Abbreviations & Acronyms to Build Your Vocabulary

so if you want to improve your English fluency then you need to know abbreviations and acronyms they are so important and that's what we're gonna talk about today I'm gonna talk to you about some common and popular abbreviations and acronyms that you are going to come across if you are reading a book or a newspaper and you may even hear some of these in just general conversation so this is really going to help so hello to everyone out there my name is Wes this is interactive English and we are all about helping you practice and improve your English skills and if this is your first time here welcome please say hello to me in the chat or write your name in the comments because we just love hearing from you guys so I just want to give a quick shout out to some people who are we're here with me hello Mary Angela Syed Ryan sleepwalker Lally sada it's great to see you thank you so much for joining me and the way that we're going to do this I'm gonna try and I have a few different activities that we're going to do to practice your knowledge of abbreviations and acronyms now it there is a lot to go over and there are so many of them so it's not like we're gonna go through all of them today I have just chosen some that I think are the most common abbreviations the most common acronyms and and just just to practice them a little bit because that's really what's gonna help you improve this is an interactive lesson so as we're going through this I want you to write your answers in the chat and if you're watching this later write your answers in the comments and participate in the lesson so let's begin with talking about well okay first well you know what are abbreviations when we talk about abbreviations we're talking about shortened forms of different words and phrases now think of abbreviations as like the umbrella and underneath that umbrella are our different categories and I'm going to talk to you about four are different categories right now so types of abbreviations now the first one would be a contraction and this is when letters are omitted and you would just shorten the word and put a period after it and this is common when you're talking about proper nouns for example MT this is when you would be talking about the name of a mountain so if you're reading this if you're you're reading a newspaper you should pronounce this word like Mount and even that is a shortened form for example Mount Everest so you would often see this when it comes before when you're talking about a proper noun the name of a mountain Mount Everest Mount Elbert Mount Aconcagua Mount Kilimanjaro you don't know I am just naming the highest mountains on all of the different continents now there's also a truncation and this is they shortened it's a shortened form using the first part of a word so I probably don't need to tell you what set is if you see this it stands for Saturday now the important thing to know when you're talking about those first two alright this is something that you will read or it's something that you will write you are not going to pronounce Saturday like SAT this would just be when you're writing or you may come across this win reading if you just say you know hey this Sat I'm gonna go do this people are gonna be confused they're gonna be like what are you talking about Sat is the past tense of sit so keep that in mind the first two the contraction and the truncation is something you might use if you're writing but it's something that you're probably going to come across when you're reading so I think it's it's very important to make that distinction now the third one is an acronym that's right an acronym is a type of abbreviation it is underneath that umbrella and an acronym is pronounced as a single word ASAP now if somebody says you know I need it ASAP do you know what that means I hope that you said it stands for as as possible so these are very common in spoken English people will use these acronyms and they will pronounce it as a single word I need it ASAP bring it to me ASAP that report it's due ASAP as soon as possible now initialism initialism is is actually a type of acronym it is another kind of acronym acronym but I'm going to put it in a different category because initialism is when you use the initial letters but you're going to pronounce them individually you're not going to say it as one word for example FB I if you're talking about this part of the United States government the FBI it stands for the Federal Bureau of Investigation now often people don't say Federal Bureau of Investigation they want to shorten that and they will just use the initials FBI and this is something that I think it just takes time and practice the more exposure you get to the language the more you are going to understand okay which one is an acronym and I just say as one word and which one is more initialism and I need to say the individual letters so the way that we've broken the way I've broken down this lesson is the first part I'm gonna practice the number one and number two we're gonna do those together contractions and truncations and then the next part of the lesson is going to be acronyms and initialisms because those are actually ones that you are going to use and spoke in English those acronyms and the initialism so let's just get to it alright let's let's get to the first part of the practice now this is just a very simple exercise right here I want you to take these words and abbreviate the following alright let's just focus on mister so just look at that word if you're in the chat write your answer how would you abbreviate mister and we're gonna go through these quickly and again if you're watching this later I want you guys to participate because that is what interactive English is all about so I hope that if you're going to abbreviate the word mister you should use the right here the mr period and again you're talking about a person all right so you would say like mister and then that person's name okay so if you see this because oftentimes when I maybe I'm reading a story with learners and they come to an