Upgrade Your Vocabulary: 6 ADVANCED ENGLISH VERBS

Hi. I'm Rebecca from engVid. In this lesson,

you're going to learn six advanced verbs.

You can use these verbs in conversation, in

discussions, okay? And you can also use them

in writing. You can use them for academic writing, professional writing, or just your

personal writing, okay? Because they're just

kind of more intelligent verbs that communicate

certain ideas in a high... At a higher level,

okay, of vocabulary. But the meaning is not

hard to understand. The meaning is quite easy.

So, remember, you can also use these verbs

in exams if you're appearing for the IELTS or

the TOEFL or anything like that. Certainly,

if you use any of this kind of vocabulary, it

will improve your score because it's higher

level vocabulary, okay? But don't be afraid.

When I'm learning other languages, to me,

any word that I don't know is a new word and I

need to learn it. So, the same way in English,

of course, first you learn the basic kind

of verbs, but once you pass that basic level

and you're at an intermediate or advanced

level, any new word is a new word and you're

going to learn it. So, it doesn't matter if it's

kind of considered advanced or intermediate,

it's new to you, you can learn it, you can master it, and you can start to use it. So,

let's see how to do that with these verbs today.

Okay. So, the verbs are "to brace", "to emulate",

"to abhor", "to jeer", "to vacillate", and

"to implore". Now, you might have heard them

before, you may not have, it's okay. One way

or the other, I'm going to show you exactly what they mean and how we can use them with

lots of collocations and expressions, and also how to pronounce them, we'll practice

that also. Alright. So, the first one, "to

brace for something". So, when you're bracing

for something, you're getting ready for something

which is going to be difficult, a difficult

situation, a difficult context, okay? So, you

brace for it, you get ready. So, for example,

you need to brace for a storm, okay? If there's

a bad storm coming, you need to do certain

things to prepare for it, to get ready for it. But it's not just that you're getting

ready, like when you get ready to go out for

dinner, you're getting ready for something

difficult. That's the key part of this verb,

to brace for something. To brace for an attack,

if there's going to be an attack of something

or some people. You can brace for a hurricane,

if there's going to be an accident, somebody

has to brace for the impact of that. Or brace

for unrest, any kind of violence, and so on.

Alright? So, you brace for that, you prepare

for that, you get ready for something difficult.

Alright, the next one. You ready? "To emulate".

Say it after me. "To emulate". So, basically,

"emulate" means to imitate, to copy, to try to be as good as something else. This is a

positive thing. You want to achieve something

that you know that someone else has, and you

would like to, your dream is, your hope is to be at that high level. It could be that

you want to emulate your parents. Okay? Maybe

you want to emulate your father, you want

to emulate your mother. That's definitely

possible. You could also want to emulate some

kind of an artist, could be a singer, a dancer,

someone who has a lot of talent, or a sportsman.

Okay? An athlete. You could also emulate not

just people, but the behavior of those people,

or the qualities that certain people have. So, you can emulate behavior and qualities

as well. Okay? So, you want to try to copy

them or imitate them, and try to rise to that

higher level. Okay.

Let's look at the next one. "To abhor". Say it after me. "Abhor". Okay? There's an "h"

in there, which we do pronounce. So, "abhor"

basically is a fancy word that means to hate.

The opposite of love, hate. "To abhor violence".

Okay? Somebody who really believes in peace

may also abhor violence.

"To abhor spinach". Okay? Unfortunately, this

poor vegetable gets a lot of negative publicity,

and some people, especially kids, sometimes

say that they abhor or hate spinach. All right?

So it could be something as simple as that. Some people abhor horror movies. They don't

like to feel scared and frightened. And they

might also abhor the attitudes that some people

have towards certain things. Okay? But basically,

"abhor" means what? To hate. Basically, what

does "emulate" mean? To copy or to imitate.

And basically, what does "to brace for" mean?

It means to get ready for something tough and difficult. All right, let's look at the

next three. This one is "to jeer". Have you ever been to an event or a sports event or

a concert where people were very unhappy with

what was happening, and so they started to

shout and boo, and they started going like

this, and they were going boo, boo, and they're

making a lot of noise, and they're not happy.

They're complaining, kind of. So that kind

of complaining, when it's done by a lot of

people, when it's done by a crowd, when it's

done by an audience at an event, or by fans at a sports event, for example, that action

is called "jeering". "To jeer". So it's like

to boo or to make noise to show that you're

unhappy. You're unhappy with the performance,

maybe with a speaker. People don't like what

a speaker is saying, and sometimes they're not quiet. They don't just sit and listen.

They start to make noise, they start to protest,

they start to shout and make noises, and they

are jeering. Okay? So this is to jeer a speaker.

You could jeer another sports team. Okay?

Because maybe they did something, or they

scored something, or they did something, and

the referee said, "Yes, we're going to give them a point", but the other fans are very

unhappy, so they start jeering. Okay? And

you could also jeer... People sometimes jeer

a performer if they feel the performer is

doing a very poor job, or something like that.

Okay? So that's the meaning of the word, "to jeer". All right?

Next, "to vacillate". So, "to vacillate" means

to go this way, and then that way, and you're

not sure which way to go, so you are vacillating.

