250 Important English Vocabulary Words with pictures

488,816 views ・ 2022-12-02

Speak English With Vanessa


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:00
Vanessa: What is the number one skill you need to express  
0
0
3660
00:03
yourself completely in English? It's vocabulary.  If you don't know the words, well, then you can't  
1
3660
7260
00:10
say them, but I have some good news. Today,  you are going to expand your vocabulary so  
2
10920
6480
00:17
that you can express yourself completely. Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.  
3
17400
6480
00:23
Today, you are going to learn vocabulary words  through pictures. I've prepared over 60 images  
4
23880
8280
00:32
from around the internet with 10 different  topics to help you never forget these wonderful  
5
32160
6600
00:38
vocabulary words. And also to help you never  forget, I have created a free PDF worksheet just  
6
38760
7020
00:45
for you with all of today's vocabulary words  and ideas and concepts that you are going to  
7
45780
6240
00:52
learn in this important lesson. You can click the  link in the description to download the free PDF  
8
52020
4980
00:57
worksheet today. All right, let's get started with  our first category and our first set of pictures. 
9
57000
4800
01:01
Our first category is professions. These people  are receptionists. They work in customer service  
10
61800
9420
01:11
or you can say they work in hospitality.  They might say, "I work the front desk at  
11
71220
8700
01:19
the Hilton Hotel." I work the front desk  at... whatever the company is. This guy is  
12
79920
6780
01:26
called a digital nomad. This means he can work  from anywhere. He might also be a freelancer  
13
86700
8040
01:34
or an independent contractor so he can work  beside the pool in his sunglasses if he wants. 
14
94740
7920
01:42
This person is a small business owner. She runs  a boutique. It looks like it sells clothes,  
15
102660
6720
01:49
maybe some other beauty products, and she's  a small business owner. Other small business  
16
109380
6660
01:56
owners might say, "I work for a startup." Or, "I'm  running a startup." This means it's a new company,  
17
116040
8940
02:04
usually a tech company. Or a small business owner  might say, "I'm an entrepreneur." Or a fun word,  
18
124980
8340
02:13
"I'm a solopreneur." This has to do with a  company that's generally run by just one person. 
19
133320
7320
02:21
This person is an artist. There are  many different types of artists.  
20
141660
4380
02:26
You could be a sculptor like this  person, or a designer, a painter,  
21
146040
6000
02:32
or a musician. I'm sure there  are many other types of artists. 
22
152040
3780
02:36
This person is a teacher. She teaches in  a classroom, but there are other types of  
23
156480
5520
02:42
teachers as well. You might say, "I'm a coach,  I'm a professor, I'm a mentor, or I'm a guide."  
24
162000
9060
02:52
This guy works in construction. He operates  heavy machinery. Heavy machinery might be  
25
172080
7980
03:00
the cement truck that's in this picture,  it could be a forklift, but it has to do  
26
180060
4920
03:04
with the type of work that he does. Other  types of people who work in construction  
27
184980
5100
03:10
are electricians, architects, and plumbers. All right. Let's go to our next category,  
28
190080
8160
03:18
which is clothing. The type of clothing that  this person is wearing, we might say they are  
29
198240
6480
03:24
looking quite relaxed. They are wearing  athleisure. This is a mix of two words,  
30
204720
6660
03:31
athletics and leisure. In the U.S., it's really  common and quite popular to where athleisure.  
31
211380
7980
03:39
Even when you're not going to the gym, this might  just be the clothing that you wear. Other words  
32
219360
6240
03:45
that we can use to talk about relaxed clothing  are slouchy, sloppy, grungy, disheveled. These  
33
225600
10080
03:55
are all pretty negative words, but it's true that  sometimes when you're just hanging out at home,  
34
235680
5640
04:01
you might wear some clothes that are sloppy.  You don't look too great, but it doesn't matter. 
