15 Advanced English Vocabulary Phrases you NEED to know

Vanessa: Hi, I am Vanessa  

from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com. Can you read  the news in English? Well, let's talk about it. 

Let's imagine this scene. You are in  Asheville, North Carolina visiting me,  

and we are about to meet at a cafe. While you're  sitting at the cafe waiting for me, you notice a  

newspaper sitting on the table. Yes, real physical  newspapers still exist. You pick up the newspaper,  

and you see an article and think, "Oh, this is  so interesting." But then you start to read it  

and think, "Ugh, I don't know half of the words  in this. I get the general idea, but goodness,  

there's so much in this that I don't understand." Well, never fear. Today, I'm here to help you.  

In this lesson, we are going to go over this  article from a real newspaper here in my city,  

Asheville, North Carolina. I will help you to  break down some of the key advanced phrases and  

vocabulary that are used in this article and  that are often used in the news, so that you  

can read other news articles with no problem. And like always, I have created a free PDF  

worksheet to help you remember everything that  you are about to learn, all of the vocabulary,  

definitions, sample sentences, and I will  include a link to this original article,  

so that you can see it in its entirety and  you could read other articles on this news  

website if you would like to test your skills.  You can click on the link in the description  

to download the free PDF worksheet today. All right. Let's get started by reading this  

article that has to do with helping the homeless  population here in Asheville. Let me read the  

beginning to you. "As Asheville City Council  ponders the idea of purchasing a hotel to provide  

housing for the homeless, the company that owns  the neighboring shopping center prepares for a  

legal fight." You heard this verb, to ponder. The  Asheville City Council ponders an idea. Can you  

guess what this might mean? It's a deeper meaning  of wondering, thinking deeply about something.  

Have you ever pondered what it might be like to  be a fluent English speaker? This verb, to ponder,  

is more often used in formal situations, and  it's a great example of a word that would be  

used in the news, this advanced vocabulary,  compared to just a regular old TV show. 

You also saw this word, the homeless. This  is talking about the general population of  

people who don't have somewhere to live.  They might be living on the streets. They  

might be living in a shelter provided by the  government, but they don't have a home. You  

can use it like this. Several organizations  give coats to the homeless during the winter. 

And now we have our drama, this word legal  fight. We can imagine that the local company  

who owns the neighboring shopping center is  not happy because they are going to get into a  

legal fight. This is not a fist fight. Instead,  they're taking legal action to push against the  

initiative to give housing to the homeless in a  local hotel. You can use this phrase like this.  

The court case will be dropped because the costs  involved in the legal fight are just too high. 

All right. Let's read the next part of the  article. "The city is looking at a Ramada  

near River Ridge Marketplace, which is home to 26  businesses, including Best Bride Prom & Tux. Owner  

Dennis Knapp feels a homeless shelter and a retail  area would be anything but an ideal marriage. She  

says Horne Properties, which owns River Ridge, is  ready for a legal fight." You just saw this word,  

a homeless shelter. This is a temporary place  where people can live if they don't have a  

home. You could say he stayed at the homeless  shelter until he found a job and could afford  

an apartment. A retail area is another term for  a shopping center, so you might say shopping is  

a lot more convenient now that there's a new  retail area in our neighborhood. This is a  

formal term that you're more likely to see in a  news article than to use in real conversation. 

And next we have this lovely expression, anything  but, and then we have added on an ideal marriage.  

So we were just talking about a store that sells  clothing for brides, for weddings, so it's a  

little bit clever to use this ideal marriage. Of  course, a marriage is when two people get married,  

but we can also talk about two things that go  well together is an ideal marriage. For example,  

ketchup and french fries is an ideal marriage.  It goes together really well. But what about  

the beginning part of this expression? Because  that's really what takes it to the next level. 

Anything but an ideal marriage. This is the  opposite. It is not an ideal marriage. Take  

a look at this sentence. Keeping our cat and  dog inside in our small apartment is anything  

but an ideal marriage. Our cat and dog don't get  along very well, and to stay inside in that small  

apartment, it's not a good idea. It's anything but  an ideal marriage. And in the article, the author  

said that having a homeless shelter and a retail  area in the same spot is anything but an ideal  

marriage. It's not a good idea, in her opinion. Let's go on to the next part of the article.  

"Folks at Beauty Bar Asheville say The  homeless population has already caused  

concerns about safety and trash. So if the city  moves forward with the project at River Ridge,  

the fear is that things could get even worse."  This section used this lovely expression, to move  

forward. We're not talking about physically moving  forward. The cars moved forward in traffic slowly.  

That's physically moving forward, but this article  is using it in a more advanced way, a little bit  

more figurative. They said if the city moves  forward with the project. This means they're  

progressing or they start to do the project. Well,  they think there's going to be some problems. 