You're not sure which decision to make, so

you're vacillating. So you see with my hands

that basically it means going this way, and

then you go that way, you're not sure. Right?

So you could vacillate over an issue. Okay?

You're not sure where you stand on this problem.

There's a social problem, there's a situation,

and you're not sure what your opinion is exactly,

so you're vacillating. Okay? You could vacillate

over a decision. Okay? Should I take this

job with a large company? Should I take that

job with a small company? I don't know. Should I

live in the city? Should I live in the country?

Should I get married? Should I not get married?

Whatever. Okay? "To vacillate". You could

also vacillate not just over an issue, but between this and that. Okay? So those are

the different prepositions that you might use with the verb "to vacillate".

Next, "to implore". So "to implore" means to

beg. If somebody says, "Please, please, please",

when a child is doing that because he wants you to buy him candy, then he's imploring.

He's saying, "Please, please, please", right?

So that's like begging, but another word for

that is "to implore". It's the more formal word for that action. So you could implore

a leader to take a certain action or not to

take a certain action. Basically, when you're

imploring, you're asking people to be able

to do something or... Sorry. To do something

or not to do something, in effect. Right? You're saying, "Please do this" or "Please

don't do that." You could be imploring someone

not to hurt someone else, or you could be

imploring someone to take the right steps

to solve a problem. Okay? And you're usually

imploring... You're probably going to be imploring

a person in authority. Okay? Like that, whether

it's good or bad.

So, let's look at the pronunciation again.

"Implore", "vacillate", "jeer", "abhor", "emulate",

and "brace". All right? So, we've looked at the verbs, you've learned the meaning the

first time around, now we're going to check

that. We've checked the pronunciation, we've

looked at many ways in which we can use it

in... With different kinds of vocabulary and

expressions and collocations. Now let's try a little quiz to see if you can choose the

right one from these six words. Ready? Let's get started.

Number one. So, what should you say? "The crowd vacillated the referee's decision."

or "The crowd jeered the referee's decision."

Which is the right verb? It should be "The

crowd jeered the referee's decision." Right?

Do you remember "jeer"? Like to boo, to say

no, no, no, whoa, make a lot of noise. All right? So, this is "to jeer". All right?

Let's look at number two. "They braced for the

snowstorm." or "They implored the snowstorm."

Which is the right answer? "They braced for",

okay? "They braced for the snowstorm" means

what? They got ready, they got prepared for something difficult, which in this case was

the snowstorm. "Implored" is not correct because

what does that mean? Like to beg, say please,

please. No, they didn't beg the snowstorm, they got ready for the snowstorm, they got

prepared for it. And here, "The crowd booed

the referee's decision." They didn't vacillate,

which means going this way and that way. Okay?

You can get these words. There are six words,

you can get them.

Number three. "She emulated the habits of successful people." or "She vacillated the

habits of successful people." Which one is

correct? "She emulated", okay? Remember "emulate"?

To imitate, to copy, right? "She emulated the

habits of successful people." Not "vacillate",

which means going back and forth. All right.

Number four. "He abhorred his job, so he resigned."

or "He braced for his job, so he resigned."

Which word is correct? Which verb? It should be

"he abhorred", right? Because what does it mean

"he resigned"? It means he left his job. Okay?

He said, "No, I quit. I don't want to work here

anymore." Why? Because he hated his job. All

right? So, "abhor", as we said, means hated.

And "braced for" means to get ready, but he

didn't get ready for it because, in fact, he left.

All right? So, that was number four.

Let's look now at number five. "They emulated

the Prime Minister to change his policy."

or "They implored the Prime Minister to change his policy." Which word is correct?

"They implored", okay? They begged him. They said, "Please change your policy."

All right? "Emulate" means to copy or imitate,

so that word does not make sense there,

but they pleaded with him. They said, "Please

change your policy." All right? That was correct

for that one. Let's look at the last one we have here. "She vacillated between staying

and leaving." or "She braced between staying

and leaving." Which one is correct here?

"She vacillated." Okay? As we've said many

times as we were looking at these exercises,

to vacillate means to change your mind, go this

way and then that way, and then go this way and

that way. Right? "She vacillated between staying

and leaving." First, she thought she should stay,

then she thought she should leave, and back and

forth. All right? And that means to vacillate.

So, these are six advanced level verbs that I

hope you'll be able to use in your conversation,

in your discussions, in your writing, and so on.

And a good way to do that is to take one or two

of them right now and see if you can write some

sample sentences of your own. Think about something

that makes sense using these verbs. The sooner

you use them, the more likely you are to use them

again. If you let a lot of time go by, you may not

use them, you may forget them. So, do something

soon to lock them in so you can remember them and

improve your vocabulary. And if you're... Again,

if you're appearing for the IELTS or the TOEFL

or any kind of exam, or even in... If you're in

academic life, then a lot of these words will come in very, very useful. All right?

So, if you'd like to do a quiz on this, please

go to our website at www.engvid.com. There,

you can do the quiz and you can look at hundreds

of other videos that we have available for you.

Okay? Thanks very much for watching. Don't forget

to subscribe, and all the best with your English.

Bye for now.