Vocabulary Hack: Learn 30+ Verbs in 10 minutes!

638,802 views ・ 2015-10-03

Learn English with Rebecca


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Hi. I'm Rebecca from engVid, and I think you're really going to like this lesson. Why? Because
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I'm going to give you a vocabulary shortcut that will allow you to learn 30 new words
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in just a few minutes. How do we do that?
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Okay, well, what we're going to do is to follow a certain pattern that involves verbs, and
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this is the pattern. So, what we do is we add the letters "en" at the end of an adjective
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or at the end of a noun. I'll give you an example so you'll understand exactly. Okay?
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Now, let's take this adjective: "short". So, by adding "en", it becomes the verb "shorten".
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And what does it mean to shorten something? To make it more of whatever it was; in this
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case, to make it shorter. Right? Or, if we take this noun: "strength", and we add "en",
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it becomes the verb "strengthen". And to strengthen means to make something more strong, to make
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it stronger, to give it more strength. Okay? So, that's the pattern. All you need to do
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is to add "en" to the end of certain adjectives or nouns. Now, it doesn't work for every word
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in English, but it does work for lots of words, and that's why you see many words on the board,
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here. Okay?
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Let's go through them. Now, these words are divided a little bit. I made it that way so
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that you would see that there's different ways that we can classify the verbs. It might
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help you. So, first let's look at size. For example: "short" becomes "shorten".
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"Wide": "widen". "Deep": "deepen". Right?
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So all of these on the board now are verbs. Right? They
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started off either as adjectives or nouns, but we're converting them, we are changing
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them into verbs, and quite dynamic verbs. All right? So instead of saying:
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"She made her skirt shorter", we just say: "She shortened her skirt." Skirt, right? Okay?
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Instead of saying: "They made their driveway wider",
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we can just say: "They widened their driveway",
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and it sounds much better, whether you're writing, whether you're speaking. Okay? And
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certainly if you're doing an exam like the IELTS or the TOEFL. Okay? You can use these
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kind of vocabulary words.
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Now, also, the aspect of colour. For example: "She whitened her teeth." All right?
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"She darkened her hair.", "Her face reddened." All right? So, it works with certain colours;
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not every colour. We cannot add it to the word "green", for example. There is no "greenen",
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okay? But there is "redden", "darken", "whiten". What you could do is as I'm saying the words,
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try to repeat them after me, so you become more comfortable also pronouncing them.
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Now, also certain qualities. For example: "Harden", "soften", "thicken". Right?
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"She added flour to thicken the soup." All right? That's one way. And then, all kinds of other
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words, some of them you've heard and some of them you may be using already, but maybe
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not all of them. For example: to make something sweeter is to "sweeten". To make your skin,
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for example, more moist, less dry, is to "moisten". To make something looser is to "loosen". For
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example: "He loosened his tie." Okay? I know it sounds a little bit strange if you haven't
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heard these words before, but believe me, it works and it's really quite easy. Okay?
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Now, let's do a little bit of practice so that you get very, very comfortable with this.
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I will do these, and then you can do some of these with me. You'll see that it'll become
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much easier as we go along. So, for example, here we have: "exercise strength":
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"the exercise strengthened his muscles". Okay? "Condition worse":
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"Her condition worsened." Okay? Good.
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If you... If you get the hang of it, you can say it along with me. "Love deep":
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"Their love deepened." Okay? That means what? That means that their love became deeper. All right?
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Stronger, in other words. "Fruit ripe": "The fruit ripened." Now, in case you don't know
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that word, when a fruit becomes ripe, it becomes ready to eat. All right? So: "The fruit ripened."
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"News sad": "The news saddened her." The news made her feel sad. Sad and sadder. Okay?
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"Curtains dead". "Curtains dead"? Yeah, we could say: "The curtains deadened the noise." Okay? That
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means to make something more dead, or in this case, more quiet. All right? "Pulse weak".
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Now, what's your "pulse"? You know when you go to the doctor or when you go to the hospital,
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they take your pulse? It's like you can feel your heartbeat? That's your pulse. And your...
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So we could say: "His pulse weakened." It became weaker. All right? And "pain less",
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so it means: "His pain lessened by taking the medicines." Okay? So you see that we're
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taking each of these words, and we're making them into verbs.
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Now, you'll have a chance to do these with me. Now, in this case, we have the verb first,
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and then we have a noun. In all of these, we had nouns first and then verbs. Okay? That's
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where I did this, and this, I left to do with you. All right? So, what did he do? So we'll
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say: "He tight belt": "He tightened his belt." Good. Okay? Make it tighter. "She quick pace",
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"pace" means the speed at which you walk, usually, so: "She quickened her pace." See?
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Did you know that that could be a verb? "Quick" becomes "quicken", it means to do something
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more quickly. "She quickened her pace."
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"Length skirt". Well, you know the girl who shortened her skirt, here? Now, her mom said:
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"Are you kidding? You're not going out like that." So then she had to make it longer,
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so what did she do? "She lengthened her skirt.", "Length skirt": "Lengthened her skirt". So,
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"lengthen" is also a verb. All right. "Flat box", let's say it's a "he": "He", he did
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what to the box? He made it flatter, so what did he do? What's the verb?
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"He flattened the box." Great. You're getting really, really good at this. Okay?
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"She sweet tea", so what did she do to make the tea sweeter?
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"She sweetened the tea."
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So, again, we're putting "en", and in this case, because we are saying these examples
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in the past tense, we're also adding the past tense endings. Okay? "Broad",
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"They broad driveway", okay? They wanted to make their driveway broader, so what did they do?
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"They broadened their driveway." Good. Okay, and: "Parents quiet baby",
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all right? Parents love quiet babies, and parents love when their babies get this way,
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so what did they do?
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"They quietened the baby." Okay? "To quieten" means to make quieter. All right?
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"Soft skin": "She softened her skin with some moisturizer." Okay? "She softened her skin."
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So, "soft" becomes "soften", and "soften" in the past becomes "softened". That's it.
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Good. "Damp cloth", okay?
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"She dampened the cloth." So "damp" became "dampen", and "dampen"
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became dampened" if it was in the past tense.
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You're getting... You don't realize it, but you're actually getting some quite advanced
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vocabulary, here, but not in a hard way. It's just the same principle every time. Okay?
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We're just adding "en", and if it's a past tense verb, then we're adding... If it's a
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regular verb, we're just... Which is what it is, then we're just adding "ed" after that.
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Okay? If we're making it in the past. You don't have to speak in the past.
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And the last one is something that lots of people do in classrooms, right? If your pencil
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is not sharp anymore, you need to make it sharper, so what do you do?
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"You sharpen your pencil." And, in the past tense, it would be:
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"He sharpened his pencil."
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Wow. Do you know that you just finished 30 words? Okay? And basically, they all followed
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the same principle. We added "en" to an adjective or to a noun. And you can do that, all right?
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Go back over the video, take these words, write some sentences of your own, say them
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out loud, practice using them, and you'll be surprised at how quickly you have expanded
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your vocabulary. Also, if you want to get some more practice,
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go to our website: www.engvid.com.
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Thanks very much for watching, and all the best with your English.
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