35
241320
5880
04:08
This person has a casual look. She's wearing jeans  and a sweater. We call this "everyday wear." Now,  
36
248580
8880
04:17
this depends on where you live, what  is considered casual wear. In the U.S.,  
37
257460
5220
04:22
it's jeans and a t-shirt, but maybe your country  generally has more formal clothes in daily life,  
38
262680
6900
04:29
so it might be a nice sweater and some  jeans that fit. It looks like she's even  
39
269580
5160
04:34
brushed her hair, but this is a casual look. Here, we have business casual. This is a common  
40
274740
7440
04:42
expression that you'll hear in the workplace. The  dress code is business casual. You can see that  
41
282180
6120
04:48
these people don't look overly formal. The man  is wearing jeans and a colored button up shirt,  
42
288300
7140
04:55
and the woman here also has pants.  She has a somewhat business-like top,  
43
295440
5700
05:01
but it's not too formal. Sometimes we call these  slacks. If they're black pants or something that's  
44
301140
8460
05:09
not too casual, slacks. We also might say  a blazer. A blazer is a casual suit jacket  
45
309600
9000
05:18
or we could say they are just well-dressed. Next, we have business formal. These people  
46
318600
8520
05:27
definitely look more formally dressed and they  have a nice black coat on. Some terms that we  
47
327120
8880
05:36
use in these situations are, "They are dressed  to impress." This means that they want to look  
48
336000
7380
05:43
nice because they want to impress their clients,  their boss. Maybe they're trying to get a new job,  
49
343380
6000
05:49
whatever it is, they are dressed to  impress. We also sometimes use the term,  
50
349380
4680
05:54
"Dress for the job you want." This means maybe you  don't have the highest position in the company,  
51
354060
7860
06:01
but if you dress smartly like this,  well, maybe you'll get a promotion.  
52
361920
6780
06:08
So you're kind of putting yourself there in  that mental space, "I'm going to dress for  
53
368700
4680
06:13
the job that I want, not for the job that I have." Some other fun expressions we use for these types  
54
373380
6720
06:20
of clothing are a power suit. This is especially  used for women when you have a nice suit,  
55
380100
7380
06:28
shirt, jacket, a nice colored shirt, and maybe  you are wearing suit pants. This could be a  
56
388080
6840
06:34
power suit or a pantsuit where you have pants  and a jacket that match. And here as well,  
57
394920
8280
06:44
almost all of these people are wearing a  button-down. We could say, "A button-down  
58
404100
4920
06:49
shirt," but sometimes we say, "Oh, my button-down  is wrinkly. I need to iron it." Just button-down. 
59
409020
7080
06:57
All right, the next people are wearing uniforms.  A lot of people wear uniforms. School children  
60
417660
7440
07:05
wear uniforms. People who work in the hospital  wear a uniform. It's called scrubs. People who  
61
425100
7920
07:13
work in the military wear a uniform, and a lot  of other professions wear uniforms as well. 
62
433020
6600
07:21
Finally, in our clothing category, we have  formal attire. Usually when you go to a wedding,  
63
441180
8340
07:29
you wear formal attire. The men are wearing suit  coats and ties or bow ties. And if everyone had  
64
449520
10680
07:40
a black suit, we would call this a black-tie  affair. This is as formal as it gets. Here,  
65
460200
7080
07:47
they're wearing gray suits. This was probably  something that the groom suggested for the men  
66
467280
6120
07:53
to wear, but we sometimes say a black-tie  affair. This might be like the Met Gala. A  
67
473400
6360
07:59
lot of celebrities are wearing black  suits. This is a black-tie affair. 
68
479760
4080
08:04
Another fun idiom we use to talk about formal  dress is, "They are dressed to the nines." This  
69
484500
8220
08:12
is the number nine, and it simply means they are  really dressed up. They are dressed formally.  
70
492720
5880
08:19
Sometimes people dress up just for fun and we  might say, "I'm all dressed up with nowhere to  
71
499920
10380
08:30
go." Okay, maybe you were just having fun and you  were dressing up at home, you could say, "I'm all  
72
510300
6600
08:36
dressed up with nowhere to go. Does anyone  want to go somewhere?" This is an expression  
73
516900
5160
08:42
you'll probably hear in movies or TV shows. All right, let's go to our next category, which  
74
522060
6420
08:48
is hobbies or ways that we can describe ourself  based on our activities. Your hobby might be that  
75
528480
8820
08:57
you like to create. There are lots of different  things that you can create. This guy looks like  
76
537300
5700
09:03
he's creating some kind of media, possibly a  video. Maybe he is a content creator. That's  
77
543000
6780
09:09
what we call people like me who make videos for  YouTube or maybe they take pictures for Instagram.  
78
549780
6780
09:16
They're a content creator. But other things you  could create is you might knit, you might paint,  
79
556560
6900
09:23
you might write, you might do crafts.  There's a lot of things that you can create. 
