C1 English verbs for FLUENCY | You CAN speak like a native English speaker!

Hi there, this is Harry and welcome  to English lessons with Harry. Yup.  

Okay, so what are we going to talk  to you about today? Well, we've got  

some advanced verbs. Okay, so these are  specifically for those people who might want  

to go a little bit further with their English.  These verbs are typically C1 and C2 verbs,  

and I'll explain to them very detailed  what they mean and how to use them.

And you could often and also use these if you're  preparing for some exams, or you want to write  

a very important business report, whatever it  might be. So the advanced verbs specifically  

for C1 and C2. So I'm going to give them to  you one by one, and in fact about 10 of them.  

I'll give you the explanation or the meaning  and then I'll give you some examples.

Okay, here goes one. Scrutinise, scrutinise,  scrutinise. Two. Hinder. Three. Remunerate,  

remunerate. Be careful with the pronunciation  remunerate. Nuture. Number four, nurture.  

Number five, deteriorate, deteriorate.  Number six, articulate. To articulate.  

Seven. To embrace. Embrace. Eight, the eight is  liaise. And usually with the preposition with.  

Liaise with somebody. And nine accomplish.  To accomplish. And finally 10 grasp. Grasp.  

Okay, let's give you a sentence with the  meaning. And let's give you some examples.

Scrutinise, scrutinise.

He scrutinised the face of his competition very  carefully to see if there were any weaknesses.  

He scrutinise the face of his competition very  carefully to see if there were any weaknesses.

So when we scrutinise something, we  look at it really, really carefully.

Please scrutinise the document  before you give it back.

Please scrutinise your exam papers to  make sure you've put in all the details  

before you hand in your  exam paper to the examiner.

He scrutinised the report, line by line. Okay,  

so somebody looked at something  in a lot of detail. Yeah.

We scrutinise when we study in great detail,  

either trying to find fault or to  make sure everything was perfection.

The gallery, the art gallery, had  a bit of a suspicion about some  

painting that was hanging on the wall. So  they got some experts to come and check it  

out to make sure it was an original. And the the  expert came and he spent many hours scrutinising  

every square inch of the painting, and finally  came up with the conclusion that indeed,  

it was an original, okay. And the gallery  of course, were very happy. To scrutinise.

To hinder.

There was a lot of traffic on the road  

that hindered my progress. There was a lot of  traffic on the road that hindered my progress.

And to hinder something means to slow down, not  necessarily stop completely, but to slow down.

His progress was hindered by the diversion in the  high street. So they were doing some road repairs,  

and everybody had to turn off left  before they got to the High Street,  

and then go in a roundabout way around  the city. So progress was hindered.

His career was hindered because he had to  take two years leave of absence when he was  

extremely sick. So he didn't progress  his career as much as he had hoped.

So when we hinder something or we hinder somebody,  

we slow them down, or we prevent  them from making progress.

He hurt his leg when training for the  marathon, and it hindered his training  

programme quite a bit. So in the end,  he decided to cancel his application and  

his entrance and would do the marathon race  the following year. So his training programme  

was hindered by the injury that he picked up  during training, sore leg, a sprained ankle,  

damaged ligaments, whatever  it might have been. To hinder.

Next remunerate. Well, we remunerate means

to pay somebody. So sentence would

be he was remunerated for his hard work  when they paid him a very substantial bonus.  

He was remunerated for his hard work when  they paid him a very substantial bonus.

So to remunerate somebody is to  pay them and pay them appropriately  

for the work that they have done.

So from this word remunerate comes remuneration.  

So if you're applying for the job,  you might ask what the salary is  

okay or what is the remuneration? What  is the payment for this particular job?

So to remunerate is to pay to  remunerate appropriately is to pay them  

the going rate or the right rate of pay  for that particular job. To remunerate.

It's very formal, of course, yeah. Because  normally we would talk about salaries  

and the salary you're going to be paid.

Next, nurture. To nurture.

When we nurture something, okay. So  let's give you the sentence nurture.

The female cat nurtured the litter of  newborn kittens that were born last week.  

