Build Your Vocabulary FASTER!

8,760 views ・ 2025-04-29

Adam’s English Lessons


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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Hi, everybody.
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Welcome to www.engvid.com.
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I'm Adam.
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In today's video, I want to show you how to build your vocabulary base faster.
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Okay?
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Now, I've made other videos about building vocabulary, and I know other teachers have
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done this as well.
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But today, I want to give you a bit more focused attention on how to do this in terms of the
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work that you're going to have to put into it.
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But before we get into that, I want to give you a few tips to get us started, okay?
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First thing I want you to keep in mind, and this is especially for those of you who are
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taking a test, like IELTS, TOEFL, Cambridge, whatever.
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I know that a lot of people do this, but don't do this.
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Don't memorize word lists.
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It is very, very ineffective.
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Why?
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Because you're memorizing words in a bit of a random list.
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There's no associations, there's no relations between the words.
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You're just trying to memorize them and then spit them out again onto the paper or in the
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interview or whatever.
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And even if you're not taking a test, this is not a good way to build vocabulary.
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If the words don't connect to ideas and to situations, you're going to forget them very
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quickly.
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So, instead of creating - instead of memorizing lists, I want you to start creating, start
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building your own lists.
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And I'm going to show you how to do that in a moment.
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Also, when it comes to building vocabulary, don't think that you're going to do it in
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a week or a month or even two months.
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It's going to take time.
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Give yourself that time.
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Be patient, keep working, you will see results.
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Now, if any of you have ever gone to the gym and you're working out and trying to build
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muscle, you'll understand that after a week, you won't see any changes in your body.
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After a month, you probably still won't see any changes in your body.
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And this is when most people just quit and stop going to the gym.
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But, I'm speaking from my own experience, once you pass that second month, you will
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definitely start seeing results.
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You will see your body starting to change, you will lose weight, you will gain muscle.
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Same with vocabulary.
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After you're doing this consistently and for a while, you're going to start realizing that
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you're using the new words, you're writing with them, you're speaking with them, you're
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doing all kinds of interesting things with them.
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So, don't stop until you're fluent.
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Now, fluency is obviously a very big goal.
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It might take you a year, two years, three years.
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Keep going, keep going.
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English has a lot of words.
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The more you know, the better you'll communicate.
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And don't try to impress with your words.
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You'll be much more - you'll make a much better impression if you're using words correctly
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with variety and very useful for the purpose that you're using them for, right?
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If you're just throwing out random big words trying to impress a reader or a listener,
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they will not be impressed.
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It's quite the opposite.
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They might, you know, they might think you're a little bit off or they might look down on
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you because you're not using the language correctly.
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So, the whole point is, the general idea is work smarter, not harder.
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Don't sit there memorizing, don't write random things.
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Have a very focused approach to building vocabulary.
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And now, I'm going to show you the types of lists that you can start building that should
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be much more effectual in building your vocabulary base, okay?
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So, let's get started with that.
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Okay, so now, how are you going to build your lists?
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How are you going to make new lists that are more effective?
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Well, this is something that I call "chunks" or "chunking".
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You're going to put things in particular types of groups or categories, and these sort of
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associations, these collections of words will help you remember them more easily because
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you're associating them under the category.
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So, if you remember the category and this word belongs in this category, it'll already
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give you an idea, sort of like a bit of a memory trigger to help you remember the words.
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So, I'm going to give you six of these categories, okay?
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And, by the way, if you want to get more help and get started with some lists, you can go
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to my other channel right to the top on YouTube, and I make videos about vocabulary, especially
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with the idea of chunking to help you get started, okay?
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So, let's start with the first group, context.
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Start thinking about words for particular situations, purposes, or functions.
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So, you're going to have very targeted vocabulary.
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An example, think of a very general topic like shopping, and then think of subtopics,
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something within shopping that's a little bit more specific.
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You can talk about e-commerce, which is incorrectly spelled.
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You can talk about e-commerce, or a store, or a few other subtopics, and then you go
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even deeper and get very specific words for these particular situations, or these purposes,
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etc.
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So, when you're talking about e-commerce, you can talk about platform.
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Now, a platform is a place where you stand and wait for the train to come, but it's also
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a place on the internet where somebody sets up a store, or a business, or some sort of
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service that you can go visit and shop there as well.
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You should know what a call to action is.
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Every website will have a call to action, they'll want you to click on something or
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do something.
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Letters, when you write a letter, you should end it with a call to action, etc.
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Conversion rate.
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What is a conversion rate?
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Turning a visitor to your website into a customer.
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That's the conversion, right?
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So, again, these are just examples, there's a whole list of words.
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But once you put all these words together, each one will help you remember the other
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because they're all related somehow.
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But the key, and especially for the context group, is to - once you have a collection
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of words, write something, or say something about this topic, or about this topic.
