Learn English Vocabulary Daily #21.1 — British English Podcast

Hello and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast.

My name is Anna and you are listening to Week 21, Day 1 of Your English

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

exploring five pieces every day of the working week from Monday to Friday.

We kick this one off with an adjective, quite a yummy adjective.

It is scrumptious.

Scrumptious.

We spell this S C R U M P T I O U S.

Scrumptious.

It makes me think of the musical film 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' where they sing,

"Truly scrumptious, you two are truly, truly scrumptious."

Scrumptious means delicious.

Very tasty.

"Mm mm mm, this is scrumptious."

It's one of those words that it's really lovely, but it's not used as often.

Tasty and delicious are the most common adjectives in this field,

but scrumptious can be used.

It feels a little bit silly, a bit friendly, a little

less formal, scrumptious.

It's cool.

It's fun.

Here's an example sentence,

"Wow!

That key lime pie was totally scrumptious.

Is there any left?"

What was the last scrumptious thing you ate?

I have to admit, I had some tiramisu last night, which is my

favourite pudding of all time.

Mm, mm mm!

Right, moving on before I have to abandon this podcast to go and raid the fridge.

Moving on to a noun and it is pantry.

Pantry.

We spell pantry P A N T R Y.

Pantry.

Pantry.

The pantry is a large cupboard or a small room in the kitchen and it's

used for storing food, food that doesn't need to be cold or frozen.

So, this normally is where you would keep your grains, your pasta, your

tins and cans, maybe bottles of drink if you keep bottles of drink.

Your pantry.

Sometimes, this is also referred to as a larder.

A larder.

Here's an example sentence,

"My great-grandmother always had a pantry full of delicious

treats, it even had a secret place to hide our special biscuits."

Next on the list is a verb, and it is tempt.

Tempt.

We spell this T E M P T.

Tempt.

Tempt.

To tempt someone is to make them want to do something.

I always think about my pussycat when I want him to be in a certain room of the

house or if he's escaped the house and I want him back in, I have to tempt him.

I have to bring him in.

I have to make him want to come in, usually with some sort of bribe,

so I normally have to put food out or one of his special treats

to make him come into the house.

So tempting is making someone want to do something when they don't need to do it,

when it's not necessary for them to do it, or where they wouldn't ordinarily do it.

So, for example, if I'm trying to be good with food, maybe I'm trying

to stop eating by 6 pm and I want to fast through the evening and the

night into late morning the next day and someone comes in and says,

"Hey, Anna.

Would you like something yummy for supper?

Maybe some cheese and biscuits or a slice of cake and a cup of tea?

Or would you like a liqueur?"

Then they might tempt me.

It's not something I would opt to do ordinarily myself, but because

someone else has come in and said,

"Would you like to do this?"

Then I've been tempted.

They've tempted me.

Here's an example sentence,

"You've made such a mess of this wedding cake, I'm seriously tempted to just

throw it in the bin and start again.

How could you make it with chocolate instead of vanilla?"

Next on the list is an adjective and it is ultra-processed.

Ultra-processed.

We spell this ultra, U L T R A.

Hyphen.

Processed.

P R O C E S S E D.

Ultra-processed.

When something, usually a food, is described as ultra-processed,

then it has been prepared using industrial processes, and it contains

lots of ingredients that you can't normally prepare in your own kitchen.

So, ultra-processed food is something that you couldn't make in your little

home kitchen — or your big home kitchen.

Maybe you have a big kitchen; I'm making assumptions.

But things like cottage cheese or crisps, certain things that would be

quite difficult to make in the kitchen, those are usually ultra-processed foods.

Here's an example sentence,

"Eating too much ultra-processed food can lead to obesity and heart disease,

it's always better to eat fresh."

Now last on the list is a phrasal verb and it is end up, end up.

What you'll hear is the 'D' actually carries over and you end

up with end up, end up, end up.

End up means to get to, or arrive in, or reach a particular location or situation.

So, where you finish in terms of a place or a situation, where

you finish, usually after having done some previous activities.

