Let's Learn English! Topic: Words to Use Instead of "Very" 😀💶🌶️ (Lesson Only)

Well, hello, and welcome to this English lesson where

I'm going to teach you a number of vocabulary

words, about 30 vocabulary words that are intermediate.

Maybe some of them are a little bit advanced, and

they're vocabulary words that we use instead of using the

same word with the word very in front of it.

So, for instance, I could say it's hot out today.

It's very hot out today.

Or I could say it's sweltering or it's boiling.

There are different ways to describe situations

and things instead of always using a

phrase with the word very in it.

Now, there's nothing wrong with using the word very.

It's a good way to use

basic vocabulary to emphasize something.

But sometimes you want to sound a little more fluent.

You want to have more vocabulary at

your fingertips to use in different situations.

So in this English lesson, I'll teach you about

30 words, I think, 31 words that you can

use instead of just adding very to another word.

Excruciating.

This is a hard word to say.

And as I mentioned, these are words we use when

something is excruciating, it means it's very, very painful.

So you can see this man is holding his shoulder.

I actually have a sore shoulder right now.

It's just a little bit painful, though.

It's not extremely painful or very painful, but

if I had a really bad injury, I

might use the word excruciating to describe it.

Oh, the pain is excruciating, or this is excruciating.

You can also use it to

describe a situation that's painful.

Maybe you go to see a play and it's very, very boring.

It's painful to watch.

Could say it is excruciating.

I'll say the word one more time.

Excruciating.

Kind of a tricky word to say, but definitely

a way to describe something that is very painful.

I feel bad for this man.

I also chose this picture because

I really like his shirt.

If I could find a place to buy

that shirt, I would buy that shirt.

What a beautiful blue, short

sleeved, button down, collar shirt.

I gotta find that shirt somewhere. Basic.

So when something is basic, it's the

same as saying it's very simple.

If you are someone who likes to

do exercises, one of the basic exercises.

Just let me fix this for a sec.

For some reason.

Oh, that's from the quiz last week.

A very basic exercise is the push up.

If you were to start exercising,

walking is a very basic exercise.

A very simple exercise.

Push ups are a basic exercise.

They are a very simple exercise.

Um, and if you want to know what the opposite is?

It's complex.

I don't know what this guy is doing.

I don't think I could do

this, but this looks very difficult.

When something is complex, it's the

same as saying it's very difficult.

This looks like a very complex exercise to me.

Um, I think it's some sort of modified push up.

I'm not 100% sure, but if you were,

um, a beginner English learner, you might describe

this as a very simple exercise.

You might describe this as a very difficult exercise.

But it would be better to say, this is

a basic exercise, or this is a complex exercise.

It's good to have a little more vocabulary.

Wicked.

So when something is evil, I put

a picture of a black cat here.

This is not the same as a black

cat crossing your path, so don't feel superstitious.

When something is wicked, it means that it's very evil.

So in the world we have good and evil,

there are good people and there are bad people.

There are people who do bad things.

They do evil things.

If you were to describe a very evil person or

a very evil situation, you would use the word wicked.

So the total opposite of bad, actually, worse

than bad, is how I would describe wicked.

Spacious.

Excuse me? There. That's better.

When something is spacious, it means it

has a lot of room in it.

It's very roomy.

Now, I thought when I made this slide, these

might actually be two new words for you.

But when you buy a big van or a big car, when

you get inside, you might say, oh, it's very spacious in here.

It's very roomy in here.

It means you can stick your elbows

out and not hit another person.

This is definitely a very spacious room.

This room is very roomy.

Hopefully that doesn't confuse you, but definitely when something

is like this, there's lots of room to stand.

There's lots of space between the

couches, there's really high ceilings.

I would describe this room as spacious, and that

would be a better way than saying very roomy.

And then the opposite, cramped.

So I don't know if you've ever gone

to university or visited someone at university who

lives in a small dorm room.

A dorm room sometimes is very, very small.

It's not spacious, it's cramped.

So when we say a room is very small, when we say

it's cramped, it means there's not a lot of places to put

your things and not a lot of room to move around.

It's the opposite of spacious or very roomy.

So definitely.

When my son was at university, I

thought his dorm room was cramped.

It was very small.

He couldn't have a lot of stuff, which was probably

a good thing in the end, I would assume that

that was a good thing, because the more stuff you

have, the more stuff dad has to help you put

in the van when he picks you up from university.

I'm the dad in that situation.

By the way, intelligent is a way of saying very smart.

You might know someone who maybe you went to

school with, and they always did really well.

They were very smart.

We would simply say, this person is intelligent.

I'm pretty sure you know this word.

