Intensifiers and Downtoners in American English Conversation

Hi everyone. I'm Jennifer from English with Jennifer. Do you like getting

compliments? What would you like to hear someone say? What would make you feel

good? You're awful at English! You're awfully good at English! Personally, I'd

never dream of telling someone that they're bad at anything because every

one of us has room for improvement, right? You're here. You're studying with me, so

you're already on your way to speaking better English. My compliment to you is,

'You're awfully good at English!" "Awful" by itself means "bad." "Awful" or "awfully" before

an adjective means "very" or "really." You're awfully good. It's awful expensive. It

means "very" or "really." It's a strange difference in meaning, right? Would you

like to know other words in American English with strange differences in

meaning? Stick around and you'll learn some. I want this to be a super useful,

highly effective, and crazy good lesson.

There are different kinds of adverbs in English. The first kind you probably

learned were adverbs of manner. They answer the question "How?" Talk loudly,

walk fast, dance well. You also learned adverbs of frequency when you learned

how to answer the question "How often?" I often forget how old I am. I never get up

before 5:00. Now we're going to focus on adverbs of degree. You learned two of them

when you learned how to make comparisons. You learned "more" and "less." For example,

someone can feel more confident or less confident when they speak English.

Hopefully, after this lesson, you'll feel more confident. This refers to higher and

lower degrees. We're going to study and practice two groups of adverbs of degree:

intensifiers and down toners.

Intensifiers are adverbs of degree that increase the strength of a word. I'm sure

you already use the adverb "very" a lot. "Extremely" is another useful adverb used

in many different contexts. I think Parkour is very exciting, but also

extremely dangerous.

The intensifiers "so" and "really" are used a lot in conversation. Potato chips are

so unhealthy, but really, really good. Note in very informal English, you may hear

"real" used as an adverb, as an intensifier. Someone might say, "Oh, the food was real

good!" I don't recommend this use, but be ready to hear it and understand it. When

we use intensifiers in conversation, we can use our voice for emphasis. You can

hear that long vowel sound in the stressed syllable, as in "so unhealthy,"

"very exciting," "really good."

We also double some intensifiers or use them in combination: very, very expensive;

really, really nice, so very good. And in conversation, we can use these

combinations: "good and..." "nice and..." to intensify common adjectives. Professional

dancers make all the moves look nice and easy. Everything they do is nice and

smooth. Blend some fresh fruit with fruit juice, yogurt, or coconut milk. Freeze the

mixture overnight, and then your frozen fruit popsicles will be good and ready

to eat the next day. So "nice and easy" means "very easy. "Nice and smooth" means

"very smooth." You can't make this kind of phrase with any adjective, but some

combinations are common: nice and easy, nice and smooth, nice and slow, nice and

handy, nice and clean. "Good and ready" could mean "very ready" or "completely

ready." Completely" is another intensifier. It suggests that something is the most

it can possibly be. For example, I was completely confused. I didn't understand

anything. "Completely" is like "totally" and "absolutely." 100% - "Too" also falls into the

category of intensifiers, but remember that "too" means that quality has gone

beyond some acceptable limit. Honesty is good, but some people are too honest and

say everything they think. "Too" can be used for criticism. Someone can be

too harsh or too judgmental. If we're being critical, we can use the adverb "how"

in reaction to someone's behavior. For example, "How rude!" meaning "very rude." That

was very offensive. But we can also use "how" if we're pleasantly surprised: How

sweet! meaning "very sweet." Let's test your familiarity with other intensifiers used

in conversation. Choose the adverb that sounds most natural in the situation. One.

I think I've changed my mind. Don't worry. We'll be perfectly safe. "Perfectly safe"

means "completely safe." Two. You're going to quit? You're not serious, are you?

I'm dead serious. I hate this job. "Dead serious" means "absolutely serious."

Three. Am I calling too late? Not at all. "Not at all" means "It's completely fine.

It's not too late." Four.

Where are you? I don't know I'm totally and utterly lost. You can say "totally and

utterly" or "totally and completely lost."

Five. Why are you mad? Because that was so not fair! "So not fair" means "That was

totally unfair." If intensifiers strengthen a quality, what

do you think downtoners do? You may know the expression "tone it down." For example,

a friend puts on makeup and asks for your opinion. "I'm trying a new look. What

do you think?" You say, "It's fun. It's bold, but maybe for work you should tone it

down." Meaning use less. Remember this example when we talk about downtoners.

Downtoners are adverbs that lessen or weaken a quality. Let's go back to giving

compliments for a moment. You just gave a presentation. Which compliment would you

prefer to hear? That was good. That was rather good. Neither is bad, but

personally, I'd want to hear the first. That was good.

"Rather good" means "somewhat good." It's not up there with a "very." "Rather" is less

intense. "Rather good" could suggest "slightly better than expected." "Rather" and

"slightly" are common downtoners. Let's remember that adverbs modify other words.

More specifically, adverbs modify adjectives, verbs, and other adverbs.

There are even adverbs that can modify whole sentences. Intensifiers and downtoners

can modify adjectives and adverbs, but more often we use them with

adjectives, so those are the combinations I'm focusing on here in this lesson.

But I do want you to be able to recognize intensifiers and downtoners

before other adverbs. For example, news reporters talk

extremely fast. Student drivers drive rather slow. Let's see if you're familiar

with other downtoners. I'm going to mix up some intensifiers with words and

phrases that tone down a quality. Can you sort these phrases into two groups: words

that express a higher degree and words that express a lower degree?

Here's how I'd sort them.

As promised, here are four intensifiers that have a surprising change in meaning.

"Crazy" doesn't mean "insane." "Super" doesn't mean "excellent." "Stupid" doesn't mean "dumb"

or "unintelligent." "Wicked" does not mean "evil." These words simply mean "very" or

"really."

You won't find these words on every list of intensifiers and downtoners because,

first of all, not all sources agree. Second, many of these are very informal

and used only in casual conversation.

Personally, I didn't know that the word "wicked" meant "very" until I moved to New

England. Then it seemed like every statement of praise and every complaint

had the word "wicked." A wicked hot day, a wicked good game, wicked hard work. So

some informal adverbs may be limited to a geographical region, or perhaps they're

used more within a certain age group. For example, I'd forgotten about "stupid good."

I don't use it, but some people do. I asked my fifteen-year-old son to help me

come up with a list of informal ways to say "very good," and he recalled that one.

"Stupid good" means "very good." And don't forget there's a whole category of

profane words. I don't drop f-bombs with any frequency, but when I get

emotional, I may use a close substitute, like "freaking." It's freaking

cold out there! "Freaking" can function like an intensifier meaning "very. "Freaking" is

far less offensive than the f-word. One last note is that we can use adverbs to

be more polite by being less direct. Downtoners overlap with a whole category of

words that allow us to be vague in English. We can choose to be less precise

and less direct to avoid offense.

We call this hedging. It's a topic worthy of another video, so for now I'll limit

myself to a couple of examples. Your speech is too long. You need to make it shorter.

Your speech is quite long. Perhaps you can make it slightly shorter.

It's really late. I need to leave now. It's rather late. I should leave pretty soon.

Do you feel the difference in certainty and politeness?

I hope the lesson was very useful and rather interesting. Please like and share

the video with others who'd like to feel more confident and sound more natural in

English . That's all for now. As always, thanks for watching and happy studies!

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