Listening 1: Build Your Vocabulary FASTER!

Adam's English Lessons
Build Your Vocabulary FASTER!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1QVJ77GGgg

Hi, everybody.

Welcome to www.engvid.com.

I'm Adam.

In today's video, I want to show you how to build your vocabulary base faster.

Okay?

Now, I've made other videos about building vocabulary, and I know other teachers have

done this as well.

But today, I want to give you a bit more focused attention on how to do this in terms of the

work that you're going to have to put into it.

But before we get into that, I want to give you a few tips to get us started, okay?

First thing I want you to keep in mind, and this is especially for those of you who are

taking a test, like IELTS, TOEFL, Cambridge, whatever.

I know that a lot of people do this, but don't do this.

Don't memorize word lists.

It is very, very ineffective.

Why?

Because you're memorizing words in a bit of a random list.

There's no associations, there's no relations between the words.

You're just trying to memorize them and then spit them out again onto the paper or in the

interview or whatever.

And even if you're not taking a test, this is not a good way to build vocabulary.

If the words don't connect to ideas and to situations, you're going to forget them very

quickly.

So, instead of creating - instead of memorizing lists, I want you to start creating, start

building your own lists.

And I'm going to show you how to do that in a moment.

Also, when it comes to building vocabulary, don't think that you're going to do it in

a week or a month or even two months.

It's going to take time.

Give yourself that time.

Be patient, keep working, you will see results.

Now, if any of you have ever gone to the gym and you're working out and trying to build

muscle, you'll understand that after a week, you won't see any changes in your body.

After a month, you probably still won't see any changes in your body.

And this is when most people just quit and stop going to the gym.

But, I'm speaking from my own experience, once you pass that second month, you will

definitely start seeing results.

You will see your body starting to change, you will lose weight, you will gain muscle.

Same with vocabulary.

After you're doing this consistently and for a while, you're going to start realizing that

you're using the new words, you're writing with them, you're speaking with them, you're

doing all kinds of interesting things with them.

So, don't stop until you're fluent.

Now, fluency is obviously a very big goal.

It might take you a year, two years, three years.

Keep going, keep going.

English has a lot of words.

The more you know, the better you'll communicate.

And don't try to impress with your words.

You'll be much more - you'll make a much better impression if you're using words correctly

with variety and very useful for the purpose that you're using them for, right?

If you're just throwing out random big words trying to impress a reader or a listener,

they will not be impressed.

It's quite the opposite.

They might, you know, they might think you're a little bit off or they might look down on

you because you're not using the language correctly.

So, the whole point is, the general idea is work smarter, not harder.

Don't sit there memorizing, don't write random things.

Have a very focused approach to building vocabulary.

And now, I'm going to show you the types of lists that you can start building that should

be much more effectual in building your vocabulary base, okay?

So, let's get started with that.

Okay, so now, how are you going to build your lists?

How are you going to make new lists that are more effective?

Well, this is something that I call "chunks" or "chunking".

You're going to put things in particular types of groups or categories, and these sort of

associations, these collections of words will help you remember them more easily because

you're associating them under the category.

So, if you remember the category and this word belongs in this category, it'll already

give you an idea, sort of like a bit of a memory trigger to help you remember the words.

So, I'm going to give you six of these categories, okay?

And, by the way, if you want to get more help and get started with some lists, you can go

to my other channel right to the top on YouTube, and I make videos about vocabulary, especially

with the idea of chunking to help you get started, okay?

So, let's start with the first group, context.

Start thinking about words for particular situations, purposes, or functions.

So, you're going to have very targeted vocabulary.

An example, think of a very general topic like shopping, and then think of subtopics,

something within shopping that's a little bit more specific.

You can talk about e-commerce, which is incorrectly spelled.

You can talk about e-commerce, or a store, or a few other subtopics, and then you go

even deeper and get very specific words for these particular situations, or these purposes,

etc.

So, when you're talking about e-commerce, you can talk about platform.

Now, a platform is a place where you stand and wait for the train to come, but it's also

a place on the internet where somebody sets up a store, or a business, or some sort of

service that you can go visit and shop there as well.

You should know what a call to action is.

Every website will have a call to action, they'll want you to click on something or

do something.

Letters, when you write a letter, you should end it with a call to action, etc.

Conversion rate.

What is a conversion rate?

Turning a visitor to your website into a customer.

That's the conversion, right?

So, again, these are just examples, there's a whole list of words.

But once you put all these words together, each one will help you remember the other

because they're all related somehow.

