Hello, I’m Hilary and you’re listening to an Adept English podcast, designed to help
you learn to speak English fluently. I love the English language, and I help hundreds
of thousands of listeners speak English every month. Listen to this podcast today and see
how your fluency improves.
Hi and welcome to this podcast from Adept English. Do you want to sound less like a
beginner speaking English and more like a native speaker? Of course you do - that’s
why you’re here. English is a very rich and varied language - but beginners often
use a limited range of vocabulary. Simple vocabulary will mean the other person does
understand you, but if you want to sound more like a native speaker, increasing your vocabulary
is important. Today, let’s take a phrase that English learners say a lot - and give
you some different words for it. Do you ever say ‘very good’ to describe something?
I’m sure you do. But if you use ‘very good’ all the time, it’s not very descriptive,
it’s not very interesting. So let’s look today at some other words for ‘very good’,
a phrase which all English language learners know. Let’s look at some alternative, more
descriptive ways of saying this. This will help you sound more expressive when you speak
English and more like an English speaker - and your conversation will sound more interesting.
So when you’re learning English, of course you learn basic vocabulary first. And there’s
nothing wrong with saying ‘very good’. People will understand what you mean of course.
But I’m going to give you nine different ways to say ‘very good’, which are really
worth learning. They’re all slightly different in meaning, so you might use them in different
ways. It will help you to understand their specific meaning - but that doesn’t mean
that you have to stick with the rules. It’s fine to mix these ones up - they’re almost
the same.
So here goes. Where there are two words with a very similar meaning, I’ll pair them together.
So these are words for ‘very good’.
The first pair of words which mean ‘very good’, and which are similar in meaning
- ‘superb’, SUPERB and ‘excellent’, EXCELLENT. Most of the time, you can use either
of these words to mean ‘very good’, but let’s have a look at their slight differences.
With ‘superb’, there can be a sense of magnificence, majesty even! The thing is so
big or so beautiful, it impresses you. It might make you say ‘Wow!’. So you might
say ‘The view of the mountains from the hotel room window was superb’ - meaning
that you were impressed by it and you said ‘Wow!’ when you saw it. Or you might say
‘The skiing was superb!’ ‘Excellent’ means ‘of extremely high quality’, ‘the
best of its kind’.You can understand ‘excellent’ better when you know that there’s a verb
‘to excel’ EXCEL. And if someone ‘excels’ at Maths for example, it means that they’re
one of the best, if not the best at maths in their group. So if something is ‘excellent’,
it is ‘excelling’ in its class, in its group. And there’s a noun ‘excellence’
too, EXCELLENCE. ‘Achieving excellence’ may be the kind of thing you hear as big company’s
goals, ‘mission statements’ for their workers. There’s a lot of skill and talent
going into something that’s ‘excellent’. So back to that hotel room, you might say
‘The view out of the hotel room window was superb - and the service in the hotel was
excellent’. So if there’s any difference at all, ‘excellent’ has more of a focus
on someone having worked hard to arrive at that ‘very good’ standard’, but ‘superb’
can happen naturally. But you can mix and match ‘superb’ and ‘excellent’ too,
I think.
The next two words that mean ‘very good’ are also similar to each other. They are ‘fantastic’,
FANTASTIC and ‘wonderful’, WONDERFUL. The adjective ‘fantastic’ comes from the
word ‘fantasy’, FANTASY. A ‘fantasy’ is like a dream - a fantasy is you thinking
about something which might happen, but imagining it happening in the best way possible. So
if we say something is ‘fantastic’, we mean that it’s the stuff of fantasy, it’s
something that we can only dream of. And ‘wonderful’ is similar - it means that whatever we are
describing - well, it fills us with ‘wonder’. The noun ‘wonder’, WONDER is a word to
describe that sense we get when something is so good, it just stops us in our tracks!
We look round with ‘wonder’. Perhaps like a child in a fantastic toy shop, perhaps looking
round with eyes wide and mouth open! That’s ‘wonder’ and the toy shop would be ‘wonderful’.
What about these two - ‘outstanding’, OUTSTANDING
and ‘exceptional’, EXCEPTIONAL? You can use these two adjectives instead of ‘very
good’ when you’re talking about someone’s achievements, peoples’ successes. Both of
these words work if you were describing a very successful student or someone with a
very successful career or other achievements. If something is ‘outstanding’, it ‘stands
out’ - you see it as above the rest. It’s noticeable because it’s better than what’s
around it. You might make an ‘outstanding contribution’ to your particular science
or area of study. Your contribution stands out from the rest. ‘Exceptional’ is similar
- if something is ‘an exceptional circumstance’, it means when something’s not the norm,
it isn’t usual. So when we’re using ‘exceptional’ in a positive way about a person or an achievement,
we mean that they or it are far better than the usual - it’s an exception, because it
or they are so good. If you go into the school for a parents evening and your daughter’s
teacher says that she is ‘an exceptional student’, it means that you have a very
clever child!
