Formal, Neutral, Informal: Use the correct register in English!

Hello. I'm Gill at engVid, and today's lesson

is on different registers of vocabulary. So,

what do I mean by registers? Okay. So, you can use different words that all mean the

same thing, but they have a different effect

and a different style, and often they divide

up into rather formal language that sounds

very formal and sophisticated, maybe academic,

that kind of language. Then you have a neutral

word that it's just an ordinary word for something;

it doesn't have a particular style. And then

you have informal, which can often be a sort

of colloquial slang word that you would only

use in an informal group with friends and

family and so on. So, it's good to know what

register you're using in different circumstances.

So, often the formal words tend to be written

down in documents, reports, and letters, official

letters and things like that, or academic, you know, essays and so on. Then neutral,

in just ordinary, everyday language, but not...

Not trying to be too informal, just in a neutral

way. Perhaps with people you may not know very well, so you just want to have a kind

of neutral kind of vocabulary that doesn't have too much of a style with it. But then

if you're with friends and you have a particular

way of speaking, and you use particular words

to be casual and friendly and relaxed, you would use the more informal words for that

that are used within your group of friends and so on. Okay?

So, let's just have a look at some examples,

then. So, first of all, with food, if you

want to describe... If you're enjoying the

food, you like it, it tastes good, how would

you describe it? So, in a formal way, you might say it's delicious or appetizing. If

you were with some friends in a restaurant and you were eating, I think if you said,

"Oh, this food is very appetizing", your friends

might think, "Oh, that's a strange word to

use." So, it's not the kind... That's the

thing with the formal words, they're not the

kind of words you would use in a conversation

with friends, so you have to be careful what

the context is. You might only use it in writing

rather than in speaking. "Delicious" isn't

quite so formal. "This food is delicious." You

can just about say that in a... In a social

setting, and it's okay. And it's used in advertising,

too, I think. Advertising slogans. "Delicious

apples", or whatever. So, it's not that formal, but "appetizing" is more formal.

So, what about if you want to just use a neutral

word to describe the food? If it tastes nice,

you can just say, "It's tasty." Or, "This food

is very tasty." And that's a fairly neutral

way of saying it, to say something nice about the food. Okay.

Then, if... If you're in a much more informal

setting, or you may be with children, that's

another thing. The words you use with children

may be different from the words you would

use with adults. So, to describe food as yummy, I think it's more the kind of word

you would use with... With a child. You know,

especially if you're trying to persuade a

child to eat something, you know, you might

have something on a spoon and say, "Oh, come

on. It's really yummy. It's yummy." So, you would use that more with a child, I think,

in a very informal way. Okay.

So, moving on to the next example. So, different

words for "looking", looking at things. In

a more sophisticated way, you would "observe"

or "perceive", and again, you wouldn't use

this in normal conversation because it sounds

much too formal and sophisticated. So, you

might write it in a very official document. You know, we observed that. If you're doing

a scientific experiment or something, it was

observed that there was a reaction in the

test tube, something like that, and it's a

rather academic, scientific piece of writing.

And to "perceive" as well, how something is

perceived, how people see it, but it's quite

formal. So, then the neutral ones are just

"to look" or "to see". Very, very simple and

very short little words as well. Okay. And

then in the more informal way, you could say

"to peek" or "to peep". So, "to peek" is... It's a bit like, you know, looking closely

like this. "Oh, let me have a peep at that."

Or "I just want to peek at that." So, it's

quite a sort of colloquial way of saying it there. Okay.

So, moving on. If something's good... Well, you

say in a neutral way, "It's good." Fine. Again,

very short words. But in the more formal way, you

might say, "Oh, that's excellent" or "splendid".

So, longer words. "Excellent" and "splendid".

You might do these also to be a bit jokey. "Oh,

that's really excellent. I think that's splendid."

And it sounds as if you're joking a little bit,

you're putting on an act. Either that or they're

just very formal ways of saying it again.

And then in the more informal way, you would use

the kind of slang or colloquial words like "cool",

"brilliant", okay, for the same thing. Okay.

So, then the opposite of "good" is "bad".

So, we've just got "bad" for the neutral one.

Again, a very short word. So, a really sophisticated

word to use would be "detestable" because

to detest something means to hate something.

So, if it's detestable, "Oh, that behaviour

is detestable." So, if you're describing how

someone is behaving, maybe someone on public

transport, they're putting their feet up on the

seats and their muddy boots are making the seats

dirty where other people will want to sit down,

that's detestable to do that. So, that would be

someone who's really annoyed and they want to

sound very superior about that kind of behaviour.

"Oh, that's so detestable. Terrible." So,

that sort of idea. Okay. And so, "bad" is just

the neutral. And then a little bit more informal,

you'd say, "Oh, that's horrible to do that."

Or, "That's gross. Oh, gross. Disgusting." That

sort of feeling. It's a bit more dramatic sounding, a bit more emotional. Okay.

And then, finally, talking about money. So, we've

just got "money" or "cash" as the neutral words.

A little bit more formal would be "funds" or

"funding" because it doesn't sound so much like

money. You know, sometimes people don't like to

talk about money too much. They might think it's

a bit undignified or something. They don't want

to use the word "money". It might sound as if

they're a bit obsessed with money, so they might

use "funds" or "funding" as a word that doesn't

sound so much like what it means to sort of get

away from having to mention money. So, maybe a

bank or an investment company might talk about "funds" and "funding" rather than

saying the word "money" or writing the word "money". Okay. And then in the informal way

between friends, "dosh" and "readies" are really

sort of slang terms. You know, "Have you got the

readies?" or "I'm a bit short of dosh today. I

need some more dosh." So, these words go back

in history a little bit, but "readies" I think

is quite a good one because you have to have your

cash ready to pay for anything, so it's quite a

good description of money, really. You need it to

be ready. Okay. So, I hope that's a good set

of examples for you of how you can have words

in different registers from formal to neutral

to informal. You might like to think of some

other categories and see if you can find words

that all mean the same, but they belong in

different registers. Okay. So, we have a quiz on

this topic. If you'd like to test your knowledge,

just go to the website, www.engvid.com, and

give the quiz a try. And thank you for watching,

and hope to see you again soon. Bye for now.