How to Upgrade your English Vocabulary

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, we are the 3 English Experts. I'm Rebecca. I'm Dave. I'm Birgit. And welcome to this episode. 3 English Experts is your English podcast to help you speak better English and create a positive and happy mindset for your English learning journey. So, hi there everybody and welcome to another episode. Today we're going back to vocabulary. So we're talking about upgrading your vocabulary and we thought we'd look at it in a couple of ways. Firstly, how to upgrade your vocabulary, maybe in a more formal context, in a more formal situation. Then secondly, some of the things that get a bit confusing, vocabulary that you can get confused with very easily because they're quite similar. And then finally, we thought we'd have a look at some of the more slangy vocab or colloquial vocab, which is often sometimes difficult to understand firstly, but also for learners to use as well. So they're the thoughts we had, how we could divide up our podcast today. So Rebecca is going to kick us off with some more formal, good sounding English. Good sound. I'm not sure if I would say formal, but I would say fancy. So fancy. So you've got a simple words and then maybe you can find a nicer, fancier word. So this is for me again, it's all about upgrading B2, maybe, maybe your B1, you want to get to B2 or your B2 and you want to get to C1. People say, well, why do I need like five words for one thing? Well, you don't, in theory you don't, but you're not B2 and you're not C1 if you don't have options. And also options are good. You know, people say, oh, I worry about gaps that when I'm speaking, I can't find the word I have a block. Well, the more options you have, the less likely the blocks because you've just got more options and it just makes fluency easier because you've just got more options. Right. So, yeah. So on that note, I have a few words. I'm going to test my co-hosts here to see what they can come up with. So I've got a word, a verb, and I'm going to ask you if you can think of a more fancy, a fancier verb for the meaning, this sort of the same thing, but I will give you the first letter to make it a bit easier. They're looking a bit shocked now because we didn't plan that. I'm sorry. Yeah, we're not prepared. Okay. So the first word I'm going to give you is the verb to show. So can you think of a fancier verb for to show potentially beginning with the letter D. Oh, damn. Dave's got his hand up. Oh, no, big. I already said it. David is going to put his hand up. He's going to be all polite. We need a buzzer here. Sorry, Dave. Demonstrate. Demonstrate. Yeah, that would be the word that comes. Okay. So that's another one. Yeah. Demonstrate is a good word. Another one, meaning. Illustrate. Illustrate. Oh, illustrate is nice. You see, that's very good. I had another one with D to show. Display. Display. There you go. So for show, we've had demonstrate, display, illustrate, you know, so we've got some really nice words there just from want to show. Eight words. Eight words. Demonstrate, illustrate with eight at the end. Oh, it's the eight words. Eight words. Yes. Okay. I'm going to give you another one. Understanding the natives. Oh, keeping up. Yeah, keeping up with the natives. Okay, another one. So how about the verb to create? Also with a D, maybe. Big has got a hand up. Design. Design. Yes. Design. Another one with D, Dave. To create, to design. This is a really fancy one. D, E. You see, it's not that easy. He's under pressure. Develop is good. Yeah. It wasn't developed though. Oh. I had devise. It comes from something like device, you know, people know about their devices, but to devise is also to develop, to create. Yeah. To devise a plan, for example. That's a nice one. Okay. We'll do one more. Think about. So the verb, well, the phrasal verb. I'm not going to put my hand up. I hate this, putting the hand up. To think about, you can also use consider. Another one with the letter C, to think about something, to consider something to, with a C. This is fancy. Contemplate. Contemplate. How do you ever say that? Wow. Dave wants a prize now. Now, but this brings us back to something else that we talked about in our recent Gerund episode. As we said, Gerund is another way to upgrade your English. So consider and contemplate also go with Gerund form. So we need to consider changing the date for, or we need to contemplate doing. So again, it's fine to learn a new word. It's great when you learn a new word. I love that in German, and then I use it all the time, but it doesn't help if you don't know how to use it in a sentence. So it's, you need to look at this verb and think, go on chat GPT and say, how do, give me five examples of how to use contemplate and what, and any grammatic sort of grammatical structures I need to think about. And it will tell you always use the Gerund, et cetera. So that's an important thing to mention. So we had a Gerund episode in June. If you go back to June, you'll find that and think about is also an example of a phrasal verb. So we talked about this before a verb plus a preposition to think about also uses the Gerund think about doing something. And we had an episode in September last year about a phrasal verb. So head back there as well. If you need some help with that, Dave's got his hand up again. Yeah. Well, I wanted to say something on the contemplate and think about it was in a session. Actually I had recently in the headline, it was mull as in mull over. Oh yeah. That's a phrasal verb for thinking about mull over. That's quite high level. That's very fancy. That's high level. I don't know that. But it was in a newspaper article. So it was, it's quite useful because they often use the short words, don't they? The mull. Headline English. Headline English. Yeah. Contemplate would be too long for headline English because it's a long word. That's true. Something small. Okay. So Birgit, obviously you spent time in the UK and you, your vocabularies