Moving & Relocation Vocabulary [English Phrasal Verbs, Idioms, and Collocations]

If you've ever moved to a new home or moved to a new office due to a job change

or relocated to an entirely new country,

you know how exciting it all can be, but it's also rather disruptive.

Then doing all of that in another language is really tough.

Recently inside my Confident Women Community.

I've been sharing about my own cross-country moving experience.

And today I want to share some key vocabulary with you, English,

phrasal verbs, collocations, idioms,

and more all related to moving or relocating.

My goal is to help you have all the vocabulary you need to communicate

about your experiences or your upcoming plans with

friends, family, coworkers, and more.

Now, before we start, if you don't already know,

I'm Annemarie with Speak Confident English,

everything I do here is designed to help you get the confidence you want for

your life and work in English.

One way I do that is with my Confident English lessons,

which I share every Wednesday at my Speak Confident English website and

on my Speak Confident English, YouTube channel as well. While you're here,

make sure you give this lesson a thumbs up and be sure to subscribe.

So you never miss one of my Confident English lessons to navigate

this topic on conversations related to moving and relocating

I've focused in on four strategies that help make the moving

process easier.

So if you have an upcoming move in your life,

you can follow these strategies to make it less stressful. And along the way,

we're going to learn more than 15 essential English,

collocations, phrasal verbs, idioms, and more.

So you have successful conversations.

So strategy number one for the moving and relocation process,

make room for all the emotions.

Let's say that you or a loved one just accepted a new job.

And that means that you'll be moving to a new city or maybe even to a new

country. The moment that happens,

do you know what's coming an emotional roller coaster

describing a relocation as an emotional roller coaster means

that you are going to have a variety of emotions.

Everything from excitement, exhilaration to nervousness,

anxiety, disappointment, frustration, worry,

and so much more all in a very short period of time

going from feeling exhilarated to desperate and

back again is quite an emotional experience.

One of the best things you can do early on in the relocation process

is prepare yourself for the emotional fallout of moving

emotional fallout, refers to the anxiety, stress,

or even trauma you might experience after a major event or crisis.

Sometimes we experience an emotional fallout. Even when there isn't a crisis,

it can occur when we're struggling to come to terms with a rational decision,

like accepting a new job and preparing to move.

When an emotional fallout occurs,

it's important to give yourself time and space to process.

In other words, tune into your needs. At that time in the sentence,

I just used giving yourself time to process in this

context to process means to give yourself time,

to evaluate information,

to accept it or absorb it. And while you're doing that,

while you're processing all those emotions,

you might ask yourself a few key questions.

Do you need to keep busy to keep your mind off of things?

Or do you just need to slow down and take a breath?

Do you need to talk about it with someone and get all of those emotions off your

chest? Or do you just need some time alone?

Maybe you need to do some research to help you organize and plan

during the process of processing your emotions.

These are helpful questions to consider the second strategy when moving

or relocating is stay organized. Most importantly,

avoid flooding.

Flooding is a feeling of emotional or mental overwhelm.

The best way to avoid flooding is prioritizing downtime

to avoid burnout. Additionally,

prioritize the most important items on your moving checklist

and take into account.

The time you'll need to pack and prepare to take

something into account means to consider something or to consider it

fully while judging or evaluating the situation.

The last part of staying organized is to help others prepare for the

impact of your move.

This includes communicating important dates and telling

others what you need from them to help.

When you're communicating on these key points with friends, family,

and coworkers, here are several essential,

phrasal verbs to know number one, to move out,

to move out means to, to leave one's home, to live somewhere else.

For example, we need to move out of our apartment by Friday.

So I need to spend all my free time packing phrasal verb,

two to move away.

This means to leave one place for a new place.

For example, my husband and I aren't moving out of state,

but we are moving away from the city. Number three,

to move into this means to move your possessions into a new

location, to make it your home. For example,

I'll be moving into my new apartment on Wednesday.

So I'll be offline and unavailable for two days. Next week.

The fourth key phrasal verb to know is to pack up.

This means to put things into boxes or bags in order to take

them with you somewhere. For example,

there's quite a bit to pack up here in my office.

So I'll need to spend all afternoon doing that.

Number five is to load up.

And this means to fill something with several items until it's full.

For example, after you've packed up your office,

you might load up all of the boxes into your car.

Another example,

the movers won't be able to deliver our items for another two weeks.

Would you mind helping me load up our car with all our essentials?

And the last key phrase LA verb to know for right now is to settle on

this means to decide on something or to make a decision. For example,

let's settle on the 18th as the last day for any meetings this month.

Let me pause here for just a moment before we go onto strategy. Number three,

for how to handle moving and relocating. Well,

we've just learned six essential, phrasal verbs,

and you might be wondering how do I remember all of these?

These are really useful, phrasal verbs. I have two recommendations for you.