abbreviation sometimes they don't know how to pronounce it now I think that one's a basic one now let's look at Monday all right this is a truncation how would you truncate Monday what would you do again you're going to cut it off and just use the beginner it's beginning letters it's very common when talking about days of the weeks or months so I told you Saturday is just SAT period Monday you should write em o n all right Monday so this is something again that you might find if you're just writing an informal note maybe an email and you just want to write it quickly so instead of writing out Monday you might just say mo and excellent you guys are rocking this yes sir geez Samiha Mary Katerina excellent so let's look at the next one a pint often I would think of hey you know a pint of beer so again if you're saying the word out loud you're going to say pint but if you are writing something or you're reading something it's just going to be PT all right just that PT and that is an abbreviation for pine kilometer what do you guys think alright if we're talking about a killer may a kilometer or kilometer we're talking about a distance and the abbreviation for that is a km so again this we're starting a little easy it will get more challenging don't worry and these are all abbreviations Boulevard all right what do you think that is the the name of like a street so you have you could have a street you could have a drive Lane Boulevard and if you want to abbreviate that Blvd and again it would most commonly be used when you are actually writing the proper name alright so you're talking about the the actual name of the boulevard so if you're just writing about it separately like I live on a boulevard you're probably not going to abbreviate it but if you're talking about the name then you will and the last one Department what do you guys think how do you abbreviate Department I hope that you said DEP T all right this would be a shortened form to write Department often I think you might use this more in business in your job if you're just writing an email to somebody or you're writing a note and you're talking about somebody else or another group in a different department you may see an abbreviation like this so these are all different either contractions or truncations and this is just this is just something you're going to see if you're reading or maybe you might use in your writing this is not going you're not going to speak these abbreviations you're actually going to speak the full word so the next part that I want to do we're gonna stick with these I'm gonna show you a postcard alright it is a postcard it's not a real postcard and I want to see how many you can identify so take a look at this postcard just glance through it how many different words do you see on there that you can abbreviate and when I say abbreviate I'm talking about we can use a contraction and rich like shorten the word or a truncation and shorten the word and if you guys are just joining us we are talking about abbreviations and acronyms and we're just practicing using them because this is very important for your comprehension it really helps as well as your fluency so what do you think how many words in there do you see that we can abbreviate and then and them and then I'm gonna tell you how many and we're gonna go through those abbreviations at the end alright so what do you think how many do you see how many words I know some of you're like writing the word but in total okay uh in total these are the words that I had in mind there are six that I want to focus on August st. Avenue Fahrenheit gallons doctor so let's just take the first one August if you are going to abbreviate that and we're going to make it shorter alright what would we do excellent I see some where some Michelangelo perfect Nino August is going to be now the one thing I would say if you are just stating the month you're probably not going to abbreviate it you would really just abbreviate it if you're writing the date and in this case we have the date August 8th so because of that because we're talking about the date it may be abbreviated Aug 8 but we're gonna read it on August 8th I've visited the beautiful st. sulpice Church and I'm probably mispronouncing this if you are from Paris and you are French and I apologize but how would you abbreviate st. okay this is another one that I think people might come to and maybe they don't know it so excellent I see some great answers yes marna sorry if i mispronounce names who else Natasha excellent Katrin so st. is just st alright on August 8th I visited the beautiful st. sulpice Church then I took a walk down the famous remember I'm actually saying the name of the Avenue how are we going to abbreviate Avenue do I see some excellent yes perfect they see some great answers so if we're talking about Avenue the abbreviation is just a ve all right we are going to truncate it and use a ve I walk down the famous Avenue de shuffle is it jump shuffle easy and I'm probably butchering that pronunciation as well it's okay it was so hot outside about 97 Fahrenheit so instead of Fahrenheit what am I going to abbreviate that with all right yes M RN excellent you're going to abbreviate that and many of you are probably thinking well what what Fahrenheit okay so in the United States instead of Celsius we use Fahrenheit and that's what I did I wrote this as though it's somebody from the US well because I am from the US and Fahrenheit yes Katarina excellent is just F all right you're just gonna write the letter F and the same as Celsius you're just gonna write that first letter C so it was so hot outside about 97 Fahrenheit so I probably drank three gallons of water all right how can i abbreviate gallons again we're talking about a unit of measurement for a liquid three gallons of water that is actually that's quite a bit of water that somebody is drinking and if you're going to abbreviate gallons it's just gonna be G al it's that truncation we're just gonna use those first three letters three gallons of water still I got some heat exhaustion so I had to go to the clinic where I saw