So when the kittens are born, the mother nurtures  them, she looks after them very, very carefully,  

and in a detailed way for many, many weeks two,  feeds and washes them and protects them. And  

if you go near the cat, you'll know all about it  because she could get quite angry and annoyed and  

aggressive and spit and hiss at somebody who might  come near her. So she nurtures her kittens, she  

feeds them, she washes them to train them to go  to the toilet, because they're not able to do that  

themselves. And until such time, as they've opened  their eyes and are beginning to wonder about,  

then she would relax. And eventually she  won't want to know them because they will be  

off on their own. But for the first six or  eight weeks or 10 weeks, she will nurture them.

Okay, so to nurture means to  look after to take care of.

As we nurture our children, when  they are born. We nurture them for  

many, many years. So to nurture to look after it  in a very kind and gentle, loving, natural way.

Deteriorate. And get the pronunciation  right here. To deteriorate.

The service in the city has deteriorated  since the new government took over the  

service and the city has deteriorated  since the new government took over.

And what it means is to  deteriorate means to get worse,  

or to drop down in levels or to a  level that is really unacceptable.

So if you were used to getting the bins  collected Monday, Wednesday, and Friday,  

and then when the new government come in,  they announced that the bins are only going  

to be collected on a Wednesday or Friday, once a  week. So the service deteriorates, it gets worse.

The bus journeys that used  to take 20 minutes now take  

30 minutes because there's so much traffic  and they haven't built a wider road. So as  

a result, the service on the buses has also  deteriorated there's been a lack of investment.

Somebody's condition in hospital might  deteriorated they pick up another infection.  

So they go into a hospital for one condition.  And when they're in there a week or so they get  

another infection. And the doctor says,  Well, I'm really sorry to let you know,  

but your son, or husband, or wife, or daughter,  their condition has deteriorated slightly over  

the last 24-36 hours, we've increased the  drugs that they're taking. And hopefully  

we'll see some improvement in the next day or  so. So condition can deteriorate or get worse.

So to deteriorate means also to rot. So  plants can deteriorate. Once they die  

trees don't get enough water or they get some  infection. They can also rot from the inside  

or deteriorate over a period of time until  eventually they fall over. And they die.

Articulate. To articulate.

He articulates himself very well,  particularly when he's making presentations.  

He's very clear and easy to understand.

Please make sure you articulate all the words  

so that people can hear them very clearly  and understand exactly what they mean.

So when you articulate something, you spell  it out, you explain it very clearly and in  

an understandable way that people will know the  meaning or what point you're trying to get across.

How did he articulate himself? Oh,  excellent he is really good on his feet.  

He's one of those natural speakers. Just  give them an audience, give him a topic,  

a little while to prepare for, and he's really,  really good. He's very good at articulating  

points. He'll get the point across, everybody  will understand very, very clearly what he means.

So to articulate your point to explain it  to explain it properly, to explain it in an  

understandable way and format, articulate.

Next to embrace.

When she came down the stairs,  

he embraced her with a large hug.  He hadn't seen her for two years.

So to embrace means to wrap your arms  around somebody, pull them closely to you,  

and give them a big squeeze,  hug, kiss to welcome them home.  

It's been several years, since  you have seen them. To embrace.

They embraced at the foot of the stairs, they  embraced each other at Christmas time. Yeah.

He always embraces his kids and  grandchildren when he sees them. So to  

wrap his arms around them and give  them a nice squeeze or a nice hug.

But we can also use embrace  to when we talk about change.

He embraced the change. Meaning  he... meaning he welcomed the change.

He embraced the new management in the company.  He didn't literally go up and hugged them. But it  

what... But it meant, or what it means  is that he took on board the change.  

The necessity for change, he welcomed the  change, and he was very open to suggestions  

that they would make so he embraced  change. You can say, I embrace change,  

I love change, I like change, I  welcome change, to embrace it.

To liaise with somebody. To liaise with  somebody. Now this can be quite formal.

So the Foreign Department of one country  decided that they had to liaise with the  

Foreign Department of the other country, otherwise  they were not going to find out what happened to  

the missing citizens. So, the Department of  Foreign Affairs, liaised with the Foreign  

Department of the British office to find  out what had happened to the missing people.

To liaise. So to liaise is to contact but  it's not just simply to say yes or no,  

it's to find out more information.  So in a detailed, professional way.