Number one,

review my lesson on how to effectively learn and remember

vocabulary. I'll share a link to that lesson in my notes below.

And number two,

practice these FRA LA verbs in speaking,

if you're not sure how to do that,

I want you to go to my website and download my free,

How to Say What You Want in English training. In that training,

I share my number one strategy for getting speaking practice.

Even if you're self learning or learning alone,

this is the same strategy I use with my students to make

effective progress in their English, confidence and fluency.

Again, you can get that training at my website.

It's a perfect way to get speaking practice and incorporate some of

this key vocabulary. And now strategy number three,

when moving and relocating ask for help.

I know it isn't always easy,

but sometimes you need an extra set of hands to get things done.

So don't be afraid to ask friends and family to help with packing up and

organizing the same can be said for emotional and mental

support. When you move to a new place,

you might experience some culture shock or in some cases,

reverse culture,

shock culture shock refers to those feelings of confusion and

uncertainty that we experience when we move to a new place or a new country.

For example, if moving from one country to another,

you might experience culture shock.

When eating out at restaurants in north America, for example,

it's customary to give a tip of 15 to 20% or even

more to the servers. However,

in another country's giving a tip may be considered rude.

If you're from a culture where you always tip at a restaurant and

then you move to a new country where you have a negative interaction,

because you thought you were doing something correctly,

you may experience some culture shock, reverse culture shock. On the other hand,

are those feelings of uncertainty and anxiety.

When moving back to your home country,

there's often some readjustment that needs to take place and it isn't

always easy.

So if you've just returned home or maybe you're even visiting your home country

for a few days, weeks, or months, while you're there, you might tell someone,

I think I'm having a bit of reverse culture shock. I'm not used to all of this.

I've been away for so long.

I'm curious whether you've ever moved to another city or country and

at some point in time experienced culture shock or reverse culture

shock. If so, tell me about it.

You can share with me in the comments below,

I'd love to know more about your experience and how you dealt with that culture

shock or reverse culture shock. Now,

when you experience these feelings of anxiety or uncertainty,

it's important to tap into your support network,

to tap into something means to access a resource or an object

that can be an advantage to you.

And this brings me to strategy number four for successful relocation

and moving put down roots,

moving to a new place can be daunting and to help

overcome those initial feelings of uncertainty and anxiety.

It's important to put down your roots to put down roots means to

settle into your new life and feel that you belong. Now,

if you're an introvert like me, this can be a real challenge.

It's hard to resist.

The urge to hunker down to hunker down means to stay in

one place like inside your home for a long period of time,

in order to protect yourself. However, to start feeling comfortable,

to begin putting down your roots, it's important to explore your new location.

This might include going to local events, starting new traditions,

building new routines,

meeting new people and so much more in the area where you live.

One thing I always do is take excessively long

walks wherever I move to.

I like to allow myself to get lost so I can just explore

what's around me and figure out where everything is.

Another way that I love to do that is to get on a bus at one place

and go until it stops at the very end,

just to see where it goes through the city and how the streets connect

and to find out what's there.

It's a great way for me as an introvert,

to find my footing and begin exploring where I live.

If you do something like this,

then you're likely to find new places that you want to go back and visit.

And there may even be opportunities to meet new people. For example,

you might discover an art gallery that you'd really like to visit or a new park

that you'd like to take your kids to. While you do all of this,

it's important to remember that you're going through a transition and

patience is key. There are going to be highs and lows,

good and bad days along the way. All of that's okay.

It's a natural part of a transition to help smooth that transition.

You can focus on positive, familiar attachments,

finding the places that you want to go back to again and again,

and begin to settle into a new routine.

To settle into something means to begin feeling comfortable in that

new place, that new city, new home, or new job.

Some things that you can do to help you settle in is to do

activities you did in your previous home, in your new place,

or while you unpack, fill your new space with familiar items.

For example,

perhaps there are a few items that you really loved having in your original

office. Well, when you make the transition to a new one,

put those same items in your new office,

that'll help give that feeling of familiarity.

As you begin to settle into that new place with that,

you have four essential strategies to help you have a successful

moving process or relocation process.

Now that we've gone through all of that, I want you to practice the English,

phrasal verbs, idioms,

and collocations that you learned today to do that.

I have two questions for you. First.

I want you to choose three or four new vocabulary words from

today's lesson and use them to describe your own experience.

Moving again. It can be moving from one office to another.

It can be moving from one country to another,

but I want you to describe what happened.

Describe your experience using three to four new vocabulary words.

The second question I have for you is if you've moved before,

what tips do you have for first time movers?

What would you recommend?

What would help make the process easier for someone else?

You can share your answers with me in the comment section below.

And if you found today's lesson helpful to you, I would love to know.

You can tell me by giving this lesson a thumbs up and while you're at it,

subscribe to my channel. So you get all of my Confident English lessons.

Thank you so much for joining me. And I look forward to seeing you next time.