dr. jeckyl and I think this is one of the most common abbreviations that you would use with a person's name dr. is abbreviated dr dr. jeckyl and of course you're probably wondering well dr. Jekyll is not from Paris he is from London and yes I just I couldn't think of the name of another doctor but you get the idea so this is just a good practice for being able to identify it and and again understand when you might see these because this is for for writing you are going to see these types of embroidery Vienna in in a postcard like this it's something you may come across but I just want to let you guys know again if you guys like what we do if you guys want to connect with us check out our patreon page we offer some cool rewards and again it's just it's just a way to become a part of our patreon family I see some patrons in here now and again we just appreciate and love all the support I will throw a link right there boom in the description so what I want to do now is we're gonna we're going to move on we've talked about some truncations we've talked about contractions now I want to look at acronyms and initialisms so let's practice this and the first way I am going to give you an acronym and I just want you to tell me what do you think it means all right here is a very common acronym right here so I would say identify the acronym and I put it in quotes wait where's my there we go my quotes all right which is spoke in English because somebody might say this right here hey you need to enter your PIN and if somebody's talking about your PIN it is an acronym you pronounce it as one word what is the meaning of pin is it a private individual number is it be personal identification number or is it C personal individual number all right I'm trying to maybe throw you off with some of this but which which does it stand for the acronym pin I think many of you have probably heard it you're familiar with it you you know what it is but do you know what it stands for and I think this is the challenge with many acronyms is that people know the meaning but then when you ask well what do these individual letters stand for it may be a little tricky excellent perfect thank you Lally Mary Jane Catherine II know M RN go Sarah Angela the answer is B all right your pin stands for your personal identification number and this is a very very common acronym because you know if you have a bank you probably have an ATM card that you use and you have a PIN number on it so it is the code that you use at your bank the next one let's look at it is right here so it says so I would say this for example this would be something I would say we live in Europe so when we buy something we have to pay a vet all right now if you're talking about that and another way people might use it if they're buying something perhaps maybe they go to a restaurant well I think you would know depending on where you live but you could say oh what is this what is this charge what is this VAT I see these I see these letters here this v80 but again it's an acronym you're going to pronounce it as one word that what does it stand for a value all tax be vendor added Tech's or C value added tax which one does it stand for what do you guys think let me know write that in the chat or the comments if you're watching it later excellent yes I think everybody knows agon Sedna's bint kutzia yes IRA Estella hello excellent al-amin perfect so many it's his answers are going so fast that is value-added tax so in some countries they they have a value-added tax of that which you will see on a receipt if you buy some things all right so now I'm gonna make it a little more difficult I am going to give you the acronym I want you to write the meaning I'm not gonna give you this is not multiple-choice now I want you to write the meaning what do you think it stands for okay so and this is another one that I think is common I don't know what happened to him he's gone AWOL so what do you think those letters stand for a WOL what is I mean first of all like what do you think is the meaning of a wall and then what are those letters stand for so this can be pretty difficult but I chose this one because I think it is a little more common you may hear this acronym if you're watching a TV show or a movie or just even in conversation with a native English speaker especially from the United States so what do you think the a wall stands for if somebody has gone AWOL and that is often how it would be used you would use it in that context that somebody's gone AWOL he's gone AWOL she's gone AWOL um so I've got some answers Wow all right thank you for answering Catarina Adney Oh Danny you guys are close so no idea that's okay this is a little more challenging if somebody's gone AWOL it stands for absent without leave so this is a an acronym that means that somebody has left a particular group this acronym comes from the military that if somebody's in the military they are supposed to stay there but if somebody leaves without permission that's the key they leave without permission they would say that they are a wall so it started out as a military acronym but nowadays you can use it in you can use it in a variety of situations if you're talking about somebody leaving a group without permission maybe you work with somebody maybe you work with your colleagues on some project and somebody has not been showing up to the meetings they've left they don't have permission and you're telling the boss like I don't know where I don't know where he is he's gone AWOL he is left he is not there or maybe in a music group somebody leaves the music group they've gone AWOL they leave without telling anybody without permission it is a good acronym to know all right AWOL the next one all right this is more of a political one and I'm gonna read this I'll share my personal feeling a little bit so I don't want to get too political but this is one that you will hear nowadays especially if you're keeping up with American politics so I'd say wow that POTUS he's something all right and maybe you can you can infer my feeling based on the intonation that I'm using but what does it