80
563460
5460
09:29
This person likes to tinker. The expression  "to tinker" usually means that you're not a  
81
569700
7980
09:37
professional, you're an amateur, but you still  love to make something better. Usually this  
82
577680
6780
09:44
has to do with being a mechanic. Here, she's  working on a motorcycle. Restoring something,  
83
584460
6120
09:50
fixing something. You're not creating something  where there was nothing before. Instead, there's  
84
590580
7920
09:58
something that exists and you are trying to make  it better. So she is tinkering. Or maybe you are  
85
598500
8100
10:06
adventurous, maybe you like to go on roadtrips  or you like to jet set around the world. You like  
86
606600
7860
10:14
to go backpacking, try new foods, have exciting  experiences or climb giant rocks like this guy. 
87
614460
6780
10:22
It's possible you are an animal lover. It's  possible that she just has a dog and she loves her  
88
622380
7620
10:30
dog, but maybe you work with animals. You could  be an animal trainer. Maybe you have a hobby farm.  
89
630000
7920
10:37
This means that it's not your career to have  chickens and cows and goats, but it's just for  
90
637920
6540
10:44
fun. It's a hobby farm or maybe it's more serious  and you are a rancher. You have a lot of cows,  
91
644460
7320
10:51
a lot of space, you might be a rancher. Or you  might try to rescue animals, so you might work  
92
651780
8640
11:00
at an animal rescue center, or you can foster  animals. This is what my family did last month.  
93
660420
7260
11:07
We fostered two little Lab puppies, and this  means that we temporarily had them for three  
94
667680
7980
11:15
weeks until someone adopted them. We gave them a  good home for a few weeks until they could find  
95
675660
6660
11:22
a home forever, and it's better than them staying  at the shelter. Maybe you're an animal lover. 
96
682320
5520
11:29
This person is a foodie. This is a  very modern word, but you'll hear  
97
689340
4200
11:33
this all the time. A foodie loves to try  new foods. They like to cook and eat food,  
98
693540
6300
11:39
and maybe they even like to take pictures of their  food and share it, but foodies are people who love  
99
699840
6480
11:46
every aspect of food and are adventurous eaters. This person, yes, she loves to read, but sometimes  
100
706320
8520
11:54
we call people who really love reading a nerd. It  doesn't have to be a negative term. Some people  
101
714840
7080
12:01
might feel it's a little negative, but for me,  I embrace it. I am a nerd. I love to read. There  
102
721920
7320
12:09
are different types of nerds. Some people might be  more of a nerd when it comes to science fiction.  
103
729240
8100
12:17
Maybe they really love comic books. There are  some people who really are obsessed with certain  
104
737340
6780
12:24
games like Dungeons & Dragons is a very popular  game. In this game, you create stories and you  
105
744120
7020
12:31
interact with other people. So someone might  say, "I am a nerd for Dungeons & Dragons." 
106
751140
5340
12:37
This person loves sports. So here we have some  volleyball players. They are playing volleyball,  
107
757620
7800
12:45
but you don't have to play a sport to be into  sports. You might just be a fan like this guy.  
108
765420
7740
12:53
Maybe this guy's athletic, maybe he's fit, I  don't know, but really he is into sports. So  
109
773160
7380
13:00
you could be a sports player or a sports fan. All right, let's go to the next category, which  
110
780540
5640
13:06
is celebrities and their looks. I guess I should  say not all of these people are celebrities.  
111
786180
6660
13:12
I don't think she's a celebrity, but the term  we can use to talk about her is a lovely one,  
112
792840
6120
13:18
"the girl next door." She probably doesn't live  next door to you, but this term has to do with  
113
798960
7380
13:26
someone who is wholesome. Yes, they are pretty  or cute, but they are wholesome. They're not a  
114
806340
8760
13:35
secret spy in the night. No, they're just  a wholesome person, unassuming, charming,  
115
815100
6360
13:41
and you just love them because they're not  extremely special, but they're wonderful. 
116
821460
6420
13:47
On the other hand, a wonderful term we can use  to talk about a different type of woman is a  
117
827880
7680
13:55
bombshell. Here, this is a movie called Bombshell,  and it's featuring three blonde women. Now,  
118
835560
7200
14:02
sometimes we use the term "bombshell" to talk  about someone who is stunningly beautiful. All  
119
842760
5640
14:08
three of these women are stunningly beautiful, but  it's also a play on words because in this movie,  
120
848400
6000
14:14
these journalists bring to light a shocking  scandal. So it's kind of like these bombshell,  
121
854400
8700
14:23
beautiful women are also like a bomb  because they reveal something shocking  
122
863100
6180
14:29
in this movie. But you might hear this term  used "bombshell" to refer to a beautiful woman. 
123
869280
5760
14:35
Here, we have a lovely term, someone is  "curvy." So instead of saying she's not thin,  
124
875580
6600
14:42
a really positive term that we can use is  she's curvy. Yes, not everyone is stick thin.  
