Advanced Vocabulary of CAUSE & EFFECT

395,425 views ・ 2015-05-18

Learn English with Rebecca


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Hi. My name's Rebecca from www.engvid.com. Now, everyone knows that to improve your English,
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you need to expand your vocabulary. Right? True. But in today's lesson, I'm going to
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show you the key to not just expanding your vocabulary, but expanding... But really transforming
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your vocabulary. And, how is that? That's by learning something called "collocations".
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What are collocations? Collocations are word combinations, or two or more words that are
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used together very frequently. So, rather than just learning one word, if you learn
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the expression, you learn how that word is used, what verb goes with which noun, etcetera,
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then your vocabulary will sound much more advanced, much more natural, and much more
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fluent. This is very important if you want to impress people when you're speaking, and
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extremely important if you want to get high marks in any English proficiency exam, such
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as the TOEFL or the IELTS.
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Now, there are all kinds of collocations in English about everything that you can imagine,
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and that's what makes the difference, sometimes, between whether someone really knows the language
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or not. It's not just a matter... It's not only a matter of knowing the word, but knowing
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how to use the combination of words, the collocation. All right?
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So, in today's lesson, we're going to look at six kind of advanced collocations that
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have to do with cause and effect. Now, you can always say that something made something
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else happen, and that's English, too, and it's perfectly fine to say that. But if you
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want to say things in a more sophisticated way, in a more intelligent or educated way,
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then you'll want to use the expressions which I'm going to teach you.
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All right? So, let's have a look.
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So what I've done, I've written some words in red and some in black. So, all of the words
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in red here at the top basically mean "caused". Okay? And everything on this side means the
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effect. All right? So these words are words we can use... These are synonyms for "caused"
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or "made something happen" and this is the effect of it. So, let's look at some examples
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in sentences.
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"The govt's policy produced the results..." Okay? So, you can't say: "made the results"
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or: "did the results", but you can say: "produced the results". All right? So, the collocation
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is "to produce results" or: "to produce the results". So: "The govt's policy produced
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the results that we expected." Or: "The govt's policy didn't produce the results that we
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expected." All right? So, that's the collocation there. That's the expression that you can learn.
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Let's look at another example. "The election provoked an outcry..." Now, again, "provoked"
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has something to do with caused. So, "to provoke" means to cause in a rather aggressive manner.
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Okay? So, to provoke. Provoke what? An outcry. Now, what is it..? What is an outcry? An outcry
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means public anger. All right? So, it's talking about something happened and it caused, in
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a very kind of an aggressive way, a response, an angry response from the public. So, it
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provoked an outcry. All right?
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You could say: "The election results provoked an outcry from the people."
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Next: "The blizzard wreaked havoc on the highway." All right? Now, what's a blizzard? A blizzard
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is a very heavy snowstorm, for example. So: "The blizzard wreaked havoc..." "Wreaked"
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we said all these words mean "caused", it's another word for "caused". And "havoc", what
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is "havoc"? "Havoc" means damage, destruction, confusion. Okay? So, the blizzard, the very
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heavy snowstorm caused a lot of damage and destruction on the highway. So, it wreaked
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havoc. Now, of course, if you say that, you can always say: "The blizzard caused a lot
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of damage." Or: "The blizzard caused a lot of destruction." And that's fine. That's correct
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English, too, but this better English.
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All right. Next. "The strike spelled disaster for the economy." for example. Right? So,
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again, "to spell" in this case doesn't mean like spelling. Okay? It has a different meaning
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here. Here, "to spell disaster" means to cause disaster. And what's "disaster"? Means something
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very, very, very bad; a very bad event, a very bad happening, very serious issues and
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problems. A disaster. So, the strike caused disaster or spelled disaster. Okay? On the...
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For the economy.
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Next one: "The Prime Minister"-I just wrote "PM"-"The Prime Minister's behaviour prompted
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speculation about his honesty. The Prime Minister's behaviour prompted", or caused, or led to,
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"speculation", which is suspicion or doubt. Okay? The Prime Minister's behaviour led to
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doubt, prompted speculation about his honesty. Okay? Again, lots of good vocabulary here,
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and even better collocations. Right? The entire expression. So, this way, if you learn the
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whole expression, you will be able to write much more fluently and speak much more fluently.
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Next one: "The boss's favoritism bred resentment among the employees." So, what is that? First
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of all: what is favoritism? A favoritism is when somebody favors, or treats one person
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better than another person. So, a boss here is treating one employee or a few employees
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more nice... Nicely than other people. Okay? Sometimes bosses do that, sometimes teachers
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do that, sometimes parents do that. They shouldn't do that, but it happens. And when that happens,
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what happens to the other people? They're not very happy. Are they? No. So, they become...
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They feel a lot of resentment. They become resentful. And resentment is basically bitterness
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or anger. So... And the verb here is "to breed resentment", "to cause resentment". Okay?
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So: "The boss's favoritism bred"-in the past-"bred resentment among the employees."
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So, you have a lot of serious collocations and expressions to learn, here. But just imagine,
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if you actually start... If you learn them and you actually start using them in your
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writing, of course you're going to get better marks. There's no question about it. And you're
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going to sound like a very educated person. And if you're in university or in any kind
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of academic environment, this kind of English is what's required. It's also fairly standard
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at those levels. Okay?
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Let's go over them again. You can pronounce them after me. "To produce results",
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"to provoke an outcry", "to wreak havoc",
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"to spell disaster", "to prompt speculation", and the last one:
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"to breed resentment". Okay? Now I just said them as they are. Here, they were all written
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in the past tense.
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So, this is a really important subject, collocations. If you want to do some practice, which I recommend,
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because you want to master... You have a lot to master, here. You have to master the verbs,
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you have to master the nouns here. Okay? A lot of practice is very helpful. Go to our
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website: www.engvid.com. And if you want to keep improving your English,
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subscribe to my channel. There's always lots of ideas that will help you improve and transform your English.
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Bye for now.
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