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Especially for those of you taking tests, write essays, write short paragraphs about
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these topics, and that'll help you sink it in.
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Any chance you get to speak with somebody in English, bring up this topic somehow, you
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know.
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Don't just say, "Oh, hey, let's talk about shopping", because maybe they don't want to.
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You know, lead them into that topic and then start impressing them with all your nice new
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vocabulary.
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So, this is one.
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Another one is secondary uses.
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And by the way, how you're going to do this, you should keep a notebook.
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Have six sections to this notebook, or have six different notebooks, that's fine too.
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And as you learn these words, put them into your notebook.
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You can even do like a search online for this particular topic and get all the words and
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start collecting these words for that.
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Secondary uses means everyday common words that can be used in completely different ways.
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So, for example, the word "shoulder".
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Everybody knows this is a shoulder, the noun.
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But there's also a verb form of this word.
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To shoulder something means to carry.
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It doesn't have to be something physical.
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You can shoulder the responsibility and building collocations, but I'm going to talk about
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that separately.
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So, to carry something or to have a certain sort of burden on you.
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"Boot".
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"Boot" is something that you wear on your shoe, on your feet.
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Not on your shoe, on your feet.
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And it's normally - most people understand it as a noun.
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But it can also be a verb, and as a verb, it can have two separate, completely unrelated
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meanings.
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One, you boot your computer.
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You basically turn it on.
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But a less common meaning is to kick.
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So, when you boot someone, if you boot someone in the stomach, basically it means you're
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kicking them in the stomach.
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But if you boot someone out of the group, it means you kick them out, you remove them.
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So, less common usage.
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"Hire".
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Everybody knows hire, like a boss hires new staff.
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But "hire" can also be a noun, so the new hire didn't work out well, so we had to let
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him go.
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So, the person that we hired, the new hire noun, and then we got somebody new.
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In British English, "hire" can mean "rent".
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We hired a car.
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We rented a car.
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So, again, a lot of secondary uses, keep those together.
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And the fact that you're grouping them as a secondary usage, you'll remember them having
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the non-traditional meaning, and then hopefully you'll remember what that meaning is, okay?
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So, there are two.
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Let's look at the next two.
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Okay, so now we've got two more categories we're going to work on.
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Precision vocab.
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This one is very, very important because what it does is it helps you reduce the number
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of words you need to explain something or to make a point, etc., especially important
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for writing, but also for speaking.
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So, precision, to be precise, means to be very targeted on a particular idea.
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So, when you say this one word, I can - like, the listener or the reader can understand
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a lot of different things, right, without having to be - without having it explained
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too much.
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So, for example, if you want to return an action, if someone did something nice to you,
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you want to do something nice back to them.
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Or the other way, if somebody did something bad, you want to do something bad back.
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So, instead of saying, to do all this explanation that I just did, I could just use the word
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"reciprocate".
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"Reciprocate" means that.
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So, also, another thing that you're doing is you're removing the dictionary explanations
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of a word and just using the word itself, right?
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So, reciprocate.
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A church singing group, one, two, three, four words, I can replace with one word, "choir",
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right?
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Or a choir, so two words, maybe, right?
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"Choir" for pronunciation.
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Everybody knows what a choir is.
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Now, it doesn't have to be in a church, but when you're - when I'm putting this word within
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a certain context, within the other sentences, it should be very clear to me that we're talking
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about one in a church.
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If you're talking about a place or an event that includes people from all over the world,
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you can just say "cosmopolitan".
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That's what "cosmopolitan" means, that it has - it reflects people and cultures from
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everywhere.
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So, one word instead of all of these other words.
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So, that's precision vocabulary.
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Make a list of these words that help you eliminate other words.
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And confused words.
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Now, everybody is going to have certain words that they're never really sure about, like
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"effect" and "effect".
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Every English class you've ever taken, I'm sure at some point this has come up.
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I'm just using it here as an example.
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Sometimes it's just a question of spelling.
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"Affect", "verb", "effect", "noun", but "effect", secondary meaning, can also be a verb.
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To create a change, to make a change.
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"Pray" to God or whatever you believe in.
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"Pray" what - the thing that is hunted.
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Only "e" and "a" difference, the sound is the same.
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Then, you have other words that are completely unrelated.
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"Abuse".
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If you abuse someone or abuse something, if you abuse someone, you treat them very badly,
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maybe you physically abuse them, you hit them, you verbally abuse them, you say bad things
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to them all the time, emotional abuse, mental abuse, etc.
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You can abuse alcohol, means you do it too much without any control.
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"Disabuse" does not mean the opposite of "abuse".
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"To disabuse someone of an illusion" means to remove the illusion.
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So, if somebody believes something, but that something is not true and you somehow prove
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to them or you show them evidence that it's not true, then you disabuse them of that belief,
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you get rid of that belief for them.