125
882180
6300
14:48
This is not an ideal for a lot of people. Maybe  that's your body naturally, but maybe it's not.  
126
888480
7200
14:55
So I think nowadays, some celebrities who are  curvy, we call this having an hourglass shape,  
127
895680
7440
15:03
are trying to embrace that. You can also say,  "She is full-figured." This means she's not  
128
903120
7380
15:10
a stick. Instead, she has an hourglass  shape. She's full-figured, she's curvy. 
129
910500
5460
15:17
And we could say, "Obama is charismatic."  Someone who's charismatic is charming. Usually,  
130
917040
7200
15:24
they're also good looking. They're a  smooth talker and they're confident.  
131
924240
4800
15:29
Someone who is charismatic. I think it's  a wonderful goal to try to be charismatic  
132
929040
6120
15:35
in English. Express yourself  well, use all of these words. 
133
935160
3720
15:40
Marilyn Monroe, we could say, "She is iconic."  We use this expression only for people who are  
134
940200
7440
15:47
extremely well-known, especially for something  specific. So we could say, "Marilyn Monroe is an  
135
947640
6780
15:54
iconic figure. She is best known for her hourglass  figure and her good looks." She was also a very  
136
954420
9840
16:04
smart business woman and a very intelligent  person, but she's best known for her looks. 
137
964260
5760
16:10
We talked about a lot of expressions  you can use for women, but for men,  
138
970020
4380
16:14
you can use the term "chiseled." I wanted to  give you the original meaning of that. First,  
139
974400
6420
16:20
here, you can see a statue, and it's kind of  funny because the statue is chiseling himself.  
140
980820
6600
16:27
He is making something out of a piece of metal  or a piece of stone, and what that means when we  
141
987420
7860
16:35
talk about someone is usually their face. When  we say someone is chiseled, that usually has to  
142
995280
7740
16:43
do with their jaw line. So we could say, "He has  a chiseled jaw." And that's generally considered  
143
1003020
8460
16:51
something positive in Hollywood. Someone has a  chiseled jaw, and this is just a genetic feature. 
144
1011480
6780
16:58
All right, let's go to our next section where you  will be introduced to some heroes or inspiring  
145
1018260
6780
17:05
figures and some words we can use to describe  them. Do you know who this is? This is Marie  
146
1025040
5340
17:10
Curie. She is a famous scientist. She was the  first woman to win the Nobel Prize, the first  
147
1030380
5760
17:16
and only woman to win two Nobel prizes, and in  two different domains. She has completely changed  
148
1036140
7080
17:23
science. So we could say, "She is intelligent, she  was extremely focused, and she is a trailblazer."  
149
1043220
7920
17:31
This is a wonderful term for someone who was the  first in something. Other people who followed in  
150
1051140
6600
17:37
her footsteps had a little bit of an easier time  because she blazed the trail first. She was the  
151
1057740
7560
17:45
trailblazer, and then other people could follow. This is Mother Teresa. She set up soup kitchens,  
152
1065300
6360
17:51
she helped lepers, she helped the dying destitute.  She really had a heart for people who couldn't  
153
1071660
7620
17:59
give back to society. It didn't matter that she  couldn't receive anything, she wanted to give to  
154
1079280
6000
18:05
them. So we could say, "She is compassionate, she  is nurturing, she is kind. She has a kind heart." 
155
1085280
8880
18:14
Next, we have the Dalai Llama. The Dalai Llama  is the most famous Buddhist teacher in the world,  
156
1094940
6000
18:20
and he's widely respected for his commitment to  nonviolence and the cause of Tibetan freedom. So  
157
1100940
8100
18:29
we could say, "He is wise, he is patient, and  he is peaceful." Probably three things that  
158
1109040
7980
18:37
we could all do with a little bit more. This is Nelson Mandela. He is a South  
159
1117020
6300
18:43
African anti-apartheid activist, the most  well-known, and he was the first Black  
160
1123320
5280
18:48
head of state in South Africa. So we could  say, "He was powerful, he was a visionary,  
161
1128600
6300
18:54
he was courageous." Lovely expressions. And on the other side of the world, this was  
162
1134900
7320
19:02
Abraham Lincoln. He was a president in the U.S.  during the American Civil War. So it was a really  
163
1142220
7740
19:09
difficult time in the U.S. For a lot of people,  and he pushed to preserve the union. This is what  
164
1149960
8160
19:18
we call all of the United States. He wanted to  preserve the United States and abolish slavery.  