Maybe a word like cramped was new.

Maybe this was a new word for you.

Hopefully you know this word.

There are a lot of word friends

in other languages for this word.

So intelligent. Intelligent. Enfranch.

So hopefully it's familiar to you and simple.

But if someone is really, really smart, if they're

very smart, you would describe them as intelligent.

If someone is very weak, we

often describe them as frail.

Frail is a word we often use to describe older

people, people in their late seventies or late eighties.

Certainly by the time someone is in their

nineties, if someone lives to be 90 years

old, we would probably describe them as frail.

They might need to use a wheelchair.

They're very weak.

It's hard for them to walk long distances.

It might even be hard for them to walk.

It's hard for them to lift things that are heavy.

So we would say that they are frail.

My mom is older, but she's not frail yet.

She's still pretty strong lady.

I think, because her and my dad worked on the

farm for so many years, she's still very strong.

But I imagine, as with all of

us, someday she will be weak.

Some days she will very weak.

Someday she will be frail.

Someday, if I live to be 85 or 90,

I will probably be a little bit frail.

Sometimes you go somewhere and it's very busy.

The best example for this, I

think, would be Christmas shopping.

When I go to the mall, it is bustling.

Let me say that word again.

It's a little tricky to pronounce bustling.

So when I go to the mall

around Christmas time, it is bustling.

It is very busy.

There are people everywhere.

Sometimes you have to wait in line

to buy things because it's so busy.

But definitely a very good way.

A very good way to describe a very

busy place is to use the word bustling.

And sometimes you'll hear them say,

like, Toronto is a bustling metropolis.

So bustling is used to describe cities like

lots of people, lots of people walking around.

Timid is used to talk about someone who is very shy.

When someone is timid, they don't

want to speak on the phone.

Maybe they don't like making phone calls.

Maybe they're a little bit shy.

Maybe they don't like speaking in public.

They're a little bit shy, and maybe they

don't want to talk in front of people.

Maybe there's someone that they like

romantically, but they're very timid.

They don't have the courage to give them a call.

So when you are timid, it means to be very shy.

But it could also be to be a little bit afraid. Right.

You're nervous, you're afraid, you're shy,

all of those kinds of things.

And then it prevents you maybe from doing

something that might be good for you. So.

So if there's someone that you like and you're

afraid to ask them out on a date, if

you're someone who's single, maybe just do it.

Take a chance.

That's my relationship advice today.

What's the worst that can happen?

They could say no.

Oh, well, brief means very short.

Sometimes at school they'll say, all the teachers go

to the staff room for a brief meeting.

That means we're going to have a very short meeting.

It usually doesn't end up being a brief meeting when.

When a whole bunch of teachers are together in

a room for a five minute meeting, sometimes it

ends up being a 20 minutes meeting.

But when a meeting is brief, when you talk about a

brief moment in time, the word brief means very short.

So sometimes you have a brief amount of time.

Maybe you have a meeting and the

person says, it's going to be brief.

And then you cross your fingers and

hope that it will be brief.

You hope that it will be very, very short. Deafening.

This is a word we use to

talk about something that's very, very loud.

I went to a concert a couple

years ago, and it was deafening.

Jed and I were close to the front.

It was a street concert, and the speakers

were gigantic and the music was deafening.

So that simply means it was very loud.

In this picture, you can see an airplane taking off.

If you stand close to an airplane, like this airplane,

when it takes off, the sound would be deafening.

It would be very, very loud.

When you go somewhere loud, you should

wear earplugs to protect your hearing, especially

if the sound is deafening. Ancient.

This is something, this is a word we

use to describe something that is very old.

Sometimes when they are doing an archaeological dig.

There's a good word for you.

An archaeological dig is when they dig

up the ground to find ancient artifacts.

There's another word for you. Artifacts.

They look for very old things.

Maybe they find very old swords or

shields or pottery or little bowls.

They look for ancient things, things from not just

a hundred years ago or 500 years ago, things

from a thousand years ago or 2000 years ago.

They are looking for very old things.

They are looking for ancient things.

And you can use this to describe people, but

it's a very negative way of describing people.

Like, oh, the guy is ancient.

Like, someday, if I'm 65 and still teaching

at school, the students might think I'm ancient.

They might think I'm very old.

Again, not a nice way to describe someone, but

some people do describe old people that way.

Transparent.

When a person is very open in the sense that

they share a lot about their life very easily.

They're easy to talk to,

and they'll talk about anything.

They'll talk about, um, news in their family.

They'll talk about any subject with ease.

And nothing is off limits.

When something's off limits, it means they don't,

someone doesn't want to talk about it.

