Learn English Vocabulary Daily #14.5 — British English Podcast

Hello, and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast, my name is

Anna and you're listening to Week 14, Day 5 of Your English Five a Day.

This is a series that aims to increase your active vocabulary by deep

diving into five pieces every day of the week from Monday to Friday.

Now let's kick off today's list with the noun hangover.

Hangover.

Hangover is spelt H A N G O V E R.

Hangover.

Now a hangover is a horrible thing.

It's the feeling of illness after drinking too much alcohol.

So, it's normally what you experience the morning after the night before,

when you've been to a crazy party and drank a lot of alcohol, you wake up

in the morning, you might feel sick, your eyes might hurt, you possibly

have a headache, and yeah, you do not have any energy to get out of bed.

It's awful.

I sound like I'm speaking from experience.

I have experienced hangovers in the past.

It's not something I experience anymore because I don't really drink anymore.

Only on very special occasions will I have a little tipple of

something, but not these days.

When I was a teenager and in my early twenties, I would push the boat

out and go crazy and have a bit too much to drink, but I'm sensible now.

I've matured.

Okay, here's another example sentence.

" I can't remember the last time I had a serious hangover.

I just can't cope with those late nights out anymore!"

Next on our list is an idiom.

And it's to paint the town red.

To paint the town red.

Let me spell that in case you're mishearing me.

Paint, P A I N T, paint.

The, T H E town, T O W N.

Red, R E D.

Paint the town red.

To paint the town red refers to going out and enjoying yourself by

drinking alcohol, dancing, and just having a good time with your friends.

Here's an example sentence.

"Hey, I'm ready to paint the town red with a few of my closest friends."

So, if I heard someone say that to me, then I know they're

going to go out and party.

They're going to paint the town red.

Next on our list is another idiom, and it is to fall off the

wagon, to fall off the wagon.

We spell this F A L L, fall.

Off, O F F.

The, T H E.

Wagon, W A G O N.

Fall off the wagon.

To fall off the wagon is to start drinking alcohol after a period

when you have not drunk any alcohol.

So, if you decide,

"I need to stop drinking."

Maybe it's becoming a problem.

And so you decide to abstain, to stop drinking alcohol.

And for a good period of time, you manage to keep to this promise of abstinence.

But then, one night at a party, you just can't resist.

And you buy yourself a glass of wine or a shot of tequila or whatever

your drink is and you drink it.

Then you have fallen off the wagon.

And you have to get back on the wagon if you want to live a long and healthy life.

Okay, here's an example.

"When June's husband died, she fell off the wagon."

Okay, our next word on the list is an adverb and it is reluctantly, reluctantly.

Reluctantly is spelled R E L U C T A N T L Y.

Reluctantly.

Reluctantly.

Reluctantly is to do something in a way that shows you are not willing to do it.

And so maybe you do it in a slow and unenthusiastic way.

So, it's not something you want to do, but you're doing it possibly

because you have to, because you are obliged to, or because you need to.

Sometimes you have to take medicine that tastes horrible or makes you feel

bad, but you know that it's necessary to beat the bug that you're experiencing.

Or sometimes you might need to help out a family member or a friend

financially, even though you know that your help will probably be misused.

So, if you have a friend who's very bad with money and they get themselves

into terrible debt and you've helped them before and they use the money

badly and they've asked you again for help and you know that they're

probably going to use the money for something other than their debt.

Maybe they'll go out on a night out and waste it all on booze.

But you give them the money anyway and you do so reluctantly.

So, you don't want to, but you feel like you have to.

Here's another example.

"Janice has reluctantly agreed to step down as managing director

after being there for 25 years."

Alright, last on our list is the adjective swanky.

Swanky.

I love this word.

So, we spell this S W A N K Y.

Swanky.

If something is described as being swanky, then it's very expensive and fashionable,

or in a way that's intended to attract people's attention and admiration.

So, we often refer to swanky restaurants or swanky hotels.

A swanky bar.

A place that is fashionable and cool and expensive.

There're lots of swanky restaurants in London, for example.

Here's an example.

"I've booked us a room in that swanky new hotel for the weekend.

I can't wait to be pampered."

Okay, that's our five for today.

Let's do a quick recap.

We started with the noun hangover.

Hangover, which is that awful ill feeling that you have the morning

after drinking too much alcohol.

Then we have the idiom paint the town red, which is when you go out and party.

You enjoy yourself, dancing and laughing with friends.

Then we had the idiom fall off the wagon, which is when you give in to

temptation and you start drinking again after a period of stopping.

We moved on to the adverb reluctantly, which is to do something that

you don't really want to do.

Then we had the adjective swanky.

Which is a way of describing a place, which is a very fashionable and expensive.

Or it could be not just a place but an item.

It could be a swanky bag.

You could have quite a fashionable and expensive bag or a swanky coat.

You could describe a person as being quite swanky if they always dress and

behave in a way that's quite cool and they dress in an expensive way and

they try to get people's attention.

Now let's do it for pronunciation.

Please repeat after me.

Hangover.

Hangover.

Paint the town red.

Paint the town red.

Fall off the wagon.

Fall off the wagon.

Reluctantly.

Reluctantly.

Swanky.

Swanky.

Fantastic.

Now a quick quiz for you.

If I do something that I don't really want to do, how will I do it?

Reluctantly, of course.

And what idiom can I use to describe going out on a night out

and having fun with my friends?

Paint the town red.

Yes, that's what I'm going to do.

Absolutely.

Now, if I've had trouble with drinking too much alcohol and I decide I'm never

going to drink alcohol again, and for three months I stick to it and I never

drink alcohol, but then I go to a party and someone insists that I have a drink.

And I finally have my first drink in three months.

What have I just done?

What idiom would we use?

Fall off the wagon.

And if I go to a very expensive and very fashionable restaurant

in the centre of London, how could I describe that restaurant?

Swanky!

Yes, fantastic.

Alright, let's move on and put these all together in a little story.

Dear Diary,

Ugh!

Whose idea was it to paint the town red last night?

It was only supposed to be a couple of drinks and a bite to eat after work.

Mandy and I were making our way home when she suddenly said,

"Why don't we try the new wine bar?

I've heard it's really good.

We'll only have one drink, I promise."

Reluctantly, I agreed.

I haven't had an alcoholic drink for over a month so I really wanted to be careful.

The last thing I want is to fall off the wagon, again.

In we went, the tables were made of large wine barrels and decorated with

fairy lights in bottles, the stools were a mix of leather and chrome, grape

vines hung lazily from the ceiling, and there was a pianist playing

chill-out jazz music in the far corner.

The atmosphere was so laid back and Mediterranean feeling.

As promised, we only had the one drink, but as we left this swanky new venue, we

bumped into some old university mates.

They all insisted we go clubbing and re-live our younger years.

The next thing I know, we're queuing up outside 'Subtone', a 3-level nightclub

with different music on each floor.

Being a Thursday night, I thought it might be fairly quiet.

Ugh, how wrong I was.

It turned out it was 3 for 2 on all vodka, gin, and sambuca shots.

This is where the rest of the night became a total blur!

I don't know how I got home, but I've woken up with the worst hangover ever.

And have promised myself never to listen to Mandy again!

And that brings us to the end of Week 14.

Thank you so much for listening.

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Until tomorrow, take very good care and goodbye.