165
1158120
6840
19:24
Some terms often associated with him are empathy.  He cared about those who were enslaved, integrity,  
166
1164960
8640
19:33
and honesty. Sometimes we even use the expression,  "Honest Abe." He is such an Honest Abe. "Oh, my  
167
1173600
8160
19:41
son's such an Honest Abe. He can't lie. Anytime  he lies, it's so obvious. He's an Honest Abe." 
168
1181760
6180
19:49
Finally, we have a mythical, or we should say  fictional person, but they were also real. This  
169
1189020
8280
19:57
is Rosie the Riveter. And during World War II,  you would have seen these posters all over the  
170
1197300
6000
20:03
U.S. and it was because a lot of men, almost all  of the young men were fighting in the war. So who  
171
1203300
8160
20:11
could do the men's jobs back in the U.S.? Well,  it was the women. So this was supposed to mobilize  
172
1211460
7680
20:19
women to go to factories, to work towards creating  and preserving what was left of the country while  
173
1219140
8160
20:27
the men were gone, and it was supposed to empower  women. In fact, my great-grandmother was one of  
174
1227300
5760
20:33
these women. She left her family and she went  to go work in the factories while all of the  
175
1233060
6900
20:39
men were gone during World War II. So we could  say that Rosie the Riveter embodies the idea of  
176
1239960
5820
20:45
someone who is strong, someone who's bold,  someone who is resilient. I love that word. 
177
1245780
5760
20:51
All right, let's go to our next category, which  is about money. Oh my, does this picture hurt your  
178
1251540
6120
20:57
heart? Burning money. Well, there are two idioms  that I'd like you to remember about this picture,  
179
1257660
5100
21:02
and it is, "To have money to burn." You could say,  "He got his first paycheck and now he has money to  
180
1262760
7620
21:10
burn." This means he really wants to spend all his  money, or you have money burning a hole in your  
181
1270380
7260
21:17
pocket. You just got paid and you're just feeling  like, "Oh, I need to spend that money. I need to  
182
1277640
5340
21:22
do something with it." You're not going to save  it. You're not going to give it away. Instead,  
183
1282980
4260
21:27
you just can't stop thinking about it. That  money is burning a hole in your pocket. 
184
1287240
4980
21:32
With this picture, I want you to learn  the expression, "All he sees are dollar  
185
1292220
5700
21:37
signs." This is someone who cannot stop  thinking about money. All he sees are  
186
1297920
6360
21:44
dollar signs. "How much was that? Oh, could  I buy that? Hmm, I wonder how much that was?  
187
1304280
4140
21:48
If I saved... " All they can think about is money. In this picture, you could say, this person has  
188
1308420
7380
21:55
a lot of money. They are a hotshot. They're  a high roller. They're a big spender. Most  
189
1315800
7080
22:02
normal people don't go around carrying this  much money, but a hot shot might do that. 
190
1322880
6420
22:09
On the other hand, if you have nothing in your  pockets, this type of image exactly means you  
191
1329300
10020
22:19
are broke. This doesn't mean that you broke a  bone. It means you have no money in your wallet.  
192
1339320
5820
22:25
You have empty pockets. Sometimes if someone  wants to say that they don't have any money,  
193
1345140
5640
22:30
all that they might do is this. They might  touch their pockets, maybe pretend to pull  
194
1350780
5580
22:36
them out. Say, "Sorry, I don't have any money."  It's kind of a classic symbol of I have no money. 
195
1356360
6600
22:44
Somebody who is a penny pincher. Do you  think that's a good thing or a bad thing?  
196
1364400
7440
22:51
Well, it all depends on how you say it.  If you say someone is a penny pincher,  
197
1371840
4440
22:56
usually it's not so positive. It means that  they're always trying to look for a shortcut,  
198
1376280
6420
23:02
ways to save money, but sometimes that means that  they are not very generous and they're just trying  
199
1382700
7200
23:09
to save money. Somebody like this can also be  called cheap. You don't want to be called cheap.  
200
1389900
7020
23:16
It's not positive. Or even worse than that is a  tightwad. "Oh, he's such a tightwad. Last year,  
201
1396920
7860
23:24
he gave me a pencil for Christmas." But if you are  careful with your money, you're not a tightwad,  
202
1404780
7620
23:32
you're not cheap, you're not a penny pincher,  but you don't spend money all over the place,  
203
1412400
5940
23:38
you can use a positive term. You are frugal. This  is the term that I like to think about for myself.  