is quite large of your passive and active vocabulary. So how did you do that? And what did you struggle with when you were learning? Yes, that's a good question. A long time ago. And you see, it's interesting because I just thought now I'm learning Dutch. I learned in a different way. Now I have other devices to help me. So I can ask ChatGPT and an app today to upgrade and have conversation with, which I couldn't when I was in England. But of course, I had conversation with real people. That was exceptionally nice. I really liked that. And what I noticed, and I tell my learners also, because when you, when you learn a language, you go through different stages and it's a progress. Once you sort of are able to get into the flow, have a conversation, because of course, when you learn, when you live there, you will be able to do that. And later you, you are able to pick up more things from people when they talk. So at some point I noticed I could sort of hear certain words, which I didn't obviously use then. And then I asked the people or I looked them up later and I collected a few, which I remember that sort of added to my vocabulary because people use them really like something, something like devastated, hilarious, tremendous, obnoxious, inconsolable. Yeah. I don't know whether we should translate them now or put them in the show notes, because obviously that's words not everybody explains, but maybe you can explain them devastated or something. Again, it's just a typical way of saying, you know, I'm, I'm bored and so stood, you know, it's like a disastrous thing, but I was devastated, but it is very common, actually, you know, when you think about how people speak at home, tremendous, he made a tremendous effort to do this, or it was a tremendous display of, you know, really, really big, great, you know, or we had a tremendous storm. You can use it in like, not meaning it was great as, and we loved it rather than it was very dark. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. There's some really great words. Hilarious. I think people used a lot. Very funny. Yeah. Very, very funny. Hilarious. Yeah. We love that word. We do. About the series you watch, the film you see. That's hilarious. Obnoxious. I like that word. Do you say that often? Absolutely. I actually don't know if I know the German word for that. When do you use it? In what situations? When someone's like, Arrogant, isn't it? Basically, kind of like arrogant, someone who's got a lot of self opinions or sort of opinionated. Annoying. And when you're annoying, talking. And doesn't listen to other people and doesn't care about other people's opinions. So obnoxious is not, doesn't care about other people. There's no empathy. Yeah. I don't know. German translation for obnoxious? Birgit, any ideas? Good questions. I actually don't know what I would say for that. Arrogant. It's more than arrogant. It's more than arrogant. I will come up in a second. And inconsolable. Untröstlich. So if you're really, really sad. So there's a lot of these nice that you pick up. Widerwärtig. Widerlich. Widerlich, yeah. Again, a word I don't even use in my own language very often. Widerlich, obnoxious. Abstoßend, I think. Abstoßend, yeah. As a person, but it has to be a person. Obnoxious behavior. But that would fit with obnoxious. Yeah, abstoßen, but only like from a person point of view. He's obnoxious or that was obnoxious behavior or something like that. Yeah. And you see, when you listen to a word in the country or somebody says that, I have the guy in front of me. I know who said that. And then peculiar. And I didn't know then what that meant. So I asked somebody. Peculiar, seltsam, strange, peculiar. And that's the hook, isn't it? It's this remembering. Yes. Who you were talking to, what the conversation was. I, you know, I know that when I learn German words, I can remember where I learned that or when that came up. I remember I was looking through my list of German words actually today to see when do I, how do I learn my German words? Same thing. And I had at the top of the list unabdingbar. Oh, I never say that. Unabdingbar, which means indispensable, imperative in English. And I know where it came from. It was to do with COVID. And I was watching the news and they kept going on. It was unabdingbar to get yourself vaccinated. Basically, it was like it had to, the vaccination was unabdingbar. We needed it. Yeah. And I remember that because the next word is infling. Infling? Remember that? The infling during COVID. The people who were vaccinated. Very weird. But yeah, you do have this memory, I think sometimes of where you were, how you learned that word. Okay. And now over to some slang upgrade. Oh, I love slang. Slang is, I could talk about slang for years. And so I did a bit of research on sort of business slang. So I thought I would then quiz my co-hosts here. So here we go, guys. Have you heard of the word pumped? With a P, pumped. Yeah, P-U-M-E-E-D, pumped. So somebody has been pumped or pumped. So you could say, I'm pumped to be here. Often if you're giving a presentation, for example. Yeah, I know. But it's slang. Pumped. Pumped means I'm like so excited. Actually, it's a good one for Birgit. Mrs. Enthusiasm. I'm pumped. Thank you. Nobody has said that to me. What does that mean? Yeah, it's I'm really happy, motivated, excited to be here. I'm feeling, feels like I'm pumped up kind of thing. Yeah. The muscles kind of thing. Do you know that Flitzpumper or something? I don't know whether that's a part of it. What's that? Flitzpumper. Don't even know whether that's positive. Maybe that's even more negative. Somebody who's a bit over the top. Oh, it's over the top. Yeah, pumped. No, pumped, I wouldn't say. It wouldn't be negative. You would use it about yourself after I'm pumped to be here. And it's often used in presentations. Particularly, I think in Americanism that's come gradually over into normal English as well. And so the next one, to circle back, often used in meetings. Have you heard this