Learn English Vocabulary Daily #20.3 — British English Podcast

Hello and Welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast.

My name is Anna and you are listening to Week 20, Day 3 of Your English Five a Day.

This is the series that aims to increase your vocabulary, your active vocabulary,

by deep-diving into five pieces every day of the working week from Monday to Friday.

So, we're going to start today's list with a verb and it is to tamper, to tamper.

We're spelling this T A M P E R.

Tamper.

To tamper with something is to interfere or mess around

with it to change something.

So, the first thing that springs to mind is tampering with the elections

or tampering with the vote, or you might tamper with a car engine.

That sounds very devious, doesn't it?

So, if you tamper with the election or you tamper with a ballot box, then you

try to go in and sneak some of the votes out or sneak some extra votes in, in

order to change the outcome of the vote.

Does this ring any bells?

Can you hear an orange man shouting?

Okay.

So, to tamper with something.

Sometimes in dramas, I guess in real life as well, if somebody has a problem

with another person, if someone doesn't like another person and they wish them

harm, then they may decide to tamper with that person's brakes on their car.

So, they mess with the brakes in order to make the brakes ineffective or likely

to falter, likely to stop working when the car is in motion, which obviously

would result in a terrible accident.

So, to tamper with something.

Here's another example,

"Have you been tampering with the door lock again?

It's stuck and now I can't get out of the bathroom!"

That would be terrible, wouldn't it?

Being stuck in the bathroom.

You'd have to eat toothpaste and drink tap water.

Right, so, moving on, we have an adjective, genuine, genuine.

We spell this G E N U I N E.

Genuine.

Genuine.

If something is described as genuine, then it's real.

It's not fake.

It's exactly what it seems to be.

There's no pretending.

It's real.

So, if you turn up on my front door,

"Hello Anna, you've won the lottery."

I'd be like,

"No, I haven't.

You're obviously a con artist.

I'm never going to win the lottery."

But you say,

"No, no, I'm genuine."

"You genuinely have won the lottery.

This is genuine.

It's not fake.

It's very real."

And then I open the door, "Ah!"

And there you stand with a cheque.

My cheque.

With my winnings written all over it.

"Oh wow!

I have, I have won the lottery.

You are genuine.

This is a genuine win.

It's a genuine knock at the door.

It's not fake.

It's all real.

Woohoo!

Let's go on holiday."

Here's another example sentence,

"Do you like my new sofa?

It's genuine leather, cost me a fortune!"

Alright, next on the list is a noun and it is defect, defect.

We spell this D E F E C T, defect.

A defect is a fault or an issue with something, or someone, that causes

it or them to not work properly.

So, if there is a defect with your new car, with the brakes, maybe someone's

tampered with them and you didn't realise, but if there's a defect

then your car's not going to work properly and it will have to go back

to the factory to be fixed or swapped.

There's nothing worse than having a defect with something.

Here's an example,

"Uh, I think there must be a defect with the car's computer system,

all the lights keep flashing and the engine alarm is going off!"

Alright, next on the list we have an idiom!

Woo hoo!

We all love an idiom, and it is to hit the road.

To hit the road.

We spell this, hit, H I T.

The, T H E.

Road, R O A D.

Hit the road.

To hit the road is to set off on a journey, to leave to go somewhere else.

So, if I'm at the pub enjoying a few drinks with my best friends to

celebrate something fantastic, like my friend's got a new job, we're having

a few drinks, but I realise it's 9.30 and I'm normally in bed by 10 o'clock.

I look at my watch and say,

"Oh, girls, I'm going to have to hit the road.

It's 9.30.

You know what that means.

I should be in my pyjamas."

So, I hit the road and I go home.

So, it's all about setting off.

Here's another example,

"I'd love to stay and chat, but I really must hit the road, I've got a dance

class in 20 minutes and I still have to stop for petrol on the way there."

Next on the list we have another idiom.

Lucky you, two idioms in one episode.

Okay, so this idiom is bite the bullet.

Bite the bullet.

What you'll notice is the T in bite kind of starts to drop off

when you say it all together.

Bite the, bite the bullet, bite the bullet.

To bite the bullet.

Let's break this down.

We have bite, B I T E, like biting a sandwich.

Chomp!

The, T H E, bullet, B U L L E T, like something you

shoot out of a gun, a bullet.

Bite the bullet.

To bite the bullet is to do something that you don't want to do, but to just

do it because you've been hesitating and you just need to get it done.

We've all been in that situation, haven't we?

You've just got to do it.

You've got to bite the bullet.

You know the bullet will explode and it will be horrible.

It will be unpleasant, but you've got to do it.

It needs doing.

The thing that springs to mind as soon as I say 'bite the bullet'

and doing something difficult is breaking up with somebody.

I'm sure many of you have been in a situation where you're in a

relationship or even working with someone and it's not working out.

It doesn't feel right and you've come to the decision that it's over.

You want to end that relationship.

But you have to tell them, and you have to set those wheels in motion.

And you don't want to tell them because you know it will be horrible.

But eventually, it will all be fine.