Let's take a look at how you could use this  expression in another sentence. We won't be  

able to move forward with the loan until  you get approved. This is a very advanced,  

very formal expression that you will often hear,  for example, at the bank when you're trying to  

get a loan. I'm sorry, we can't move forward with  the loan. That means we can't approve of the loan  

or make progress on it. Or you might hear this  in news articles like you just saw, to progress 

All right. Let's read the next part. "'I'm  not happy about it at all,' says stylist  

Susan Shepherd. 'It's been an influx the past few  months of trash in our parking lot.'" Susan uses a  

wonderful advanced word, influx. She's concerned  about there being an increase in trash in the  

parking lot and in that area. And then if they  add a homeless shelter to that same retail area,  

well, she fears that it might get even worse.  Let's take a look at this sentence. "With this  

sudden influx in rain, our crops are growing  rapidly." This is quite formal, quite advanced,  

and a great thing to use is in a news article. Let's read the next section. "The need for such  

housing for the homeless heightened recently. Last  week, 50 homeless people moved out of the Red Roof  

Inn on Smoky Park Highway. The city partnered with  the chain to give them temporary refuge during the  

pandemic." You just heard this expression, to  partner with a chain. Okay, so when you partner  

with someone, you're working together, but to  partner with a chain, are we talking about this  

metal linking device? No. This is just another way  to talk about similar restaurants or hotels that  

exist globally or at least all over your country. So for example, McDonald's and Starbucks are  

popular chains. Or we could say they are  popular chain restaurants, or Starbucks  

is a popular chain coffee shop. So let's use  both of these expressions together. You could  

say our local charity is partnering with the  McDonald's down the street to raise some funds  

for their project. That means McDonald's is giving  a percentage of their money from that day to the  

local charity. They're partnering together. All right. Let's read the next part of the  

article. "The nonprofit Homeward Bound will  soon close on the purchase of the Days Inn  

to help address the need, but the executive  director tells News 13 that space may not  

be available for residents until late 2022." The  term nonprofit is used for a business or company  

that earns money for helping a social cause.  They're legally a different type of business,  

and this business, Homeward Bound, helps  homeless people to move forward with their  

lives, to use that expression, and to be  able to not be homeless anymore. It helps  

them to have a job and find somewhere to live. You also heard this wonderful advanced expression,  

to close on something. Yes, you can close the  door, but this is a little more metaphorical.  

For example, when we bought this house, we had to  close on the house. It didn't mean that we closed  

the door. It meant that we had to sign a ton of  papers to make it official. So you can close on  

a house. You can close on a purchase. You can  use a sentence like this. After the inspections  

were complete, we closed on the purchase  immediately. We were so excited to live there. 

All right. Let's read the next part of the  article. "Folks we spoke to at River Ridge  

say the city's project would create more  problems than it solves. We don't want that  

in our community. 'We don't want that in our  backyard. I know that our city council doesn't  

want it in their backyard,' Knapp said." Here's  where it gets controversial. So the people who  

work in that retail area are saying, "This is not  going to be good for business." And the people  

who are making this project, well, they're  not the ones who have their business here,  

and if it came down to it, they would not want  a homeless shelter by their business. They use  

a great term in our backyard, in their backyard. In the US, this is the term that we use to talk  

about the land behind your house. Usually this  is an area where you can play. You have a garden.  

This is the backyard. It's something very private  and intimate. It's just for your family. It's  

your own property. But they were using this a  little bit more figuratively. They were using  

it to mean the area close to their business, but  it implies a certain level of intimacy or privacy,  

like this is our area, and you don't have our  permission to create a homeless shelter here. It  

will actually cause more problems than it will  solve. Quite controversial. Very interesting. 

All right. Let's read the next part of the  article. "'It's hard to conduct a business  

and keep a good reputation when that's in your  parking lot every day coming in,' Shepherd said.  

The sale of the Ramada property has not  yet been finalized. We reached out to the  

City of Asheville for an interview about the  matter, but the city declined our request." 

The businesses in this area are worried about  keeping a good reputation or keeping up a good  

reputation. This means they want customers to  feel comfortable and confident going to their  

businesses. But if there are homeless people  all over the parking lots, maybe drug needles,  

these types of problems, then they're not  going to go to those businesses. But what are  

those homeless people supposed to do? How can we  really help them? Is this helping them? Is there  

another solution? It's quite controversial. Let's take a look at how we can use to keep  

up a good reputation. You might say, "Well, if  that business owner keeps yelling at customers,  

he is not going to be able to keep up a good  reputation and his business might close." It's  

not a good idea to yell at your customers. Congratulations on reading through this  

entire news article with me and learning some key  advanced English expressions along the way. Now,  

I have a question for you. What's your opinion  about this news article? It's quite controversial.  

Should they put the homeless shelter in the same  area as the retail businesses? Should they do  

something else? What's your opinion? Let me know  in the comments, and don't forget to download the  

free PDF worksheet for today's lesson. You will  get the entire article plus a link to the new  

site where you can find it, all of the vocabulary,  sample sentences, definitions, and you can answer  

Vanessa's challenge question at the bottom of  the worksheet. You can click on the link in the  

description to download that worksheet today. Well, thank you so much for learning English  

with me, and I'll see you again next Friday for  a new lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye. The  

next step is to download the free PDF worksheet  for this lesson. With this free pdf, you will  

master today's lesson and never forget what you  have learned. You can be a confident English  

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