204
1418340
6960
23:45
I try to be generous to other people, but I also  try to be frugal. I'm careful with my money. 
205
1425300
7380
23:52
All right, let's go to the next category,  which is the space around us. Oh my,  
206
1432680
5940
23:58
this room is cluttered. It's messy. It's a pigsty.  This refers to the place where pigs live. Pigs are  
207
1438620
10260
24:08
not known for being neat and tidy, so I'm sorry  if someone came into your house and said, "Oh my,  
208
1448880
6360
24:15
it's a pigsty in here." It's not a compliment. On the other hand, this person is neat, tidy,  
209
1455240
8220
24:23
organized, and a lovely advanced word is  meticulous. You can be meticulous about  
210
1463460
7500
24:30
your space. It's very organized. It's not  that this person has nothing in their house,  
211
1470960
5040
24:36
they have things here, but it's all organized.  But you can also be meticulous in your work.  
212
1476000
5640
24:41
This is a great word to use for a job  interview when you're describing your  
213
1481640
4440
24:46
work ethic. If you are detail-oriented, you  never forget little details, you could say,  
214
1486080
6300
24:52
"I am meticulous. You will never have to ask me  twice, and I will always try to do it exactly  
215
1492380
7440
24:59
right the first time." You are meticulous. Now, this picture, yes, there's a lot of things,  
216
1499820
6480
25:06
but the feel of this place is homey. Now,  when a place is homey, it means it's cozy,  
217
1506300
9060
25:15
it's intimate. It feels like somebody lives here.  It's well-decorated, but it just feels like home. 
218
1515360
7320
25:22
On the other hand, this place is  sparse, minimalistic, cold, and sterile.  
219
1522680
9060
25:32
Sometimes this type of decor, it's not really  even decor, but this type of architecture is  
220
1532400
7140
25:39
popular online because I think people see  pictures of this and they think, "Oh, it's  
221
1539540
5100
25:44
so simple. You don't have to clean anything." But  would you want to live in a place like this? No,  
222
1544640
6300
25:50
I'd much rather live in a place like this. The final expression and picture we're going  
223
1550940
5880
25:56
to use to talk about space is open, spacious.  It is even sprawling. Sprawling has to do with  
224
1556820
9120
26:05
a big space, and we might even say  that this room, here's the kitchen,  
225
1565940
5400
26:11
you can see the living room in the distance,  it flows. So the house flows from one room to  
226
1571340
6900
26:18
the next. You don't have to open a door, close  a door, go down a hallway. It just easily flows  
227
1578240
6540
26:24
from one room to the next. It's very airy. All right, let's go to the next category,  
228
1584780
5040
26:29
which is holidays. Holidays are usually family  oriented. You might spend time with your family  
229
1589820
8880
26:38
because you have deep family values. And if  you enjoy spending time with your family,  
230
1598700
6240
26:44
you might say, "We are close-knit, so I can't  wait to spend time together during the holidays." 
231
1604940
6240
26:51
This picture has to do with spending time with  friends. You can say, "We're going to chill. We're  
232
1611780
6360
26:58
going to hang out. We're going to get together."  Sometimes instead of saying Thanksgiving in the  
233
1618140
6600
27:04
U.S., we use the term Friendsgiving. This  is especially true if you can't go home to  
234
1624740
6480
27:11
your family during the Thanksgiving holiday,  you might hear people use this expression,  
235
1631220
4320
27:15
Friendsgiving. Sometimes we even say that close  friends are the family you choose. So you can't  
236
1635540
8940
27:24
choose who your family is, but you might say  if you have some really close, special friends,  
237
1644480
5880
27:30
"They are the family I chose." So they're just  like your family, but you could choose them. 
238
1650360
7200
27:38
Here, we have someone who is not going  away on vacation. Instead, what is this  
239
1658520
5580
27:44
guy doing? He is having a staycation. This is  a mix between two words to stay and vacation,  
240
1664100
8580
27:52
but it means he's not going to leave the house,  he's not working. and he's not going to school.  
241
1672680
4620
27:57
He's just chilling on the couch with a book,  some coffee. He's having a staycation. So  
242
1677300
6060
28:03
you could say, "He's chilling at home, he's  taking it easy, or he's just doing nothing." 
