How to TRANSITION to ADVANCED English level - vocabulary lesson

hello everyone and welcome back to english with lucy today i'm going to show you how to upgrade your english and take it to the next level and we're just going to echo off the video that i made a couple of weeks ago about the words that you should not use and the alternatives that you can use if you haven't seen that yet click on the card I highly recommend you do I received so many messages from different people asking me to help them expand their vocabulary and replace boring words with interesting words so that is what we're going to do today but before we get started I would just like to thank the sponsor of today's video lingo derp who are bringing you an amazing opportunity to improve your language skills even further it's Dylan go to language marathon the marathon is basically an opportunity to take one class per day for three months and get a hundred percent of your money back so essentially you can get $800 worth of language classes for free if you've not heard of lingo too 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get your money back if you are interested and ready to participate in the language marathon and improve your language skills for the better click on the link in my description box and use the code there for a four-year-old is 'can't off the entrance fee or if you would like more information about marathon I go into much further detail in my original announcement video which is also linked in the description box I think the language marathon is the perfect solution for finding the motivation to do 3 months of intensive learning and to really take your language skills to the next level you're essentially competing against yourself right let's get on with the lesson okay so in a previous video I spoke about the words that you should never use in English and I want to expand on that today I'm going to talk about some common words that could be considered quite boring and some alternatives that you can use basically this is just a really jam-packed jam-packed means it's really really full a really jam-packed vocabulary video so get your notepads out you're going to want to take notes now the first word is smart I want to mention this word because in British English it means something slightly different than in American English in American English smart refers to intelligence if somebody is smart they are intelligent in British English it's not so clear you have to add a bit of context because if I say someone is smart you would think that they are well dressed or well turned out if I say he's a very smart man I'm referring to the way he looks not the way he thinks so I'm going to give you some alternative words for smart and intelligent that you can use in everyday English some of the alternatives need a bit more explanation because they mean something slightly different they're not just synonyms so instead of saying smart we can say knowledgable somebody who has a lot of knowledge we can say brilliant now you might know brilliant as being really really good or great that's brilliant but if you describe a person as brilliant it can mean that they're really really clever I think you would describe Dumbledore as brilliant because he he was just this genius I always like to get in a Harry Potter reference another words immolated brilliant is gifted if somebody is gifted it means they are very skilled in a particular area often referring to their intelligence when I was at school there was a special list that you could be on that was called the gifted and talented list and it was a list of students that were very talented or very intelligent and they the people on the list got to go off and do special activities now I think of that I think that's that is dreadful that's just dreadful yeah I hope that doesn't occur anymore another word we can use is witty and witty it means funny and intelligent so someone who's funny might make a lot of jokes but they're not particularly intelligent jokes and somebody witty makes a lot of very intelligent jokes they play with the language they use historical facts somebody who I think is very witty is Stephen Fry I always mention Stephen Fry and Harry Potter in my videos you can tell what I watch in my spare time so if somebody says something very intelligent and very funny you can say that's very witty of you it's a lovely word along the same lines quick-witted this means that somebody can come up with an intelligent or funny response very very quickly I on the other hand take a little bit longer to process information another lovely word is sharp if someone's sharp they're quick they're intelligent it's hard to trick them because they spot everything then we have wise and wise tends to mean that you are intelligent due to experience you've got a lot of experience you can refer to your experience you're wise we often refer to older intelligent people as wise we've also got brainy and this kind of refers to somebody who's quite studious somebody who lives a very academic life I wouldn't say it's the biggest compliment well it is a compliment to be called brainy because you're being told that you're intelligent but I think this word can be used with a negative undertone it sort of in the same way as geek or nerd somebody who studies a lot and maybe doesn't have such a big social nothing wrong with that but be careful who you use it with because you could offend them now that's enough of these smart alternatives as with all of these topics please do contribute your ideas in the comments section below I was so amazed at your contributions in my words you should not say video you guys are smart oh no that's what we were meant to not say all right let's have a look at a very common word now good good is a good word good is a good word it's a good word I can't take that away from the word good however there are better words I remember when I was teaching students I used to get so like self-conscious of repeating the word good over and over again after every answer good good good very good so I had to come up with alternatives and I ended up just saying wonderful the whole time and then my students used to predict what was gonna say and it's wonderful and I was about to say it and it was so embarrassing but I'm gonna give you some really good alternatives to good right now see it's not good if you repeat it all over and over again oh my god I think ok let's just get on with this one of my favorite ones is marvelous Oh isn't marvelous just such a lovely word marvelous