Learn English Vocabulary Daily #12.4 - British English Podcast

Hello and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast.

My name's Anna and you're listening to Week 12, Day 4 of Your English Five a

Day, a series that aims to increase your vocabulary by five pieces every single

day of the week from Monday to Friday.

With today's list, we start with the noun notion, notion.

We spell this N O T I O N.

Notion.

Notion.

A notion is a belief or an idea.

Here's an example sentence.

"The show's director rejects the notion that seeing violence on television

has a harmful effect on children."

Next on the list is another noun and it is strain, strain.

We spell this S T R A I N.

Strain.

Strain.

A strain is a force or an influence that stretches, pulls or puts pressure

on something, sometimes causing damage.

A strain.

So, you might say that financial pressures and the stresses of work can

put a strain on a relationship, or the coronavirus lockdowns, they definitely

put a strain on many relationships, people being confined in the same

space for a long period of time, that put a strain on many relationships.

Here's another example.

"The recent decline in the Euro has put a bigger strain on the economic system."

Moving on, next we have a verb and it is uproot, uproot.

This is spelled U P R O O T.

Uproot.

To uproot, usually someone, is to remove a person from their

home or their usual environment.

Here's an example sentence.

"They wanted to transfer Mark, but he had been with the team for six

years and didn't want to uproot his family to play in a different city."

Have you ever been uprooted?

I was uprooted a lot as a child, and it's certainly something I consider

now that I have children of my own.

If my partner and I ever talk about moving to a different location that

would mean changing the schools and all the clubs and friends that my

boys currently have, then that would be too much of an upheaval for them.

I wouldn't want to uproot them in that way.

Only if it were to be a permanent or long term change would I consider it.

Next on the list we have the idiom go off the rails.

Go off the rails.

So, that's G O, go.

Off, O F F.

The, T H E.

Rails, R A I L S, like train track rails.

So, to go off the rails is to start to behave in a way

that's generally unacceptable.

Usually it involves dishonesty or illegal behaviour.

So, to go off the rails.

Have you ever met anyone who at some point has gone off the rails?

Here's an example sentence.

"Sandra went off the rails in her first year at university, it's going

to take time to get her back on track."

And last on the list is the verb roam, roam.

We spell this R O A M, to roam, something that I'm sure you have done

at some point, is to move about or travel, especially without a clear idea.

It's like exploring a place and seeing what's going on.

To roam.

"Ooh, look around.

Isn't this lovely?"

Here's an example.

"When I was younger, I roamed around America for a year, working in bars

and restaurants before I finally got offered a job in Disneyland."

OK, so let's recap today's list.

We have the noun notion, which is a belief or an idea.

Then we had strain, which is an influence that stretches, pulls, or puts pressure

on something, usually causing damage.

Then we had the verb uproot, to remove a person from their

home or their usual environment.

We had the idiom go off the rails, which is to behave in an unacceptable way.

And then we had the verb roam, to roam, which is to travel about, often without

a clear idea of where you're going.

Now I do quickly just want to touch once more on the idiom to go off

the rails because I don't want you to think that this is used when

someone just behaves badly once.

So, let's imagine that you have a friend who's very reliable and kind

and considerate, and then one night you go out to a restaurant and they drink

too much wine and they start being rude to everyone and interrupting the

conversation and just behaving in a way that's really bad and out of character.

That's not that person going off the rails.

We wouldn't describe that as going off the rails.

Going off the rails would be if that person who's normally, you know, very

relaxed and reliable and kind, if that person were to start drinking on a daily

basis, or taking drugs and spending time with people that are very different.

People who maybe engage in illegal activity; drug dealers, for example.

And she just isn't the same person anymore.

And she starts to do things that are detrimental and harmful to her life.

And put a strain on all of her relationships and friendships.

That would be described as going off the rails.

Something that has a fundamental impact on a person's life.

Okay, so now I've got that clear, I want to do our pronunciation practice.

So, please repeat after me.

Notion.

Notion.

Strain.

Strain.

Uproot.

Uproot.

Go off the rails.

Go off the rails.

Roam.

Roam.

Great.

So what word would I use to describe travelling around?

Roam.

And what's another word for belief or idea?

Notion.

If I were to take my children out of school and move them to a

new city, what would I be doing?

Uprooting them.

And if I suddenly started behaving very badly and detrimenting my

life in all sorts of terrible ways, you could use the idiom...

going off the rails.

"Anna is going off the rails."

And if I do go off the rails, that's going to influence my relationships.

What noun could I use for this?

Strain.

It's going to strain my relationships.

It's going to put a strain on my relationships.

Okay, so let's now bring all of those together in a little story.

Well, Doctor, change became my notion of stability.

My childhood was, shall we say, a bit unorthodox.

I mean, when your mum uproots the family every other year to

follow a whim, stability isn't exactly the word of the day.

So, you learn to find consistency where you can.

In my case, it was Mr.

Whiskers, the first of many feline companions.

As the years went by, the strain of constantly moving pushed me to find

solace in the company of my cats.

When I say 'solace', I mean an obsession.

Picture this: I'm 25, my life's going off the rails — again — and there I am, in

a one-bedroom apartment with seven cats.

They roamed like tiny, furry lords, and I was their willing subject.

It's funny, in a way.

Most people collect stamps, or bad dates — I collect cats.

Each one is a fluffy bookmark in the chapters of my life.

I've learnt a lot from them, too.

Like, how to land on your feet, or the importance of a good nap.

But here's the biggest lesson: no matter how much they roam, they always come back.

Maybe that's what I've been trying to do all along — find my

way back home, with my 35 cats.

And that brings us to the end of today's episode.

I do hope you found this useful.

Until tomorrow, take very good care and goodbye.