Learn English Vocabulary Daily #17.1 — British English Podcast

Hello, and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast.

My name is Anna and you are listening to Week 17, Day 1 of Your English

Five a Day, the series that aims to increase your active vocabulary

by five pieces every single day of the week from Monday to Friday.

Let's kick off today's list with a noun.

We start with commodity, commodity.

We spell this C O M M O D I T Y.

Commodity.

A commodity is a substance or a product that can be traded, bought or sold.

So, every country has some form of commodity.

They have many commodities that are traded.

Some internally, so nationally or domestically, and some externally,

internationally, globally.

What commodities does your country trade internationally?

Here's an example sentence,

"The country's most valuable commodities include tin and diamonds."

Next on our list is an adjective and it is bland, bland.

We spell this B L A N D.

Bland.

If something is described as bland, then it's not very strong.

It doesn't have a strong taste if we're talking about food or drink, or it

doesn't have a very strong character or personality if it's a person.

So, it's not a very nice thing actually to say that someone's quite bland.

So, I would be very upset if someone said,

"Oh yes, Anna's a very bland girl."

Hopefully no one would say that about me, but bland.

Not being very strong or characterful, not very interesting, not very energetic.

Here's an example sentence,

"This casserole is very bland, did you forget to add the herb mix?"

Alright, moving on to another noun.

This is a favourite of mine and it is page-turner.

Page-turner.

We spell this P A G E, hyphen; turner, T U R N E R.

Page-turner.

A page-turner refers to a book that's so exciting that you can't help

but turn the pages very quickly.

You keep reading because you have to know what happens next.

It's a very interesting and exciting book.

For example,

"The last Dan Brown book I read was a real page-turner, I

finished it in three nights!"

Can you think of the last page-turner that you picked up?

Moving on, we have the adjective eccentric, eccentric.

We spell this E C C E N T R I C.

Eccentric.

If something or someone is described as eccentric, then they

are strange and slightly unusual.

Sometimes in a fun or humorous way.

I always had an eccentric drama teacher.

I had one at college, I had one at school, and I had one at drama school.

Drama teachers do tend to be quite eccentric.

They're a little bit strange, a little bit unusual.

They're not like all the other teachers.

They might wear flamboyant clothing, and walk in a different way,

and walk into the room and go,

"Hello darlings, what a lovely, beautiful classroom full of people.

Now you, delicious human beings, get down on the floor and pretend to be cats.

Go!"

Have you ever come across an eccentric person?

Or do you have any eccentric clothing?

Here's an example sentence,

"Why do you always have to wear such eccentric clothes?

You make me look so boring!"

Last on our list is a noun and it is prose, prose.

We spell this P R O S E, prose, prose.

Notice the S is voiced, so we have a Z sound.

Prose.

Prose refers to written language that is in ordinary form rather than poetry.

So, it's not poetry, it's just ordinary spoken word, written as we would speak.

Here's an example sentence,

"I always preferred reading prose to poetry."

Alright, let's recap our five for today.

We started with the noun commodity, a substance or product

that can be bought or sold.

Then we moved on to the adjective bland, which is having very little taste

or character, not very interesting.

We moved on to the noun page-turner, a book that you have to read quickly

because you just find it so interesting.

You turn the pages over and over again.

Then we had the adjective eccentric, something that's unusual and strange,

often in a fun or humorous way.

And we finished with the noun prose, referring to language

that's written in the way that it's spoken, rather than poetry.

Okay, let's do this for pronunciation, please repeat after me.

Commodity.

Commodity.

Bland.

Bland.

Page-turner.

Page-turner.

Eccentric.

Eccentric.

Prose.

Prose.

Brilliant.

Okay, let me test you.

If I pick up a book and I just can't put it down, I just keep

going through it until I've read it, what would I call that book?

A page-turner.

And when I discuss the substances that my country buys and

sells, what am I referring to?

Commodities, of course.

And if I say, "I'm very sorry, I cooked this casserole, but it

doesn't really taste of anything."

What adjective could I use here?

Bland, bland.

And then I'm going to introduce you to my very strange and slightly

unusual aunt, who is a drama teacher.

I would often describe her as being quite...

eccentric, eccentric.

And she loves reading Shakespeare, but she particularly enjoys reading

his written word that's in ordinary form rather than his poetic work.

What am I referring to here?

How can I refer to this written language in its ordinary form?

Prose, prose.

Very good.

Let's put this all together in a special review.

Today I'd like to share a book recommendation with you.

I'm a big fan of reading as a means of improving language skills, and I hope

I can entice you to pick up this great page-turner and enjoy reading as much,

and learn some new vocabulary, as I did.

The book is called Fahrenheit 451 and was written by Ray Bradbury.

Here's the review.

Guy Montag is a fireman.

His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along

with the houses in which it's hidden.

Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions cause, returning

each day to his bland life and his wife Mildred, who spends all

day with her television "family".

But when he meets an eccentric young neighbour, Clarisse, who introduces

him to a past where people didn't live in fear, and a present where

the world is seen through the ideas of books rather than the mindless

chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has known.

Alongside Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 is

the classic novel of a post-literate future and a pathetic account of the

enslavement of Western civilisation by media, drugs, and conformity.

Bradbury's powerful and poetic prose combines with an uncanny insight into

the potential of technology to create a novel that still has the power

to astonish and shock more than 50 years after its first publication.

And there we go.

That's the review.

I'm aware that there are some words in this review that you may

not know yet, so, I will write more about those words tomorrow.

Book reviews are always very useful and I hope to be able to share some more

of my favourite books with you soon.

Until next time, take very good care and goodbye.