stand for POTUS if you're watching the news and I think I just gave it away I'd mentioned the word politics I didn't want to but if you're watching the news and you hear this term POTUS what are what are they referring to alright and I put the American flag in there because again it is it's a very American acronym alright and I would say again just to capture my feeling I'd say wow that POTUS mmm he's something all right so yes if you're talking about the POTUS this is a political acronym excellent Danny Josh have been here English vibes we are referring to the President of the United States and if I would say it like this I'd say yeah he's something yeah it's not not something I'm very happy about but if somebody says POTUS it stands for the President of the United States the same with FLOTUS you might hear somebody mentioned FLOTUS and it's talking about the First Lady of the United States so this is a political acronym which you you will hear if you're watching the news and you like to stay up on current events and you're interested in politics and government so we're gonna Ken we're gonna switch it up I'm gonna make it I'm gonna make it even more challenging now what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you a sentence and I want you to rewrite the sentence using a type of acronym but the acronym is going to be initialism so that is the accurate that's the type of acronym I wanted you to use remember it's all like categories and subcategories abbreviations that's at the top an acronym is a type of abbreviation and even under that initialism is kind of a type of acronym but you have to say each individual letter so I want you to rewrite the sentence using an initialism alright I'm gonna start out easy so you know what I mean so here is the sentence I want you to rewrite it and I will give you some time to do this and I'd say last night she saw this mysterious thing flying in the sky alright so this is a little bit of a transformation to practice your overall well kind of your vocabulary and see what words you know because these are very common acronyms that I'm talking about and I think most of you should be able to get this one last night she saw this mysterious thing flying in the sky how would you rewrite that sentence alright so again if you guys just joining us we are practicing abbreviations and acronyms in order to improve your comprehension and your fluency so again wait if you guys can try to rewrite the sentence I know it's a lot more to type but it's good practice see if you can rewrite the whole sentence I think most of you know the acronym but I'm more curious to see how you would say the sentence alright so yes excellent uh go SIA meirin ah okay yeah I think yes I got some good sentences in there what I would say there's a there could be more than one day I would just say last night she saw a UFO alright in this case again you you don't know what it is I don't think I would say the UFO because it's not really specific it's it's just general because we don't know exactly what it is or that UFO that would make me think that we know some more information about it but we saw a UFO an unidentified flying object if you don't know what that stands for that there it is right there it stands for unidentified flying object initialism UFO all right so let's look at the next one now you know what I want you to do try to rewrite the whole sentence and use an acronym if it's difficult to read I'm gonna say it so try it try to just listen for it so the sentence is I read a book that told me how to change the oil in my own car I read a book that told me how to change the oil in my own car so what what acronym what it's initialism again this is one where you would say the individual letters would you use all right how could you rewrite that sentence all right I read a book that told me how to change the oil in my own car all right the key word there I'm gonna give you a hint in case it may be a little difficult a little confusing the key word there is own alright we're talking about your own car alright it's something that you are doing to your own car alright so how would you rewrite that sentence they told me how to change oil in my alright so first you got to think about which acronym we're gonna use I see bent bent baladi you you have the acronym how would you write the sentence so the acronym that we're talking about is yes Alex a DIY DIY stands for do-it-yourself and often times when you hear this Do It Yourself I think it's commonly used when talking about books because there are so many books out there telling people how to things on their own oh you want to fix computers here's how you do it by your own you want to create a website you can do it on your own you want to fix your car you can do it on your own and it would be called a DIY book and the sentence that I would put that I made I read a DIY book I would use it as an adjective so we often refer to something and say it is a dy DIY book it is the type of book so instead of saying it's a fantasy book it is a romance novel you would say it is a DIY book and often in book stores you might find a section of the book stores that is DIY that all of it is do-it-yourself and that's what it stands for right now I read a DIY book so I could change the oil in my car so if I'm writing that I don't need to say my own car because that's what DIY is saying it's saying that I did it myself Do It Yourself DIY so that is a good one to know a DIY book is saying do it yourself it'll it it teaches you something so you can do it on your own alright the next one this is a this is another very common one all right and I don't know if many of you you maybe many of you will get this easily and others maybe it's a little more challenging but I'd say he suffers from a chronic condition that includes attention difficulty hyperactivity and impulsiveness so write the sentence alright see if you can write the sentence and I'll give you a hint this is a pretty short sentence so you already know that the acronym again it is an acronym that I've just I've just taken from the internet chronic condition that