243
1683360
5880
28:10
Here, we have a lovely Christmas picture, lovely  winter picture. Some expressions we use when we  
244
1690680
7020
28:17
think about pictures like this is, "I'll be home  for the holidays." It has this warm feeling inside  
245
1697700
7080
28:24
that you've been far away from home, far away  from your family, but during the holiday season,  
246
1704780
6240
28:31
and maybe in your country, Christmas is not the  big holiday, it might be another big holiday,  
247
1711020
4500
28:35
but you might say, "I can't wait to be home for  the holidays." Sometimes we sing I'll Be Home for  
248
1715520
7980
28:43
Christmas. It's a popular Christmas song, and this  picture is exactly a winter wonderland. Where I  
249
1723500
6540
28:50
live, it doesn't look like this. Maybe two days  out of each winter, there is a snow like this,  
250
1730040
6900
28:56
but it would certainly be nice to visit. Let's talk about some traditions that happen  
251
1736940
5880
29:02
on holidays. In the U.S., a popular holiday is  Halloween, and we carve pumpkins. We also write  
252
1742820
8940
29:11
letters to Santa. At Christmas, children love to  write letters to Santa and tell him what they hope  
253
1751760
6900
29:18
to get for Christmas. And usually the night before  Christmas, so on Christmas Eve, children make  
254
1758660
7800
29:26
cookies and set a glass of milk beside the chimney  because that's where Santa comes down, and in the  
255
1766460
7920
29:34
morning, the cookies and the milk are mysteriously  gone because Santa has come to eat them. 
256
1774380
5520
29:41
A very popular tradition for almost every holiday  is that you cook special dishes and you eat them  
257
1781760
7200
29:48
together. This looks like Thanksgiving because I  see a wonderful Turkey in the middle of the table,  
258
1788960
4560
29:53
but I imagine whatever holidays are popular  in your country, you cook special dishes. 
259
1793520
5460
29:58
All right, let's go to the next category, which  is shopping. This lady is window shopping. When  
260
1798980
7080
30:06
she leaves home, she might tell her husband,  "Hey, I'm just going to look. I'm just going  
261
1806060
3600
30:09
window shopping. I'm just going to look." Now, this guy, he looks like he's looking  
262
1809660
5160
30:14
for something specific, so he could say, "I'm  looking for a specific vitamin. Excuse me,  
263
1814820
8280
30:23
I'm looking for this vitamin. Could you help me  find it?" Or we can often use a fun verb, "To  
264
1823100
7860
30:30
peruse the shelves." This means maybe something's  tricky to find, so he has to look on each shelf,  
265
1830960
8220
30:39
he is perusing the shelves. And maybe really  he's not looking for a specific vitamin or  
266
1839180
8160
30:47
something specific, he could just say, "Ah, I'm  just looking. Thanks." Maybe he's just browsing,  
267
1847340
5580
30:52
just checking out the options. He could use  that expression. "I'm just looking. Thanks." 
268
1852920
4320
30:57
Now, this person is in the dressing room.  Sometimes these are called fitting rooms.  
269
1857240
6480
31:03
So you might ask someone at a clothing store,  "Excuse me, can I have a fitting room please?" Or,  
270
1863720
6360
31:10
"Can I have a dressing room? Where are your  dressing rooms? Where are your fitting rooms?"  
271
1870080
4440
31:14
She is trying something on. That's what you do  in the store. It's quite common in the U.S. to  
272
1874520
5460
31:19
be able to try something on before you buy it. Here, we have a little kid shopper, and there's  
273
1879980
7020
31:27
a couple different terms that we can use to  talk about that yellow thing. It could be a  
274
1887000
4800
31:31
grocery cart. That's what I call it, a cart,  but you could also call it a shopping cart,  
275
1891800
5340
31:37
a buggy, or if you're carrying, it's just a  basket. I need to get a basket because I don't  
276
1897140
7560
31:44
have to get many items, but it looks like this  little kid is pushing around a shopping cart. 
277
1904700
4920
31:51
This man is carrying a pile of some large items.  We use the term "stocking up" or "stockpiling"  
278
1911000
9360
32:00
because he is getting a lot or a big quantity  of things. This happened a lot during COVID,  
279
1920360
7440
32:07
and it also happens whenever there's a  big storm. People will go to the store  
280
1927800
5700
32:13
and they will stockpile toilet paper, bread, those  essential items. They will stockpile those items.  
281
1933500
7980
32:22
Sometimes a negative word we use to talk about  that is "to stash" those items. So during COVID,  
282
1942560
7260
32:29
some people bought so many rolls of toilet  paper, they had a stash of toilet paper,  
283
1949820
6420
32:36
and it meant that other people didn't have enough,  and this caused a crisis in some places. So maybe  
284
1956240
7260
32:43
don't stockpile too many things, just enough. All right, let's go to our final category, which  
285
1963500
7020
32:50
are movies and books. This picture represents  action movies. In action movies, there are often  
286
1970520
7800
32:58
high-speed chases, explosions, fight scenes.  Some popular action movies are Indiana Jones,  
287
1978320
8160
33:06
Rocky movies, Mission Impossible movies, James  Bond movies. Also, you might watch a thriller.  
