STOP Speaking Basic English 🇬🇧 | Learn 10 Verbs That NATIVE SPEAKERS Use! 📚✨

Hi there. This is Harry. And welcome back  to Advanced English Lessons with Harry,  

where I try to help you to get a better  understanding of the English language.  

We're trying to help you to get ready  for any proficiency exams that you're  

doing. If you're preparing for a job  interview in English, or if you just want  

to improve conversational English, business  English, but you've come to the right place.

And remember, if you want to write to me, you  can do so at www.englishlessonviaskype.com.  

Very happy to hear from me and I'll  help you in any way that I can.  

So back to our lesson, and in this particular  lesson is an advanced English lesson. We're  

looking at verbs to describe reading. Okay.  All of these are verbs to describe reading.

I'll give you the particular verb and then I  give you a situation, an example as to how you  

can use them. In total we've got ten, so not  so long. But just hold on to the end, because  

I'm going to explain the difference between two  verbs that often get confused. So wait for that.

Okay, let's get back to the lesson.  So as I said advanced English lesson  

these are verbs ten verbs connected with reading.

So the first to flick through something.  Flick through something. You know,  

when you're sitting in the waiting room for  the dentist or the waiting room for the doctor,  

and there are a bunch of magazines, usually old  and out of date. It has to be said. But you pick  

one up because you're bored and you're waiting  your turn, and you flick through quickly to see if  

there's any article that you might be interested  in reading so you don't read the magazine cover  

to cover. You flick through it with your fingers  to find something a little bit more interesting.

To glance. Well, if you're in a hurry and  you pick up a newspaper, you might glance  

at the headlines quickly. You don't read  it from cover to cover, page to page. You  

glance at the key headlines to see if there's  something that you should be interested in,  

or something you should know about. Okay,  so to glance or a glance means a quick read.

So somebody drops a document on your  desk and they might literally ask you,  

could you give that a quick glance so they  don't expect you to read every bit of it,  

but they want you to familiarise  yourself with some of it. Glance  

at it. Get the key points that you'd be  ready for the meeting. Okay, so to glance,

to look through means to look at something  and read it in a little bit more, attentively.  

Okay. So to look at it in a little bit  more detail. So again that document lands  

on your desk and you tell them that  you don't have time to read it now,  

but you look through it later. So when  you have time, you'll spend time and  

you'll get to know what's in the document.  So you'd be ready to ask some questions.

So to look through. Or you might have some  interviews to do because you need to recruit  

some people. So a pile of CVs lands on your desk  or they come into your inbox. So you look through  

them in a little bit of detail to see if any of  them fit straight away. For the particular job  

that you have in mind, particularly if you want  to draw up a shortlist for interview purposes.

So you'll look through each of  the CVs to see if they have the  

sort of credentials and skills that  you're looking for to look through.

To browse. Well, this is one of my favourite  pastimes. If I can find a bookshop,  

I like to browse means to go  in and go from shelf to shelf,  

up and down to see the titles, even  just to look at the covers of the books.

Who's writing new books, who's published new  books, some of your favourite authors, perhaps,  

that you'd like to pick up on and get another  book to read? So you browse, you find the titles,  

you find the authors, and then you might pick  up the occasional book, turn it over and read  

the, opinions of some other writers as to what  this book is about to browse. And of course,  

in the modern world, we browse the internet, so we  go up and down looking for something of interest.

To scan. Well, scan means to look at something  in a little bit of detail, but quickly. Okay,  

so if you get a document that lands on your  desk, you'll scan it to see. First of all,  

are there any mistakes? Suddenly  I do. Somebody sends me a note.  

I scan it quickly to see if I  can pick up any grammar mistakes,  

and then I look through it a little bit more  thoroughly to see what the content is about.

So when we scan something, we look at it quickly  but methodically to pick up on any points that we  

really wanted to check. So to scan so you can,  you know, there's a thing called speed reading.  

There's a certain we're practising to do it. We  pick out the key words and the key sentences.