So, I might say,

"I committed to doing a podcast a day in 2024 and I ended up feeling exhausted

because it's so much content to make."

Or,

"My children ate so much cake that they ended up feeling sick."

Or in terms of location, I could say,

"I was driving for hours and hours and hours in the wrong direction,

and I ended up in Glasgow.

How did that happen?

I was trying to get to Cornwall."

Okay, so, to end up.

Here's an example,

"Maria will end up with no money at all if she keeps spending her

inheritance like she has been, maybe we should have a chat with her."

Okay, let's recap.

We started with the adjective scrumptious, scrumptious, something

that's delicious, very, very tasty.

Then we had the noun, pantry, pantry, a large cupboard or a room,

small room, where we store food.

Then we had the verb tempt, tempt, to make someone want to do something,

usually when it's not needed.

Then we had the adjective ultra-processed, usually talking about food, meaning food

prepared using industrial processes.

And finally, the phrasal verb end up, meaning where you get to, arrive, or reach

in a particular location or situation.

Okay, so let's do this now for pronunciation.

Please repeat after me.

Scrumptious.

Scrumptious.

Pantry.

Pantry.

Tempt.

Tempt.

Ultra-processed.

Ultra-processed.

End up.

End up.

Fantastic.

Now, if I give you all the tins from my shopping bag and I ask you to put

them into the small cupboard where we store food, normally I call it a

larder, but you give it another name.

What name are you going to give it other than larder?

A pantry, a pantry.

And as you put all the tins into the pantry, you look at it and say,

"Oh, that looks extremely tasty, Anna."

What adjective could you use instead of extremely tasty?

Scrumptious, scrumptious.

So you put all the scrumptious food into the pantry, and then I ask you

if I can make you want to eat some buns, some iced buns that I bought

from the bakery on the way home.

You don't really need it because you're not hungry, but I'm trying

to make you want it by showing it to you and smiling and saying,

"You do want one."

What am I doing?

What verb would you use to describe my behaviour?

I'm tempting you.

I'm tempting you to eat this scrumptious iced bun.

But you don't really want to have this iced bun because you know that

it's not very fresh, but it's been prepared using industrial processes.

And it contains lots of ingredients that we don't normally have at home.

What adjective could you use to describe this bun?

Ultra-processed.

ultra-processed.

Absolutely.

It's ultra-processed.

And so I try to tempt you, but you say no.

And so eventually, I reach the decision to eat it myself.

What phrasal verb could we use to describe me getting to that decision,

reaching that decision to eat both buns?

I...

ended up.

I ended up eating both buns.

So, while putting our deliciously scrumptious food into the pantry, I tried

to tempt you with an ultra-processed treat, an iced bun, but you said

no, and I ended up eating both buns.

Now, let's bring them all together once again in a little monologue.

Now, if you love food and watching cooking programmes, then you may

well have seen 'Nigella Bites'.

In this series, celebrity chef Nigella Lawson shares recipes, tips and tricks

on how to cook delicious and easy meals after a hard day at the office,

on a lazy weekend when you have time to be creative, or when you want to

have fun with the kids and get messy!

Nigella does not see herself as a gourmet cook though, she simply says,

"I am neither a chef nor a performer: this is the food I cook, the food I eat."

Nigella's pantry is full of the most amazing array of herbs,

spices, condiments, sauces.

You'll never find her cooking with ultra-processed foods, every ingredient

she uses is fresh and she often films herself buying produce at the local

markets, grocers, butchers and bakeries.

Whether it's a simple chicken and mint salad, a speedy seafood supper

or a beautiful pear, pistachio and rose cake — everything Nigella

cooks looks and tastes scrumptious.

Her eyes say it all when she tries it on camera!

And her signature finale to every episode?

Nigella always ends up going downstairs in her pyjamas, and is tempted by

what she has cooked earlier that day, she opens the fridge and steals

a sneaky leftover midnight snack!

Gosh, all this talk about food is making me peckish.

So, I'm off to the kitchen!

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

I truly am off to the kitchen now.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode.

Until next time, take very good care and goodbye.