
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And "overkill" is a little bit like "overboard".
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"Overkill" means just too much of anything.
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So, if you're giving someone a compliment, and you just give them too much compliment,
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like: "Oh, you're so beautiful, you're so this, you're so that."
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A little bit of overkill.
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"Overkill" is not a good thing.
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When you're giving too much of something, you're making it a little bit less meaningful,
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so not a good thing.
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And also a noun; nothing to do with the word, with the verb "to kill".
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Okay?
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So, again, if you're not sure about any words like these, if you see a word and you're not
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sure what the combination means, make sure you look it up in a dictionary to confirm
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your guess or just to find out if you don't actually know.
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Okay?
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But, of course, if you're still not sure, you can go to www.engvid.com and ask me any
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questions in the comments section below.
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You can also take the quiz to make sure that you understand all of these words and how
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to use them.
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And, again, don't forget to subscribe to my channel.
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If you like the video, don't forget to give me a thumbs up if you liked it, and come back
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for more grammar/vocab lessons and all this other good stuff.
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Okay?
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I'll see you then.
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09:36
Bye-bye.
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