So that you'd be able to get a  good understanding of what the  

article is without having to  read all of it, such as scan.

But usually a machine will  scan something. You know,  

an x-ray machine will scan your body.  So with your eyes when you're reading,  

you're going from left to right to scan each  sentence, each paragraph to pick out key words.

To devour. Well, we spoke about devour  before when we're talking about eating  

food. So when you devour a book,  it means you can't stop reading it.

And you know, I have a really, really big  appetite for books. And I love reading them,  

so. And I get a really good book, I will  devour it. Meaning I will almost eat it.  

I will read it cover to cover and as  few days as possible because I can't

put the book down. It's a real page  turner. So to devour a book means to  

read it with great detail, great  interest and passion to devour.

Okay? And if you do happen to like  this particular lesson, then please  

like the video. And if you can subscribe to  a channel because it really, really helps.

To pore over.

But when we pore over a document, we study  it in great detail. He's been poring over  

those accounts for hours now. He's really  examined them in every detail. I'm really  

happy that we spent so long preparing them  because, you know, if we'd made any mistakes,  

he would certainly be on the warpath. So  to pull over a document or to pore over  

add the numbers is to really analyse them  in great detail so you can see every little

bit and piece of them to pore over.

To skim, while to skim means to read very, very  quickly. So your boss might ask you, did you read  

those documents? I skimmed over them quickly last  night. I have a general idea what they're about.  

Are there any of them that are more important  than others? And I can read them a little bit  

more carefully. So when you skim over or skim  through something, you don't read every page.

In fact, you probably only read the summary page,  

but you skim through it just to make  sure that there's nothing there that's  

going to catch you out. So to skim  over or to skim through a document.

To riffle through. Okay, so and  to riffle means to look at pages,  

but you tend not to do it in a in a tidy  way. Okay. So when you riffle through.

A folder or riffle through a file, you're  pulling pages out. Perhaps you're in a bit  

of a rush trying to find something  that you, you missed the last time,  

or trying to find an important reference that  you really need. So you you go through it some  

bits very quickly, others in more detail, but  not with any great order to riffle through.

Now, two words, as I said, that get, confused to  study and to learn. So when we study something,  

particularly when we're talking  about reading, then we read, memorise

We are very attentive. Okay. So you  could be studying chemistry. Okay. So  

you're reading chemical formulas. You  could be studying biology. So you're  

looking at photosynthesis or whatever it  is to do with the production of plants.  

So to study means to look at something in  great detail. Now the difference between  

learning and studying is the following.  So when we study we read and we memorise.

And then when we learn, we gain  knowledge. And that could be from.

Studying or it could be from listening. Okay.  

Or we are told something by our  teacher so we can learn that way.

We don't necessarily have to read, but when  we study, we do have to read to gain that  

particular knowledge, to memorise facts.  So I can study very hard before an exam,  

but I can learn over the whole  course. Two years, three years,  

four years. But I study very hard just before each  semester exam. Okay. So to study and to learn.

So there you have it. Those are the  explanations of the ten verbs about  

reading. So let me give them to you one more time

To flick through something. To glance  at something. To look through a book  

or a magazine or a document. To browse the  bookshelves and the bookshop. To browse. To scan.

To devour. To really get into it and read it  in detail. To devour. To pore over. Spend many,  

many hours looking at documents to pore over.

To skim. To look at very quickly.

To skim, to riffle through, riffle  through. And then finally to study.  

And just remember that difference between  learning and studying, studying and learning.

Okay. So those are the ten particular verbs  connected with reading verbs that you can use  

to describe reading. As always, try to practise  them. Try to understand them. Try in particular to  

understand the difference between certain ways of  reading what's fast reading, what's quick reading?

What do you

do quickly if you want to pick up on some  information and others that you might go through,  

and a little bit more detail. So if  you have any difficulty with them,  

contact me. I'll very happily give you some  more examples of other words if you need them.

Okay, so this is Harry, as always, thanking you  

for listening and watching.  Join me for the next lesson.