You just need to do that horrible thing of telling them and dealing

with what we call the fallout.

Dealing with the aftermath of the explosion that will occur

when you bite the bullet.

And you have to be brave, and you have to breathe in, and just bite the bullet.

Here's another example,

"I'm going to have to bite the bullet and get the windows replaced next month, it's

an expense I can do without, but we can't go through another winter like this."

Oh that's an example that's very close to home.

We have a number of windows and doors that need replacing in our house.

And at some point we're going to have to bite the bullet because winter with poorly

fitted windows and doors is not fun.

It can be extremely cold.

Okay.

So that brings us to the end of the list.

Let's recap.

We started with the verb tamper, tamper, to mess around with something, to

interfere with it in order to change it.

Then we had the adjective genuine, which means real, not fake, genuine.

Then we had the noun, defect.

A defect, which is a fault or an issue with something, meaning

it's not working properly.

Then we had the idiom, hit the road.

Hit the road.

To set off on a journey or to leave a place in order to go somewhere else.

And then we finished with the idiom bite the bullet.

To bite the bullet is to do something that's difficult that you've been putting

off, that you've been hesitating over.

So, let's do this for pronunciation.

Please repeat after me.

Tamper.

Tamper.

Genuine.

Genuine.

Defect.

Defect.

Hit the road.

Hit the road.

Bite the bullet.

Bite the bullet.

Very good.

Let's test your memory now.

Hey, I've just bought this new belt and it's an Armani belt.

It's a real Armani belt.

It's not a fake one.

It's come from the Armani shop.

So, this is a real one.

What adjective can I use to describe my Armani belt instead of real?

Genuine.

It's a genuine Armani belt.

But I notice that the fastening mechanism is a little bit broken.

It doesn't seem right.

It's like someone has been interfering with the mechanism in order to weaken

it so that my belt becomes worthless.

What has someone done?

What verb could I use to describe this interference?

They've tampered with it.

How terrible!

Someone has tampered with my genuine Armani belt.

But when I take it back to the shop, they say,

"Look no one's tampered with your belt.

You're being a bit paranoid.

No one's tampered with your belt.

It's just a fault.

It's just an issue with the manufacturing of the belt.

That's all."

What other noun could we use instead of issue or fault?

A defect.

"It's just a defect, madam.

It's a defective belt.

No one has tampered with it.

So, what we're going to do is we're going to send you off on your way.

So, we're going to ask you to set off on your journey home."

What idiom could they use instead of telling me to set off on my journey home?

They could say, "hit the road."

It would sound maybe a bit rude, but they could say,

"Go, hit the road, go on, head off home," or I might say to them actually,

"I am going to hit the road now, I expect to hear from you about what you're

going to do about my belt very soon."

They say,

"Yes, madam, of course, this defective belt will be kept here.

We'll speak to head office and find out whether someone actually tampered with

it, although we do think it's a defect, and we will find out what we're going

to do with your genuine Armani belt."

Okay, so, I hit the road, I head home, and then the next day, the

shop assistant finds out that it wasn't actually a genuine Armani

belt, but they had a whole batch of belts in the store that were fake.

"Ahhh!"

And she has to phone me up and tell me that my belt was a fake and that

actually they don't have any more genuine belts coming into the store.

And so that the best they can offer me is a refund.

But she feels very nervous about phoning me because she knows that I

will be cross, that I will be angry, and I'll probably shout at her.

So, she doesn't want to phone me and she waits and waits and waits, but

she knows at some point she's going to have to deal with the situation.

What does she need to do?

What idiom would we use?

She needs to bite the bullet.

Do that difficult thing and get it over with.

Okay.

How did you do?

Hopefully they all stuck in your mind very well.

But if not, don't worry, because we'll revisit them once again as we

bring them together in a little story.

Emily recently inherited a 1920s classic car from her beloved grandfather.

The car has been in her family for generations and holds a

special place in her heart.

This is not just any other car for Emily.

It's a piece of family history, a symbol of her grandfather's

hard work and dedication.

But this classic beauty is not in the best condition.

It has been tampered with over the years and has a few

defects that need to be fixed.

Emily's boyfriend, Martin, works at the local garage and is renowned

for his ability to take the old, and make it like new again.

This car is a gem, but it needs a lot of work, and the garage will

need to source a couple of genuine parts, as Emily wants it to be as

close to the original as possible.

It's going to cost a pretty penny.

Emily knows that restoring this car will be a daunting task, but she's

willing to do whatever it takes.

She wants to drive it around the countryside, rooftop down,

soaking up the summer sun, just like her grandfather used to.

"I'm ready to bite the bullet and make it happen, whatever the cost,"

Emily says to herself.

Martin knows how much the car means to her, and so promises to

restore it to its former glory.

After months of hard work and dedication, and thanks to her determination and love

for her family's legacy, Emily's 1920s classic car is ready to hit the road

once again, ready to create new memories and continue its journey through time.

What's your story?

What legacy will you keep alive?

Take a step and make it happen.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, brings us to the end of this episode.

I do hope you found it useful.

And until tomorrow, take very good care of yourselves.

And goodbye.