Vocabulary Hack: Learn 30+ Verbs in 10 minutes!

Hi. I'm Rebecca from engVid, and I think you're really going to like this lesson. Why? Because

I'm going to give you a vocabulary shortcut that will allow you to learn 30 new words

in just a few minutes. How do we do that?

Okay, well, what we're going to do is to follow a certain pattern that involves verbs, and

this is the pattern. So, what we do is we add the letters "en" at the end of an adjective

or at the end of a noun. I'll give you an example so you'll understand exactly. Okay?

Now, let's take this adjective: "short". So, by adding "en", it becomes the verb "shorten".

And what does it mean to shorten something? To make it more of whatever it was; in this

case, to make it shorter. Right? Or, if we take this noun: "strength", and we add "en",

it becomes the verb "strengthen". And to strengthen means to make something more strong, to make

it stronger, to give it more strength. Okay? So, that's the pattern. All you need to do

is to add "en" to the end of certain adjectives or nouns. Now, it doesn't work for every word

in English, but it does work for lots of words, and that's why you see many words on the board,

here. Okay?

Let's go through them. Now, these words are divided a little bit. I made it that way so

that you would see that there's different ways that we can classify the verbs. It might

help you. So, first let's look at size. For example: "short" becomes "shorten".

"Wide": "widen". "Deep": "deepen". Right?

So all of these on the board now are verbs. Right? They

started off either as adjectives or nouns, but we're converting them, we are changing

them into verbs, and quite dynamic verbs. All right? So instead of saying:

"She made her skirt shorter", we just say: "She shortened her skirt." Skirt, right? Okay?

Instead of saying: "They made their driveway wider",

we can just say: "They widened their driveway",

and it sounds much better, whether you're writing, whether you're speaking. Okay? And

certainly if you're doing an exam like the IELTS or the TOEFL. Okay? You can use these

kind of vocabulary words.

Now, also, the aspect of colour. For example: "She whitened her teeth." All right?

"She darkened her hair.", "Her face reddened." All right? So, it works with certain colours;

not every colour. We cannot add it to the word "green", for example. There is no "greenen",

okay? But there is "redden", "darken", "whiten". What you could do is as I'm saying the words,

try to repeat them after me, so you become more comfortable also pronouncing them.

Now, also certain qualities. For example: "Harden", "soften", "thicken". Right?

"She added flour to thicken the soup." All right? That's one way. And then, all kinds of other

words, some of them you've heard and some of them you may be using already, but maybe

not all of them. For example: to make something sweeter is to "sweeten". To make your skin,

for example, more moist, less dry, is to "moisten". To make something looser is to "loosen". For

example: "He loosened his tie." Okay? I know it sounds a little bit strange if you haven't

heard these words before, but believe me, it works and it's really quite easy. Okay?

Now, let's do a little bit of practice so that you get very, very comfortable with this.

I will do these, and then you can do some of these with me. You'll see that it'll become

much easier as we go along. So, for example, here we have: "exercise strength":

"the exercise strengthened his muscles". Okay? "Condition worse":

"Her condition worsened." Okay? Good.

If you... If you get the hang of it, you can say it along with me. "Love deep":

"Their love deepened." Okay? That means what? That means that their love became deeper. All right?

Stronger, in other words. "Fruit ripe": "The fruit ripened." Now, in case you don't know

that word, when a fruit becomes ripe, it becomes ready to eat. All right? So: "The fruit ripened."

"News sad": "The news saddened her." The news made her feel sad. Sad and sadder. Okay?

"Curtains dead". "Curtains dead"? Yeah, we could say: "The curtains deadened the noise." Okay? That

means to make something more dead, or in this case, more quiet. All right? "Pulse weak".

Now, what's your "pulse"? You know when you go to the doctor or when you go to the hospital,

they take your pulse? It's like you can feel your heartbeat? That's your pulse. And your...

So we could say: "His pulse weakened." It became weaker. All right? And "pain less",

so it means: "His pain lessened by taking the medicines." Okay? So you see that we're

taking each of these words, and we're making them into verbs.

Now, you'll have a chance to do these with me. Now, in this case, we have the verb first,

and then we have a noun. In all of these, we had nouns first and then verbs. Okay? That's

where I did this, and this, I left to do with you. All right? So, what did he do? So we'll

say: "He tight belt": "He tightened his belt." Good. Okay? Make it tighter. "She quick pace",

"pace" means the speed at which you walk, usually, so: "She quickened her pace." See?

Did you know that that could be a verb? "Quick" becomes "quicken", it means to do something

more quickly. "She quickened her pace."

"Length skirt". Well, you know the girl who shortened her skirt, here? Now, her mom said:

"Are you kidding? You're not going out like that." So then she had to make it longer,

so what did she do? "She lengthened her skirt.", "Length skirt": "Lengthened her skirt". So,

"lengthen" is also a verb. All right. "Flat box", let's say it's a "he": "He", he did

what to the box? He made it flatter, so what did he do? What's the verb?

"He flattened the box." Great. You're getting really, really good at this. Okay?

"She sweet tea", so what did she do to make the tea sweeter?

"She sweetened the tea."

So, again, we're putting "en", and in this case, because we are saying these examples

in the past tense, we're also adding the past tense endings. Okay? "Broad",

"They broad driveway", okay? They wanted to make their driveway broader, so what did they do?

"They broadened their driveway." Good. Okay, and: "Parents quiet baby",

all right? Parents love quiet babies, and parents love when their babies get this way,

so what did they do?

"They quietened the baby." Okay? "To quieten" means to make quieter. All right?

"Soft skin": "She softened her skin with some moisturizer." Okay? "She softened her skin."

So, "soft" becomes "soften", and "soften" in the past becomes "softened". That's it.

Good. "Damp cloth", okay?

"She dampened the cloth." So "damp" became "dampen", and "dampen"

became dampened" if it was in the past tense.

You're getting... You don't realize it, but you're actually getting some quite advanced

vocabulary, here, but not in a hard way. It's just the same principle every time. Okay?

We're just adding "en", and if it's a past tense verb, then we're adding... If it's a

regular verb, we're just... Which is what it is, then we're just adding "ed" after that.

Okay? If we're making it in the past. You don't have to speak in the past.

And the last one is something that lots of people do in classrooms, right? If your pencil

is not sharp anymore, you need to make it sharper, so what do you do?

"You sharpen your pencil." And, in the past tense, it would be:

"He sharpened his pencil."

Wow. Do you know that you just finished 30 words? Okay? And basically, they all followed

the same principle. We added "en" to an adjective or to a noun. And you can do that, all right?

Go back over the video, take these words, write some sentences of your own, say them

out loud, practice using them, and you'll be surprised at how quickly you have expanded

your vocabulary. Also, if you want to get some more practice,

go to our website: www.engvid.com.

Thanks very much for watching, and all the best with your English.