But the key, and especially for the context group, is to - once you have a collection

of words, write something, or say something about this topic, or about this topic.

Especially for those of you taking tests, write essays, write short paragraphs about

these topics, and that'll help you sink it in.

Any chance you get to speak with somebody in English, bring up this topic somehow, you

know.

Don't just say, "Oh, hey, let's talk about shopping", because maybe they don't want to.

You know, lead them into that topic and then start impressing them with all your nice new

vocabulary.

So, this is one.

Another one is secondary uses.

And by the way, how you're going to do this, you should keep a notebook.

Have six sections to this notebook, or have six different notebooks, that's fine too.

And as you learn these words, put them into your notebook.

You can even do like a search online for this particular topic and get all the words and

start collecting these words for that.

Secondary uses means everyday common words that can be used in completely different ways.

So, for example, the word "shoulder".

Everybody knows this is a shoulder, the noun.

But there's also a verb form of this word.

To shoulder something means to carry.

It doesn't have to be something physical.

You can shoulder the responsibility and building collocations, but I'm going to talk about

that separately.

So, to carry something or to have a certain sort of burden on you.

"Boot".

"Boot" is something that you wear on your shoe, on your feet.

Not on your shoe, on your feet.

And it's normally - most people understand it as a noun.

But it can also be a verb, and as a verb, it can have two separate, completely unrelated

meanings.

One, you boot your computer.

You basically turn it on.

But a less common meaning is to kick.

So, when you boot someone, if you boot someone in the stomach, basically it means you're

kicking them in the stomach.

But if you boot someone out of the group, it means you kick them out, you remove them.

So, less common usage.

"Hire".

Everybody knows hire, like a boss hires new staff.

But "hire" can also be a noun, so the new hire didn't work out well, so we had to let

him go.

So, the person that we hired, the new hire noun, and then we got somebody new.

In British English, "hire" can mean "rent".

We hired a car.

We rented a car.

So, again, a lot of secondary uses, keep those together.

And the fact that you're grouping them as a secondary usage, you'll remember them having

the non-traditional meaning, and then hopefully you'll remember what that meaning is, okay?

So, there are two.

Let's look at the next two.

Okay, so now we've got two more categories we're going to work on.

Precision vocab.

This one is very, very important because what it does is it helps you reduce the number

of words you need to explain something or to make a point, etc., especially important

for writing, but also for speaking.

So, precision, to be precise, means to be very targeted on a particular idea.

So, when you say this one word, I can - like, the listener or the reader can understand

a lot of different things, right, without having to be - without having it explained

too much.

So, for example, if you want to return an action, if someone did something nice to you,

you want to do something nice back to them.

Or the other way, if somebody did something bad, you want to do something bad back.

So, instead of saying, to do all this explanation that I just did, I could just use the word

"reciprocate".

"Reciprocate" means that.

So, also, another thing that you're doing is you're removing the dictionary explanations

of a word and just using the word itself, right?

So, reciprocate.

A church singing group, one, two, three, four words, I can replace with one word, "choir",

right?

Or a choir, so two words, maybe, right?

"Choir" for pronunciation.

Everybody knows what a choir is.

Now, it doesn't have to be in a church, but when you're - when I'm putting this word within

a certain context, within the other sentences, it should be very clear to me that we're talking

about one in a church.

If you're talking about a place or an event that includes people from all over the world,

you can just say "cosmopolitan".

That's what "cosmopolitan" means, that it has - it reflects people and cultures from

everywhere.

So, one word instead of all of these other words.

So, that's precision vocabulary.

Make a list of these words that help you eliminate other words.

And confused words.

Now, everybody is going to have certain words that they're never really sure about, like

"effect" and "effect".

Every English class you've ever taken, I'm sure at some point this has come up.

I'm just using it here as an example.

Sometimes it's just a question of spelling.

"Affect", "verb", "effect", "noun", but "effect", secondary meaning, can also be a verb.

To create a change, to make a change.

"Pray" to God or whatever you believe in.

"Pray" what - the thing that is hunted.

Only "e" and "a" difference, the sound is the same.

Then, you have other words that are completely unrelated.

"Abuse".

If you abuse someone or abuse something, if you abuse someone, you treat them very badly,

maybe you physically abuse them, you hit them, you verbally abuse them, you say bad things

to them all the time, emotional abuse, mental abuse, etc.

You can abuse alcohol, means you do it too much without any control.

"Disabuse" does not mean the opposite of "abuse".

"To disabuse someone of an illusion" means to remove the illusion.

