STOP SAYING 'BIG'!🚫! | Learn How NATIVE Speakers Really TALK!

43,041 views ・ 2023-11-22

Learn English with Harry


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Hi there, this is Harry and welcome back to  Advanced English lessons with Harry, where we try  
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to help you to get a better understanding of the  English language. If you're preparing for those  
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proficiency exams, or indeed if you just want  to improve your general conversational English,  
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well then you've come to the right place.  We'll help you with vocabulary, use of English.
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And in this particular lesson, this advanced  English lesson, we're looking at vocabulary.  
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Other ways to say big. Yeah, a big  day today. A big event, a big meal,  
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a big dog. So we can use big, of course, all  the time. It's a very simple adjective. But  
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what we'll try to look at are other ways that  that you can use big other words that you can  
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use to expand your vocabulary. So these are  all adjectives or other ways to say big,  
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so we've got 12 of them in total. A lot  of them have similar meanings. As I said,  
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they can all be used for big but I'll give  you an example when you can use each of them.
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Okay, let's get back to our lesson.  The lesson today is an advanced English  
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lesson. Other ways to say big. Number  one, astronomical. Astronomical. Okay,  
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well, astronomical we can talk about inflation.  The prices of food are astronomical, really,  
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I don't know what has happened. Every time I go to  the supermarket. The price of very simple products  
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has gone up the prices now are astronomical, all  due to the rapid rising, inflation, astronomical.
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Stupendous. And let's practice here  the pronunciation as well. Stupendous,  
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stupendous. Now, this could mean good  or bad. Yeah, I mean, his reputation  
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is stupendous. The way he played the tennis  match, stupendous. Yeah, that's really really  
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this guy's top class. I really enjoy watching  him now. But stupendous can also mean really,  
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really big. Yep, so stupendous,  stupendous serve. So the tennis player,  
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many hits the ball so so hard. Can you imagine  standing on the other side of the net when this  
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ball comes down at you at 130 kilometres  per hour? Wow, you wouldn't even see it,  
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stupendous. So really, really big. But we use  this often in an exciting way. Okay. Stupendous.
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Colossal. Okay, well, colossal can be very, very  big. Yeah. This guy he was, it was he was easily  
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2.3 metres tall. I mean, I've never seen a bigger  guy. He was colossal. So he towered over me. I  
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mean, he was not just head and shoulders. I mean,  he was almost twice my height. So he was colossal.  
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So one of these basketball players. I remember  getting onto a plane in France, travelling to  
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Germany or travelling back to France once and it  was a very small plane and this basketball team  
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got on and these guys they were colossal. One was  bigger than the next. And two guys were sitting  
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in front of me. I could hardly move in my seat  because when they sat down they squashed me and  
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so it was they were colossal. All extremely  big, broad but just the height. Colossal.
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Number four gigantic. The gigantic trees so  if you've ever visited any of these forests in  
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America where they have these giant sequoia trees  they are absolutely massive. Gigantic trees. You  
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stand there you couldn't possibly put your hands  around the trunk of the tree. It would take four  
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or five of you. Or when you look up certainly for  me I get a headache looking up because they just  
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go up and up and up they're gigantic trees like  giants. Or if you see that third part of the Lord  
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of the Rings when there's the big battle scene  at the end when the trees uproute themselves  
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and they marched to take part in the war. They  are giants. Gigantic trees, gigantic, huge big.
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Number five thumping. I woke up this  morning with a thumping headache. Bom  
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bom bom really big. Really massive. A  thumping headache. So really a great  
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way. So big never describes it.  Thumping really describes the  
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headache like somebody playing the drums  inside your head, a thumping headache.
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Number six, tidy. Now, tidy usually means  everything in its place. But we often use  
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this to describe something reasonably big.  I made a tidy profit on the sale of my car.  