one before? Yes, I think that's fairly known in business, circle back. I think people might know that a little more than pumped. Okay. I think so. I'm not sure. Okay, take it offline. Yeah. That's quite modern, isn't it? Taking it offline, as in we'll talk about it. Now, we see, does take it offline mean just not talk about it online? Or does it mean literally talk about it in private? Like unter vier Augen? Yeah, yeah, talk it in private. Maybe outside the meeting, right? Or outside the actual online. Off the record. Off the record kind of thing, a little bit. And this is one, I didn't know this one before, but maybe you know it, to put a pin in it. Oh, yeah. Put a pin in it. Yeah, I think I've heard that. I've never heard that before. No. Really? Put a pin in it. It's like to keep it, let's hold it on the board, basically, because we need to talk about this and we'll keep it. Okay. I mean, it makes sense to put a pin in it, but I'd not heard the con. It's a new slang phrase for me. So I've learned something new today. Very happy. And this is the thing, isn't it? Like, even as a native, you learn new things all the time. Language is changing. Language is growing. And, you know, I've lived here for 25 years and I still learn new German words every day. And people say, well, how is that possible? Because I'm curious and I have my ears open. This is the other thing. People walk around surrounded by language and they go, I've never heard that before. And I think, how? How? Because it's everywhere. And you have to open your ears. You have to open your eyes. You have to be curious. No one's going to, like, hand you a list of words. You have to, like Birgit said, you're in the situation and you hear something and you think, oh yeah, that's a new word. I didn't know that. And you have to look it up or think about it. Yeah. And that's the thing, that there will never be a 100% I know all the words list situation. No. Even not even for somebody like me or almost native speakers. And as you said, language is changing. And we are going to have, hopefully, a guest later, maybe, who can talk about that language change. That's fascinating. Yeah. Keeping your ear open and learn more. I think that's also a very important point that you said there, Birgit. Because keeping your ear open and listening and then also copying people. Because that sort of leads into my next topic is everyday ways of speaking. And basically, native speakers, in particular, are very lazy. So we shorten everything. And I think this is something, as a learner, that firstly to understand and then secondly to try to copy is not always easy. So you have things, what often I hear, I'm sure, Rebecca and Birgit, you can back me up on this, is this idea of when we use the word aisle. So I often get the impression sometimes learners don't even hear it. No, you don't. And so that's why you often, instead of saying the spontaneous decision, oh, I'll do that. They just say, I do that. So they use the present tense instead of the future, which is what you normally use when you're giving a spontaneous decision. I'll call you back. And for some reason, they don't hear the aisle because it's short for will. It's hard. It's difficult to hear. But this is a thing to remember. So there's the short forms. We shorten practically everything, don't we? So it's very difficult when you're learning, when you know, for example, want, I want. And then, of course, the short form wanna. I wanna. Yeah, I wanna. And that's maybe quite fun to watch, you know, to listen to some of the songs. Or you've got going to is gonna, right? So all these shortened forms or give me. Give me. Give me. Give me a sec. You know, all these kind of things. So copy the people, listen and copy. Always a good thing. And also, finally, a little cheat thing. When you can't remember the question tag, if you're doing a question tag, this could be another episode, actually. A question tag. Yeah, a question tag. Question tags. Asking question and question tags. But you don't necessarily use a question tag. I think a lot of natives also use the word yes. Yeah. Or right. I use right. I was just gonna say, I go right, right, right, right. My dad would be going left, left. Because I overuse right. Right. And then lift your voice up at the end. But again, it's like the German order. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Again, it's where I come from. No, no. Yeah, exactly. It depends where you're from. Whether you send new areas. Not again. I had a tea. I had a German teacher who was from Zutero and she always said again. I thought it was so cute. I love that again. I thought that was really nice. Yeah. Again. But in German, too, you have your shortenings. You know, I have just come up, you know, years. I would have said, because I would have always just that's what I learned. And then you find out. Oh, no, you cannot just say. You know, that's and that's how you again. That's from listening to people and how people speak that you pick up. Correct me if I'm wrong, though. I think sometimes learners feel that that sounds wrong if they say it. Would that be correct? I don't know. Again, it's this sort of authenticity thing, isn't it? It's finding your voice. And I think some might avoid it because that's not what they've learned. And others might think, well, I'm not a native, so maybe I shouldn't talk like that, whereas other people are happy to adopt a parroting and copying. They get what you think. It's one thing that just sprung to my mind, which I what I remember after having already lived a year or maybe not a year, but maybe a few months in England, it needed somebody to tell me how to pronounce volleyball because volleyball is too hard. The V we pronounce like a W, too strong for British. It's a soft vowel consonant in the beginning. Volleyball. And you see, you can't always pick things up. Obviously, I said that often enough in a wrong way. If you stay long enough, hopefully you find somebody who then tells you if it's annoying enough.