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So, again, lots of different words that can be confused with each other.
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Make sure you understand the differences and keep them in your list.
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And again, use them, use them, use them all the time, any chance you get, okay?
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Two more, let's look at those.
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Okay, so now we have two more categories.
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We have roots, prefixes, and suffixes, and parts of speech.
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Now, again, a lot of teachers will recommend this tool, and it's a very useful tool, but
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again, only having the one is too limiting.
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Definitely have this category.
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When you see words that look very similar, make sure you understand why they are, right?
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So, "eject", "reject", "object" or "object" or "object", "subject" or "subject", "deject",
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etc.
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So, the "ject", this is the root, means to push out.
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So, "eject" means I literally push out, like for example, from a plane, right?
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Like Maverick in Top Gun, he ejected from the plane and Goose got killed, and now there's
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a sequel, right?
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So, that's the root.
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Then, make sure that whenever you have new words, don't only learn the one word.
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Learn all its different forms with all the prefixes and suffixes.
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"Intent", "intention", right?
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So, here we have a suffix, "intentionally", whoops, all the way, "unintentional".
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Here I have a prefix and a suffix, "unintended", etc.
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Try to see all the different forms that you can find of a word, and then you have more
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vocabulary as well.
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And parts of speech.
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Don't just learn...
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Again, this is very similar to the forms, except we're not talking about prefixes and
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suffixes, you're talking about function, noun, verb, adjective, adverb, etc.
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"Variety", "noun", "very", "verb", "varied", "adjective", "variedly", "adverb", not very
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commonly used, but it's still technically okay.
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And this might also help you think about different words that are related, like "variation" is
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a...
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A "variation" means a different way of doing something, right?
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So, all of the different forms and all of the different roots will help you also build
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more vocabulary by focusing on one or two words and building from there.
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And then you have the "idiomatic", which is very, very important, especially to build
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your spoken communication.
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Of course, we use these in writing, but we use these a lot in everyday spoken English.
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So, "idiomatic" is basically groupings of words that when they're put together tend
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to have very different meanings than the individual words.
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So, for example, you're going to have phrasal verbs, and I have a lot of videos about those
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you could look at.
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Collocations, these are words that generally go together and work together.
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And then, of course, there's idioms themselves, right?
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So...
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And so, then I'm going to show you all of these.
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So, for example, "make do" is a collocation.
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You know "make", you know "do".
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"Together to make do" means to do as much as you possibly can, do enough considering
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what you have in mind.
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Oh, you know what I just noticed?
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Sorry, a little misspelling there.
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It happens even to the best of them, right?
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Unintentionally.
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Anyway.
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"Make do".
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A tall tale, again, tall adjective, tale, noun, together they mean unbelievable story.
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Sometimes, like little kids, when they get in trouble and they want to have an excuse
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so they don't get blamed, they make up a tall tale.
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They make up a lie or a fancy story, sort of to get the attention away from them, get
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them out of trouble.
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Those are collocations.
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Phrasal verbs.
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"Keep at".
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So, I hope that all of you keep at building your vocab, continue to.
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Don't quit.
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Keep doing something.
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And "hang on".
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Sometimes you'll have ups and downs, "hang on" means, you know, brace yourself.
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That's not very helpful either.
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"Hang on" basically means don't give up, don't lose hope, don't lose strength, right?
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Stay strong the whole time.
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And idioms, and I can give you a thousand of them, but I'll just give you one as an
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example.
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"Kick", you know, "the", you know, "habit", you know.
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Put them all together.
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What does it mean?
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To quit something, like smoking or drinking or usually something bad.
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So, if you kick the habit, you quit doing that thing that you were doing.
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As you learn them, keep them in your notebook or notebooks in different categories.
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And again, by putting them together, you'll start remembering them more.
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But the most important part, use them.
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Use all of these new words.
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Use all of the new expressions.
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And keep doing it.
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Keep doing it.
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Keep doing it.
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Learning, using.
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Learning, using.
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And the best place to get all these new words, not from word lists, read newspaper articles.
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Read books.
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Watch TV.
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Watch news.
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Watch movies.
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Watch anything you can.
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And talk to different people, especially native English speakers or fluent English speakers.
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Because that's where you're going to pick up all these new words.
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Write them down.
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Use them.
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Cycle.
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Cycle.
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Cycle.
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Keep going over and over again.
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So now, if you have any questions about any of this, please ask me at www.engvid.com.
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Don't forget you can go to Write to the Top on YouTube as well, or www.writetotop.com
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where I make videos to help you build up these vocabulary chunks.
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And if you like the video, give me a like.
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Don't forget to subscribe to my channel, and come back next time for more useful tips.
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See you then.
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Bye-bye.
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Original video on YouTube.com
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