So, if somebody believes something, but that something is not true and you somehow prove

to them or you show them evidence that it's not true, then you disabuse them of that belief,

you get rid of that belief for them.

So, again, lots of different words that can be confused with each other.

Make sure you understand the differences and keep them in your list.

And again, use them, use them, use them all the time, any chance you get, okay?

Two more, let's look at those.

Okay, so now we have two more categories.

We have roots, prefixes, and suffixes, and parts of speech.

Now, again, a lot of teachers will recommend this tool, and it's a very useful tool, but

again, only having the one is too limiting.

Definitely have this category.

When you see words that look very similar, make sure you understand why they are, right?

So, "eject", "reject", "object" or "object" or "object", "subject" or "subject", "deject",

etc.

So, the "ject", this is the root, means to push out.

So, "eject" means I literally push out, like for example, from a plane, right?

Like Maverick in Top Gun, he ejected from the plane and Goose got killed, and now there's

a sequel, right?

So, that's the root.

Then, make sure that whenever you have new words, don't only learn the one word.

Learn all its different forms with all the prefixes and suffixes.

"Intent", "intention", right?

So, here we have a suffix, "intentionally", whoops, all the way, "unintentional".

Here I have a prefix and a suffix, "unintended", etc.

Try to see all the different forms that you can find of a word, and then you have more

vocabulary as well.

And parts of speech.

Don't just learn...

Again, this is very similar to the forms, except we're not talking about prefixes and

suffixes, you're talking about function, noun, verb, adjective, adverb, etc.

"Variety", "noun", "very", "verb", "varied", "adjective", "variedly", "adverb", not very

commonly used, but it's still technically okay.

And this might also help you think about different words that are related, like "variation" is

a...

A "variation" means a different way of doing something, right?

So, all of the different forms and all of the different roots will help you also build

more vocabulary by focusing on one or two words and building from there.

And then you have the "idiomatic", which is very, very important, especially to build

your spoken communication.

Of course, we use these in writing, but we use these a lot in everyday spoken English.

So, "idiomatic" is basically groupings of words that when they're put together tend

to have very different meanings than the individual words.

So, for example, you're going to have phrasal verbs, and I have a lot of videos about those

you could look at.

Collocations, these are words that generally go together and work together.

And then, of course, there's idioms themselves, right?

So...

And so, then I'm going to show you all of these.

So, for example, "make do" is a collocation.

You know "make", you know "do".

"Together to make do" means to do as much as you possibly can, do enough considering

what you have in mind.

Oh, you know what I just noticed?

Sorry, a little misspelling there.

It happens even to the best of them, right?

Unintentionally.

Anyway.

"Make do".

A tall tale, again, tall adjective, tale, noun, together they mean unbelievable story.

Sometimes, like little kids, when they get in trouble and they want to have an excuse

so they don't get blamed, they make up a tall tale.

They make up a lie or a fancy story, sort of to get the attention away from them, get

them out of trouble.

Those are collocations.

Phrasal verbs.

"Keep at".

So, I hope that all of you keep at building your vocab, continue to.

Don't quit.

Keep doing something.

And "hang on".

Sometimes you'll have ups and downs, "hang on" means, you know, brace yourself.

That's not very helpful either.

"Hang on" basically means don't give up, don't lose hope, don't lose strength, right?

Stay strong the whole time.

And idioms, and I can give you a thousand of them, but I'll just give you one as an

example.

"Kick", you know, "the", you know, "habit", you know.

Put them all together.

What does it mean?

To quit something, like smoking or drinking or usually something bad.

So, if you kick the habit, you quit doing that thing that you were doing.

As you learn them, keep them in your notebook or notebooks in different categories.

And again, by putting them together, you'll start remembering them more.

But the most important part, use them.

Use all of these new words.

Use all of the new expressions.

And keep doing it.

Keep doing it.

Keep doing it.

Learning, using.

Learning, using.

And the best place to get all these new words, not from word lists, read newspaper articles.

Read books.

Watch TV.

Watch news.

Watch movies.

Watch anything you can.

And talk to different people, especially native English speakers or fluent English speakers.

Because that's where you're going to pick up all these new words.

Write them down.

Use them.

Cycle.

Cycle.

Cycle.

Keep going over and over again.

So now, if you have any questions about any of this, please ask me at www.engvid.com.

Don't forget you can go to Write to the Top on YouTube as well, or www.writetotop.com

where I make videos to help you build up these vocabulary chunks.

And if you like the video, give me a like.

Don't forget to subscribe to my channel, and come back next time for more useful tips.

See you then.

Bye-bye.