Vocabulary: Talking about POLITICS in English

Hi. Welcome again to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam.

Today, as in response to some requests, I'm

going to give you a few vocabulary words or a few words-sorry-about political views. Now,

before I start, I just want to make sure we understand: This is just about English. We're

not having any political discussions, here. This is meant to help you read newspapers,

watch TV broadcasts, listen to radio broadcasts about political news, and these are words

that you will see quite often when you're reading these things or watching these programs.

Okay? So, we're going to look at a few common words that come up when we're talking about

political views. Now, "political views" are basically opinions about how politics should

run, how governments should run or be run, etc.

So first we're going to look at the three main types of government.

There are "democracy", "authoritarianism", and "dictatorship".

"Democracy" is a process by which several parties... Okay?

Several parties, each one has its own leaders and its own members, and they compete for

the votes of the public. You have several to choose from, the public chooses. The one

that gets the most votes or wins somehow the election in their system, they lead the country

for a specified period of time. And then you have another election, you can choose the

government again, you can choose another government. You can do whatever you need to do.

"Authoritarianism" is a system by which only one party... Or "in which" I should say. Only

one party controls the government. So, you don't really have any choice, and the elections

are not... If there are elections, are not very legitimate. There's one party, they are

the controlling power, they make the decisions, everybody does what they want them to do.

"...ism". I'm just going to mention this. You're going to hear a lot of ism's when you're

hearing about politics. Okay? It just means you're taking the concept of whatever the

word is before it. So: "ism" is more about the concept of whatever.

"Dictatorship", this is a form of government where one person controls the government and

has all the power, all the decision-making power. We're not going to get into the details

of how each of these types of government rules or runs the country they're in, but we're

just going to talk about what they are very generally.

Next, so here we're getting more into the specific views that people have. Most people

are "Liberal" or "Conservative". Now, you're going to hear these words a lot. In America,

for example, you hear about the Democrats and the Republicans. Generally, the Democrats

are Liberal, the Republicans are Conservative. Liberal government or Liberal politicians

believe in the individual. They want every individual to have an opportunity to succeed.

They want, basically, to help everyone improve their lives somehow. Conservatives, on the

other hand, they're more about everybody takes care of themselves. Sorry, Liberals, they

want the government to help the individuals; Conservatives want the individuals to help

themselves. And "Conservatives" comes from the word "conserve", there would be an "e"

here. They want to keep traditions, they want to keep or maintain values, they don't like

change. Liberals, on the other hand, want to change all the time to meet the needs of

the people. More good for more people, as it were.

Now, if you hear about "left-wing" or "right-wing" or "centrist", you're talking about the spectrum.

The spectrum is basically the range of political views. You have the far left-wing, you have

the far right-wing, and you have the people in the centre; they're not really right, they're

not really left. Although, they generally lean. "Lean" means "rooop", I'm leaning to

the right or I'm leaning to the left. So, even centrists, they're usually centre-right

or centre-left, it means they're a little bit more to one side than the other, but generally,

they're... They want a bit of a mix. Left-wing politicians or left-wing views generally go

with Liberals. Right-wing views or right-wing politicians generally go the idea of Conservatives.

Centrists want a little bit of a mix. They will go with whoever will do the best benefit

for everybody.

Now, in terms of how to make changes or how to interpret laws or how to create systems,

you have different types of people. Again, you have "moderate", who want moderate changes,

want moderate governing powers, "radicals" and "extremists". "Moderate" basically means

they want a reasonable amount of government interference; not too much, not too little.

They want the government to take care of everybody, but also leave everybody a little bit to their

own things, as it were. Radicals want very major change. They want big changes, they

want radical shifts, or they want what they want very strongly. Very similar to extremist,

"extremist" means there's only one way, and that's it. Nothing else will do.

They do not compromise.

"Compromise" means I'll give a little bit, you give a little bit, and we'll

meet somewhere in the middle. Extremists don't compromise; it's this way or no way. Okay?

That's the idea of "extremist", it comes from the word "extreme", as much as possible or

as little as possible, depending on the case.

Now, this is an excellent word, you have "spin" and you have "spin doctors" we call them.

This is a bit of a slang expression. "Spin" basically means spin. Like a record, you put

a record and it spins. So: "to spin" means to take let's say bad news, and turn it around

and make it sound like it's actually good. So, politicians are very good at this. Good

politicians are very good at spin. If I say something bad about a politician or if I uncover

some history about this politician that's really bad, he or she or their... Basically

their advisors will take that information, they'll turn it around, and use it against

their opponent, and they'll make themselves look good and they'll make somebody else look

bad. They will spin attention, the public's attention away to something else or someone

else. That's why they are called "spin doctors", they operate on the public mind. They're professionals.

Okay? So this is just an introduction to some politics. We'll do another lesson again about

specific types of governance and other things that are important for talking about politics.

If you want to practice these words and make sure you understand them, there are some

sample sentences on the quiz on www.engvid.com.

You can ask questions. But please, let's make

sure we understand: This is just learning English so you can read newspapers, you can

watch broadcasts. Let's not start a political discussion on the comment section... In the

comment section at engVid.

One thing I will say before we're done, here, politics, talking about politics is very dangerous.

Make sure that the people you're discussing politics with want to discuss politics. Don't

force your views on anyone, don't let anyone force their views on you. Okay?

Subscribe to my YouTube channel when you get a chance, and come back again.

See you soon. Bye.