288
1986480
8940
33:15
This is a clip or a scene from the movie Memento,  and I don't really enjoy many stressful movies,  
289
1995420
8160
33:23
but I really enjoyed the movie Memento. I highly  recommend it. These types of thriller movies are  
290
2003580
6000
33:29
suspenseful, they're nail-biters. You're biting  your nails because you want to know what's going  
291
2009580
6960
33:36
to happen. Maybe they're hair-raising, "Oh, that  movie was so hair-raising. Every moment I thought  
292
2016540
6840
33:43
something crazy was going to happen. It's very  suspenseful." And there's often a cliff-hanger  
293
2023380
6180
33:49
at key moments. A cliff-hanger means that  you think something's going to happen,  
294
2029560
4740
33:54
and then boom, they cut to another scene. So  you are left waiting what's going to happen. 
295
2034300
5280
34:01
Another type of this more, not stressful, but  suspenseful movie is a fun term called whodunit.  
296
2041680
7860
34:09
Now, this means who did it. But we often combine  this into one rather casual expression, whodunit.  
297
2049540
9060
34:18
So we could say, "Murder on the Orient Express is  a whodunit." So you want to find out who did the  
298
2058600
10320
34:28
murder, who did the bad thing. It's a whodunit.  We can also call these murder mysteries. They're  
299
2068920
6960
34:35
page-turners. They have plot twists. I couldn't  put it down because I just kept reading it. I  
300
2075880
6180
34:42
couldn't put it down. I highly recommend reading  this book, Murder on the Orient Express. This is  
301
2082060
4560
34:46
the movie version. I think the book version by  Agatha Christie is even better. But some common  
302
2086620
5640
34:52
whodunit authors or classic authors, for example,  are Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He wrote the Sherlock  
303
2092260
7260
34:59
Holmes series, and Agatha Christie who wrote  this. They are the classic whodunit authors. 
304
2099520
6120
35:06
Finally, we have, talking about the word classic,  classic movies. These are movies that are  
305
2106840
5880
35:12
culturally significant. To use a term we talked  about before, they are iconic, they are timeless,  
306
2112720
6420
35:19
they are a must-see. So this is from Forrest Gump.  It is a timeless movie. It is an iconic movie,  
307
2119140
9180
35:28
and we could say it's a classic. Other classic  movies are the Star Wars series, The Shawshank  
308
2128320
6780
35:35
Redemption movie, iconic Gump, The Godfather  series. These are classic movies that you have  
309
2135100
6540
35:41
to see in order to understand more about a culture  and just to be a well-rounded movie watcher. 
310
2141640
7980
35:50
Here, we have our final expression, which is  a "RomCom." This stands for romantic comedy,  
311
2150340
7020
35:57
and these have lots of love and lots of laughs.  Usually, the theme of these movies is that  
312
2157360
7260
36:04
true love will win in the end. And if you are  having a sad day, having a hard time, sometimes  
313
2164620
7500
36:12
watching a RomCom can pick up your spirits. So how did you do? Did you enjoy this lesson  
314
2172120
6600
36:18
learning important daily life vocabulary  through pictures? I hope so. Don't forget  
315
2178720
5340
36:24
to download the free PDF worksheet with all  of this lesson's vocabulary, ideas, concepts,  
316
2184060
6720
36:30
everything that you need to express yourself  completely. You can click on the link in the  
317
2190780
4800
36:35
description to download that free worksheet today. Well, thank you so much for learning English with  
318
2195580
4680
36:40
me, and I'll see you again next Friday for a  new lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye. 
319
2200260
5760
36:46
But wait, do you want more? I recommend watching  this video next. You will learn 250 more important  
320
2206020
7620
36:53
vocabulary words with pictures, including which  famous movie and book character is a goody two  
321
2213640
7680
37:01
shoes. Do you know this expression? Well, watch  the video to find out, and I'll see you there.
322
2221320
5640
About this website

This site will introduce you to YouTube videos that are useful for learning English. You will see English lessons taught by top-notch teachers from around the world. Double-click on the English subtitles displayed on each video page to play the video from there. The subtitles scroll in sync with the video playback. If you have any comments or requests, please contact us using this contact form.

https://forms.gle/WvT1wiN1qDtmnspy7