So when you know someone like

that, we say they're very open.

We say they are transparent.

I work with some people who are very open.

They're very transparent people.

What you see and hear is exactly who they are.

They don't act fake.

They are very transparent and very open.

Wealthy is used to describe someone who is very rich.

This is not me.

But if you have lots of money, you are very rich.

If you have lots of money, you are wealthy.

So you can say, oh, my brother is wealthy,

or my uncle is wealthy, or, my aunt worked

hard her whole life, and she is very rich.

She is wealthy now.

But no, this doesn't describe me.

I'm the guy that makes enough money to pay

all the bills every month, and that's it.

I think that's how most of us live our lives.

You work, you pay the bills, and hopefully there's a

little bit of money left over to do something fun.

Terrifying and terrified.

Let me explain the difference.

So when something is terrifying, it's very scary.

This is like an old, abandoned building.

This building is terrifying to me.

This is very scary.

If I was in a building like this, I would not enjoy it.

Okay.

I would describe it as terrifying.

If you go on a roller coaster at an amusement

park, maybe that would have been a better picture.

It might be terrifying.

It might be very scary.

But if I'm describing how I feel, if I

was in this building, I would be terrified.

I would be very scared. Okay.

I think I did a lesson on this a

while ago, and I should probably do another one,

because it's easy to get these words confused, right?

Like, if I was to say I'm terrifying,

that means people are afraid of me.

But if I say I'm terrified,

it means I'm actually very scared.

So again, one more time, if something

is terrifying, it is very scary.

If you are terrified, you are

feeling fear, you are very scared.

Gleaming means very shiny.

A long time ago, I had a motorcycle, and if you

used chrome polish on the motorcycle, it was very shiny.

It was gleaming.

When the sun hits the chrome parts of the

exhaust and the engine, it would shine very brightly.

It was very shiny.

So we would say that it was gleaming.

This might be a new word for you, gleaming.

But, yes, I liked to wash my.

I like to wash my motorcycle every Saturday.

This is a long time ago. How long ago? Now?

40 years ago?

No, 35 years ago, I had a motorcycle.

My dude, my bath rate.

No, it might have been 30 years ago.

I had it for three years.

By the way, I think I've said this before.

I sold it for more money than I bought it for.

Or the same money.

Yeah, I think I bought it for 700 and sold it for 700.

Well, I'm kind of ancient now.

I might be remembering wrong.

But anyways, when you polish something, eventually, if

it's very shiny, we would say it's gleaming.

Apparently, this is a very hard to find stamp.

This is a rare stamp.

When they made this stamp, they printed

it and the airplane is upside down.

I don't know what this stamp is worth.

Let's find out for a sec.

Upside down Jenny.

Airplane stamp.

Yeah, I think that's what it's called.

Oh, it's worth a million dollars.

I think that's a lot of money, eh?

Anyways, when something is hard to

find, we say it's rare.

We have a little plant called a clover

that grows here and it has three leaves.

But sometimes you can find a four leaf clover.

They are very hard to find.

They are rare.

Good English teachers are rare and very hard to find.

No, that's not true.

There are a lot of good English teachers in the world.

I'm just making a little joke there.

Sweltering.

This is a great word for

what we've been experiencing here.

We've had a week of sweltering weather.

It has been very hot here.

I think if it was the middle of summer,

I wouldn't consider it hot, but because it's early

in the spring, middle of the spring, when it's

28, 29 degrees celsius, it feels quite hot.

So right now it is sweltering.

Well, it's morning here, so not quite

yet, but we're supposed to have another

sweltering day, another very hot day today.

So there's another way to talk about

very hot, and it's the word spicy.

So when I eat chicken wings or when I eat certain

kinds of food, it has a lot of spices in it,

it has a lot of peppers or hot sauce in it.

And I consider that food very hot.

I consider it spicy.

We sometimes use the word hot and spicy together, but generally

in North America, if you say you're going to go out

and eat spicy food, you usually mean you're going to eat

food that's very hot, food that has a lot of.

I'm trying to think of the maybe a lot

of chili powder, maybe a lot of chilies or

peppers in it, maybe some jalapenos or some ghost

peppers were used to make whatever you're eating.

So sometimes when you order food, you order it and

you say, just make it a little less spicy.

If you don't like spicy food, I'm sure many

of you are from countries that love eating spicy

food, and if I visited your country, I might

find the food very hot or spicy.

Starving.

So this is an interesting word because

starving kind of has two meanings.

It has a serious meaning, and then

it has an informal meaning as well.

The serious meaning is that someone

is not getting enough food.

So in some parts of the world,

there are people who are starving.

It's a serious situation.