So to liaise might mean initially to make a  phone call, send a request, send an email,  

make a formal application. These are all  ways in which we can liaise with somebody.

Who is going to liaise with our new business  partners in China? So we need somebody  

who understands the language, somebody who  knows what they're talking about. To liaise.

Who will liaise with the solicitor in this  matter? This legal case is going to go on  

for several months, and we need somebody  with a legal background to liaise with them.

Okay, so to liaise, a formal way of  saying negotiate, contact, discuss,  

ask, find out what's going on. To liaise.

Next, to accomplish. Well, when we  accomplishe something, we achieve something.

He accomplished  

four promotions in the space of seven years.  He was a star performer in the company.

So to accomplish something is to be successful  to reach some goal to achieve something.

He's accomplished all his exams in record time.  So he achieved top marks right throughout his  

university course from this first year to his last  year. So he got A1 degree. Meaning the top degree  

has A1 so it couldn't be better. He got honours  first class honours degree in his medical course,  

he was really really one of the top people in  his year in his class or in his particular grade.

Okay, so he accomplished a lot in a short  space of time, meaning he achieved a lot  

in a short space of time.

What have you accomplished in your life? Somebody  might ask you the question. Indeed, I asked myself  

that question many times, what have I accomplished  in my life? So we look back on our lives and see  

what we've done, what we could have done better?  What we can do, what we can do better because what  

we want to do is we want to accomplish something,  not necessarily for the financial reward,  

not to be remunerated the word we used earlier on,  but for our self satisfaction to say that we could  

do it that we have done it that we have achieved,  accomplished something. Okay, so to accomplish.

And finally, grasp

He wasn't able to grasp the concept.  I explained it to him several times  

before he really understood it.

He grasped my arm and squeezed it tightly. So  here we have two meanings of this particular word.

He wasn't able to grasp the meaning of  what I said, it took me six or seven  

time for him to understand it. So, meaning  he wasn't able to understand to grasp, to  

work out exactly what I was telling  him. It might have been too complicated.  

I might have explained it badly, but whatever  it was, he wasn't able to grasp the concept.

And then he grasped to hold tightly grasp my  arm and whispered something in my ear to grasp  

means to hold on tightly. So you grasp the bar  on the bus as it was going around the corner.

Yeah, you grasp on to something to  steady yourself so you don't fall.

To grasps or to hold tightly. Or  to understand a concept to grasp.

Okay, so let me get them to you one  more time. And remember, these are C1-C2  

verbs, they're quite difficult. So you  have to give them a lot of thinking,  

but you can use them from an exam point of view.

So to scrutinise. To look at something in detail,  to scrutinise. To hinder, to block, slow down,  

prevent somebody from making progress.  Remunerate, to pay somebody, to reward them  

for doing a job. To reward or remunerate for  the right work the right pay for the right job.  

To nurture, to look after  something really carefully. The...  

the cat nurtured her litter of kittens. We  nurture our family for many, many years.  

Deteriorate. His condition deteriorated over  several days. And finally, unfortunately, he died.  

To deteriorate, to go downhill. Articulate, he's  well able to articulate the point. He's able to  

present and get the point across so that everybody  understands it in a very, very clear way. To  

embrace, to take somebody in your arms and embrace  them. To welcome them to hold them in a loving and  

affectionate way to embrace. Or to embrace change.  Always look forward to change, never close your...  

your mind to any idea Always look ahead. To lie...  to liaise. To liaise with somebody. Or some people  

pronounce it liaise. But to liaise to liaise is to  communicate with, to contact, to discuss, to ask  

questions, to find out in a fairly professional  and top level way. Particularly when diplomats  

from different foreign offices or embassies will  liaise with that counterparty and another office  

in another country. To accomplish. What have  you accomplished in your life? Nothing? Well,  

yes, we all would like to accomplish  something to accomplish. And then finally  

grasp. Grasp the idea, grasp the concept,  grasp my hand and hold on for the journey.

Okay, so those are advanced English verbs at  C1-C2 level. If you have any problems with them,  

or you want others that we can include  later on, but by all means write and  

let me know www.englishlessonviaskype.com.  Very happy to hear from you. And as always,  

I'm very glad you joined me. I hope  you enjoyed that. Join me again soon.