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I was really surprised I only bought it two  years ago but at the moment there's a real  
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shortage of secondhand cars and somebody  asked me what they wanted for the car and  
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they just picked it figure at the end.  I told them and they said, Yeah, okay,  
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I'll buy it. Wow, I made a tidy profit. I have  to say it was really really happy because I was  
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thinking of selling the car anyway. Okay, so tidy  profit. A big profit. A good sum of money, tidy.
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Number seven enormous. Well, this is quite  a normal word to use. Everybody's heard of  
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enormous Yeah. So there was an enormous snowstorm  two days ago, there was something like one metre  
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of snow fell in the space of 24 hours. Just there  was no way you could drive on the streets. They  
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couldn't even clean them. So there's an enormous  dump of snow. Yeah, so as they call it in America,  
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a Weather Bomb, yeah, when they drop lots and lots  of water and lots and lots of snow, and the place  
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becomes deluged with snow or water. So we have  these weather bombs or this enormous snowfall.
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Number eight, hefty. So hefty is another word  for big. Yeah, it's a hefty price to pay. So you  
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wanted to tell your boss what you thought of him,  you weren't so happy with his way of treating you.  
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So you told him exactly. But you lost your  job, he sacked you. So it's a hefty price,  
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a big price to pay for being honest. So you  have to be really, really careful mind your  
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moments when you tell your boss, you don't  really like him. So hefty price to pay,  
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a big price to pay. Yeah. Or if you're going  to go away on a holiday, and your wife,  
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your partner wants to go to a certain location  or you look at the the hotels. Wow, really,  
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really expensive. And you you tell her, Well,  look, I'd love to go. But have you seen these  
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prices? We need to try and find some other way.  Maybe there's Airbnb or something similar, because  
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the price of these hotels is really, really hefty.  Really sizable, perhaps it's the time of the year,  
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perhaps, or some special festival at that  time, but I've never seen prices like this.  
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So hefty price is something really big. You're  really something that you can't afford to pay.
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Number nine immense Yeah, when  something is immense, it's big. Yeah,  
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he had an immense impact on my career. So  somebody can point to a school teacher,  
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somebody a sports coach, somebody who was act  as a sort of way of guiding you, you know,  
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in this sense that they took you under their  wing, and they give you some extra training  
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because they saw that you had potential. So  you could say, Well, this guy had an immense  
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impact on my career. An immense impact on what I  decided to do after school. An immense impact on  
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my sporting career thereafter. Okay, so immense  means a big impression, they really helped you,  
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they act in some way where they give you extra  training, extra help, extra assistance. So you're,  
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you're really really had this mentor by your side,  somebody who, as I said to you under their wing,  
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and therefore you got that special, extra bit of  attention. And this immense act on their part,  
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left an immense impression or had an  immense impact on your future career.
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And indeed, if you liked this particular  lesson, then please like the video,  
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and if you can subscribe to the channel  because it really, really helps.
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Massive, okay, massive crowd, big crowd.  So you went to the football match,  
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or you went to the concert, and this group  hadn't played for maybe two or three years,  
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you certainly hadn't seen it advertised. And when  you when you went there, you weren't expecting  
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the crowd that you saw. It was absolutely  massive. I mean, place was really thronged,  
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overcrowded, people everywhere, they seem to  be in every little corner of the room. In fact,  
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some part looks a little bit dangerous, but there  was a massive crowd waiting to see them. Or at the  
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end of a football competition and one team wins  and they go home to celebrate, they usually go on  
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an open top was driving around the city. And every  vantage point is taken by spectators wanting to  
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get a glimpse or catch a glimpse of their team  or their favourite player and they're waving  
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flags and hanging from lampposts. So there's a  massive, massive crowd on the streets massive.