it makes you sound really quite posh and well-spoken I would use it at every opportunity another one which I love seeing in my comments section because I know that you guys have done your research on alternatives for good is superb and this is another posh word this meal is superb not super it's got to be on the end superb and it just means the absolute best another word is exquisite and this is another word for very very good and we often use it to describe food or drink a waiter comes over to your table how is the wine Oh exquisite another that I really like is delightful if something's delightful it gives you a lot of delight which means happiness the show was absolutely delightful it was very happy it was very warm it was very good terrific be careful on the pronunciation of this one it's not terrific it's terrific make sure you don't confuse this with terror which means something's very scary terrific is a very very positive word another one is splendid if something is splendid it's top-notch it's absolutely excellent I think splendid and marvellous and my favorites in this list but what if something is really bad well don't worry I've got a list for you now there's an unwritten rule in English if you use a posh word meaning bad you have to show absolute disgust whilst using these words so we have atrocious we also have obscene obscene we have dreadful dreadful I hope you're all practicing at home practicing you're disgusted faces disgusting disgusting despicable absolutely despicable vile oh that's when I use a lot vile that is absolutely vile nasty look nasty evil just pure evil brutal you can have a brutal murder which is the worst of the worst lots of blood and gore and possibly the best one abhorrent abhorrent if you use that in an essay I'm sure it will go down well if used in the right context because it's not such a common word but it's a really effective one now how about some alternatives for verbs what about ran or to run you could say someone jogged which is a light run you could say somebody sped or they sped off that means they went at quite a pace they went quickly the same for bolted and darted and if you use off darted off bolted off sped off it means that they are going away from you scurried that's running quickly with little for steps gallop the same but with big footsteps like a horse raced dashed both really quick and sprinted more like Usain Bolt possibly the fastest of them all and then on the other hand we have alternatives for walked to walk you could saunter which is just kind of aimlessly walk saunter along or you could March which is to walk meaningfully to trudge somewhere that's to kind of drag your feet like you don't want to go to stagger how you might walk after you've had a drink you're not picking up your feet you might trip over you can amble or you can stroll and that's just a leisurely walk I do actually say I'm just going out for a stroll which just means an aimless walk with no objective I'm just enjoying being outside for a minute another verb we can find alternatives for is to see you can say you glimpsed something which means you just got a really quick look equally you can say you glanced at something and you must use it with the preposition at to glance that I glanced at her answers and saw that she'd got them all wrong to gaze or to gaze at someone this is to look at something for a very long time it almost implies to look lovingly at something if I say he gazed into her eyes it means he looked lovingly or looked for a long time into her eyes I'm gazing into the camera lens right now all of you students because I love you to spot you can spot something that means you you've seen something or you've noticed it to notice it means you found something that you weren't necessarily looking for you can examine something which is to study it long and hard to really look at the details and you can also eye something and to eye something is to really study move your eyes all along it and you if you ice someone up it means you're almost looking at them flirtatiously you're really looking at their body and seeing what they're like it's not necessarily a positive thing and the last topic is alternatives for saying scared scared is a perfectly fine word but if you're writing about something particularly scary and then you can find yourself repeating it over and over again so here are some alternatives one you might know already is afraid you are scared you are afraid it's pretty much the same thing the same goes for frightened to be frightened one that's slightly different is startled and this means that something's made you jump it's shocked you in the moment maybe somebody has just appeared and you go oh and you've been startled the same goes for spooked to spook someone to suddenly make them scared now what if you are really really scared you might be petrified absolutely petrified or terrified not to be confused with terrific after a scare you could be really shaken and that means that you know you don't feel right this is sort of the aftershock of a scare to be anxious you could be really nervous and anxious you could also be horrified or good word coming here aghast aghast and this is just to be filled with fear and shock right that is it for today's lesson I really hope you enjoyed it I really enjoyed making it if you would like more lessons like this one please comment down below because I always use your requests as my inspiration for future videos that's why I made this one because you guys seem to like the other one so much and there are loads more alternatives that I can give you and I think it's just so much nicer than reading them from a page having somebody explain them to you don't forget to check out the lingo language marathon the link is in the description box along with the code and please do connect with me on all of my social media I've got my facebook I've got my Instagram and I've got my Twitter and I will see you soon for another lesson my previous video I spoke I English teacher alright that's enough of these smart words with all of these topics I would love for you to contribute in the description box not in the description box don't touch my description box that's mine you can go in the comment [Music] [Music]

Channel: English with Lucy

Views: 742,726

Keywords: upgrade your english, improve english vocabulary, transition from beginner to advanced, vocabulary lesson, begginer to advanced, beginer to advance

Id: CP9VipkA6ns

Length: 16min 1sec (961 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 04 2018