includes attention difficulty hyperactivity and impulsiveness alright what what what acronym again it's initialism because you would say the initial letters what am I talking about all right what do you guys think all right seeing some good answers Catherina um Nino Mary Jane right yes actually I think technically oh you guys actually gave a better answer probably because yes you have ADHD often I I just put down another form of it a DD somebody suffers from a DD which stands for attention deficit disorder but you could say ADHD which would include that hyperactivity now the reason why I say this is common because this is a chronic condition if somebody suffers from a a DD ADHD they can go to the doctor and they may get some medicine but it is something that I think a lot of people throw out there if somebody has trouble paying attention somebody might say you know I'm a little a DD and that just tells you if somebody says that that they have difficulty paying attention now it does not mean maybe they've gone to the doctor and that's what they said but again the reason I put this is because a lot of people will throw it out there without having gone to the doctor that they know that oh this means you have trouble paying attention it probably applies to me and then they might go tell other people yeah you know I'm a little bit a DD or they may describe another person and say yeah he's a little a DD he doesn't pay much attention or she has a bit of a DD so this is a very common acronym that you would come across but again you're going to pronounce each letter a DD attention deficit disorder and this one this is one of my favorites okay remember you need to bring your own beer to the party this weekend okay how would you rewrite that sentence and this is a good one and I'll tell you why in just a second because it applies to it applies to many different things all right remember you need to bring your own beer to the party this weekend how would you how would you rewrite that sentence okay what do you what do you guys think all right this is I think this is more something that I think you hear a lot more in pop culture you might hear it if you're watching a TV show or a movie but it's a good one to know and the reason it's a good one to know is because they people use it in a variety of ways so again I think mini you got the acronym but hey how would you guys write it how would you change that sentence I think that's what we need to practice about taking it and then using the acronym in the sentence where would you put it how would you write it all right so um you need to okay all right Danny gave it a good try you need to be why I'll be the part that that's very close so many of you have the the acronym the initialism BYOB BYOB stands for bring your own beer but if I was going to rewrite no rewrite this sentence right here what I would say is that the party is BYOB and you would say remember the party this weekend is BYOB bring your own beer so you would say that a party is BYOB the reason why I said this is a great acronym to learn is because you can you can take beer out of there and you can replace it with well whatever kind of party you're having perhaps I have a party and I say well everybody needs to bring juice alright jokingly I could say well hey the party's BYO J bring your own juice or maybe everybody has to bring a cake and say hey guys the party's BYOC bring your own cake so this is an acronym that you could replace it with something that everybody must bring this thing BYO bring your own and then whatever it is but most commonly I think people would say bring your own beer if you're talking about some kind of informal party that people are having and they'd because the person does not want to buy beer for everyone they would say the party is BYOB alright so this this is good practice if anything maybe some of these you you already know it's good review because you you're going to find those contractions and truncations when you're reading articles reading stories especially informal things and those acronyms you are going to hear them all the time if you're watching a TV show or movie but it's also those are things that you can throw out and actually use in your everyday conversation like that one I talked at the beginning like I talked about it beginning ASAP as soon as possible a very common one so thank you guys so much for joining me if you enjoyed this lesson and liked practicing your English please hit that like button that lets me know that okay you guys I should continue doing these live lessons on a variety of different topics so like and share the lesson we always love hearing from you so write to us in the comments and again you can check us out on our social media if you haven't joined our Facebook our Instagram I recommend that you do so because we we always try to practice there and have people practice with us there so check that out uh here I'll go ahead and throw a link so here is our Facebook if you have not already been to it boom alright check out Facebook we're also on Twitter and Instagram thank you guys give some quick shout outs um where is it gosh it's moving so fast and I can't even see the names the names went away I'm sorry ah there they come thank you Syed Jun wah Walter Mary thank you guys didi you Hania Nino Lally Syed so Gigi thank you guys for being here booster corn hope you guys have a wonderful day Claudia M RN I know we'll be back next time for another life lesson have a wonderful day I will see you then so long

Channel: Interactive English

Views: 18,581

Keywords: interactive english, learn english, english abbreviations, english acronyms, acronyms in english, abbreviations in english, english abbreviation examples, english acronym examples, english vocabulary, learn vocabulary, improve english vocabulary, learn acronyms, learn abbreviations, abbreviations and acronyms, abbreviations and acronyms difference, types of abbreviations in english, common abbreviations, common acronyms, build vocabulary

Id: onlXcyDeXYc

Length: 34min 40sec (2080 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 09 2019