We need to help and make sure those people have food.

But in informal English, we also use

it to talk about being very hungry.

I might come home from work and say

to Jen, oh, I'm starving, what's for supper?

Or Jen might come in from the field and

say, oh, I'm starving, did you make supper?

And we simply mean that we are very hungry.

So again, two meanings of the word.

The serious, real meaning would be people

who legitimately don't have enough food.

And then the informal usage is to

say that you are very hungry.

So sometimes I get up in the morning and I'm starving.

I'm very hungry and I will eat right away.

I will eat as soon as I get up.

Captivating.

Did we have this word earlier in the chat?

Maybe when something is captivating,

it is very interesting.

There's probably a lot of

different words for very interesting.

But if you go see a movie and say it's,

it was captivating, it means it was very interesting.

If you go watch a street performer juggling on

the street in your, in the downtown area of

your city, you might say it's captivating.

It's very interesting to watch.

When, when we teach on YouTube,

we try to be captivating.

I try to be very interesting so that you enjoy

watching the video and you're able to learn about that.

Sorry, I just lost my train of thought there. So the.

And you're able to learn about what's in the video.

I was reading the chat while teaching.

I should do that.

Huge, enormous, gigantic.

There's a lot of words for very big.

These trees, I think, are redwoods and they are

some of the biggest trees in the world.

They might be the biggest trees and they are huge.

They are enormous.

They are humongous.

They are gigantic.

They are very big.

So a lot of ways to talk

about things that are very big.

Gargantuan.

Is that another word?

But yes, huge simply means that

something is very, very big.

I've never seen these trees, but this is on my

list of things I'd like to do in life.

I'd love to go to California and see the redwoods.

Very small. Tiny.

So seeds are very small.

They are tiny.

Some of the seeds we plant are very, very small.

Some of them are tiny and they're

hard to even see in your hand.

Jen sometimes uses a toothpick with water.

She'll dip the toothpick in water and it will pick

up a tiny seed or a very small seed.

And I do want to add here, like,

you can say a seed is very small.

You can say it's tiny.

You can say it's very, very small.

You can say it's very tiny.

All of those work and all of those are correct.

Cruel.

If someone is cruel, it means they are very mean.

You may know someone like this.

In my life, I have met a few people who are just cruel.

They are very mean.

They don't treat animals nicely.

They don't treat other people nicely.

They are just not nice people to be around.

They are very mean.

They are cruel.

Or sometimes things are adorable.

This tiny little rabbit is adorable.

It is very cute.

When I showed Jen this picture yesterday, she said

it was a perfect picture for this word.

This is an adorable bunny.

This bunny is very cute.

I think it's a baby bunny, isn't it?

I don't know what the name for a

baby bunny is, but it definitely is adorable.

It definitely is very cute.

Awful.

So this is a pretty general term used

to describe something that is very bad.

This kid looks like he took a sip of

that drink and he thinks it's very bad.

He thinks it's awful.

The taste was very bad.

The taste was awful, and he certainly didn't like it.

I'm sure that's the face I made when I was that age

also, that is a nice shirt that, when I was a kid.

I wish I had had shirts like that when I was a kid.

I think I might own that shirt in

the adult version, but nice shirt, kid.

He has great taste in shirts.

When you are cautious, you are very careful.

This person is wearing hearing

protection and a hard hat.

This person is being cautious.

This person is being very careful.

They probably work somewhere where

they need to be safe.

They need to make sure that they are protected.

And so in order to prevent

injuries, they are being cautious.

They are being very careful.

They're wearing a hard hat and some ear protection.

I would say good job to that person.

Certain.

When you are very sure of something, you are certain.

I was. Let me see. I'm trying to think of the

last thing I was certain about.

Um, I was very sure that.

I guess I'm not sure.

I was very sure my lesson would go yes, go well.

Yesterday, I was certain that my lesson would go well.

And this is just a little joke.

I'm not arguing.

I'm just explaining why I'm right.

That's, uh, I think a funny little.

A little saying. Let's see here.

Oh, freezing.

Very cold.

I should have put this slide up with the sweltering.

But sometimes in the winter, there are

days where it is very cold outside.

It is freezing outside.

Sometimes Jen comes in after she goes to the

barn in the winter, in the morning, and comes

in and she'll say, it's very cold outside.

It is freezing outside today.

You'll want to wear a winter

coat when you go outside today.

It is freezing. It is very cold.

I kind of miss this, by the way.

I miss this time of year.

I mean, I do love how if you watch my short

lesson on my other channel today, it's just very green outside.

But definitely, I do miss scenes like this.

It is fun in the winter when it's very cold.

When it is freezing.