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Okay, number 11. Tremendous. And again, we use  tremendous to mean big, of course, because that's  
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what we're describing here. Big but tremendous  can be your good or can be bad. So oh, how was  
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the holiday? Tremendous! Yeah. How was the meal?  Tremendous! How's the new job? Tremendous, so
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we can use it in lots and lots of ways that would  describe really, really wonderful, but when we're  
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talking about big, tremendous, yeah, this was  something big happening. There's something really,  
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really monumental, big Yeah, so we can use  tremendous. We want a tremendous order. You know,  
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it's the biggest order we've ever had. I mean,  this will keep the factory going for two or three  
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years. So it's really really is a wonderful day  for the company, a tremendous achievement. We've  
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made tremendous advances in terms of technology.  So all of us can talk about the tremendous,  
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the big, the most amazing development we've  seen in our lives as a result of technology  
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from those old desk top computers, to the  old flip-over phones, wherever they are. Now,  
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we've got massive, massive amount of technology  at our fingertips. That has been a tremendous  
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improvement in technology, what we can do,  how quickly we can do things. Tremendous.
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And then finally, whopping. Now, just  be careful with the pronunciation here,  
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you can see the spelling on the screen. Whopping  means big. A whopping whopping ice cream. Yeah,  
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so you go to the ice cream van standing  in the park and a hot summer's day,  
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and you ask for a 99, this is a really  popular ice cream in Ireland and the UK,  
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and you get this whopping whopping  amount of ice cream on your cone. Wow,  
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you take a look. And it'll it'll be melted before  that you get a chance to to eat it. Yeah, okay,  
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or you decide to go out, you're really, really  hungry. You've been on a bit of a diet for a few  
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weeks, and you ask for the steak with all the  trimmings. And when it arrives on your plate as  
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a whopping whopping amount of food, you're not  sure how you're going to get through even half  
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of it because you've been on it. Quite a strict  diet. So whopping means really, really big. Yeah,  
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there could be a whopping reaction to something  some big reaction to some news and it's all over  
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the newspapers all over the internet, on the  radio whopping something really, really big.
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Okay, so that 12 particular words connected or  that can be used instead of big let me get into  
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your one more time. Number one, astronomical  the prices are astronomical. They've gone  
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through the roof. Stupendous, stupendous. The  reaction to my article was stupendous really,  
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really big. Colossal, he was huge. He was over  two metres tall, colossal, the biggest guy  
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I've ever seen. Gigantic. Wow, this I mean, this  improvement has been gigantic. Yeah, some really,  
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really big improvements are the trees you stamp  side and you look up and they reach up to the sky,  
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gigantic. Thumping. I woke up with a thumping,  a really big headache. Thumping. To make a  
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tidy profit. Tidy it might mean neat,  but tidy means big in this sense, tidy  
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profit of a really acceptable amount of money.  Enormous, enormous improvement in the service,  
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a big improvement in the service. Hefty, a hefty  price to pay a big price to pay for speaking your  
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mind to lose your job. Hefty price. Immense.  A big influence on your life on your career.  
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An immense impact. Massive. Massive improvement,  massive crowd, massive amount of energy consumed  
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every day. Tremendous, a tremendous achievement.  So he won the race, he hadn't ever run a marathon  
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before. And he ran in two minutes and sorry, two  hours and two minutes. So a new world record,  
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it was a tremendous achievement for somebody  running his first marathon. And then whopping,  
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a whopping meal a big big huge plate of food comes  that you're you're not able to finish whopping.
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Okay, so 12 particular words that can be  used instead of big, so like all of these,  
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you won't use them all all of the time. But try  to avoid just using the simple English like big  
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and large. So here you want to use other words,  they're not so difficult. Take one or two of them,  
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see how you can use them. You know, look at what  you're trying to describe and see it as one of  
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the words one of these 12 words that I've  given to you can it go or can it match can  
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collocate with that particular now. Okay,  and if you need any help need any practice,  
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come back to me and I'll give you some  other examples as always, I'm here to  
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help you www.englishlessonviaskype.com Okay,  this is Harry saying goodbye for now. Thanks  
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for watching, and thanks for listening.  As always, join me for the next lesson.
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