Another two words, which you can use pretty much anywhere you might say ‘very good’
- ‘awesome’, AWESOME and ‘amazing’, AMAZING. You’ll hear these words used all
the time - but often in contexts which don’t really deserve it. You might be on the phone
to a helpline and they’re helping you set up your mobile phone or some function on your
laptop. And when you follow their instructions and it works, the person might say ‘Awesome’!
It’s what we call an over-statement - it’s too much, but they’re meaning to be encouraging
to you. So in their pure form, these two words again mean ‘very good’. The word ‘awesome’
is related to the noun ‘awe’, AWE - and a bit like ‘wonder’, ‘awe’ is a feeling
that you get in response to something. If you think of a cartoon character, seeing something
which is (here we go) ‘fantastic’ or ‘wonderful’ - you might see that their mouth is open as
they look around. They’re speechless. Well, in this moment, you could say they have a
‘sense of awe’. If you feel ‘awe’, you can hardly speak. Now ‘awe’ is more
commonly used to mean something positive, but this one can also have a negative feeling
- if a huge brown bear suddenly was in front of you in the forest, about to eat you, you
might feel awe, as well as terror. ‘Awe’ at its size, perhaps. Whereas if something
is ‘amazing’, then that’s almost always positive. And of course, it’s related to
the verb ‘to amaze’, AMAZE and the noun ‘amazement’. If you think of the verb
‘to surprise’ and then increase the level of surprise - you get to ‘amazement’.
So if someone says ‘you cooked an amazing meal’ - it means that it went beyond surprise,
just how good it was.
And the final word for today, meaning ‘very good’ is ‘perfect’, PERFECT. Again,
if someone is talking you through a set of instructions - and you’re following them
and it works - they might say ‘Perfect’. Or if you arrive at an arrangement, what time
you’re going to meet someone, they might say ‘Perfect!’. Again, it’s being used
as friendly encouragement. If you use the adjective ‘perfect’ in its more pure sense,
it links better to the noun that goes with it, which is ‘perfection’, PERFECTION.
And if something is ‘perfect’, if something has ‘achieved perfection’ - it means that
‘everything in it, everything about it, is correct, is good, nothing is wrong, nothing
is out of place’. You might talk about someone having ‘perfect hair’ - this means that
there’s absolutely nothing wrong with their hair. ‘Not a hair out of place’, we say.
Or ‘That car is perfect for me’. That means that the car has absolutely everything
you could wish for - every detail suits you. You and the car are a perfect fit together!
And ‘perfection’ is used where there is just nothing you could do to improve a situation
- it’s already ‘perfect’.
OK, so those are nine adjectives I’m suggesting you can use instead of ‘very good’. They’re
pretty interchangeable - that means you can use each of them for most things. I’m just
giving you extra meanings to help you remember them. But here are some practice sentences
for you. I’ll give you sentences which use ‘very good’, and you need to substitute
a different word for ‘very good’. The easier way to use this exercise is to see
if you can remember all nine of the words and put them in. And if that’s easy for
you and you want to stretch yourself, see if you can choose the most appropriate word,
that’s more in line with its origin. Here goes - you’ll understand the downside to
using ‘very good’ all the time when you hear this! Using ‘very good’ all the time
makes it sound boring!
1. Going skiing in Austria? That will be a very good opportunity for you and I’m sure
you will have a very good time.
2. Your son is a very good student. His work, particularly in Science is very good.
3. People enjoyed travelling on the Orient Express. The food used to be very good and
the scenery was very good.
4. My father would practise his piano pieces until they were very good.
5. We enjoyed the underground boat tour because the caves themselves were very good and our
guide told us some very good stories about the caves.
OK - did you remember all nine words? If you want to have another go, do it now, as I’m
about to give you those sentences with the nine adjectives for ‘very good’ - so now’s
the time to pause and try it again if you want to.
OK, those sentences again? Notice how much better this sounds!
1. Going skiing in Austria? That will be a wonderful opportunity for you and I’m sure
you will have a fantastic time.
2. Your son is an exceptional student. His work, particularly in Science is outstanding.
3. People enjoyed travelling on the Orient Express. The food used to be excellent and
the scenery was superb.
4. My father would practise his piano pieces until they were perfect.
5. We enjoyed the underground boat tour because the caves themselves were awesome and our
guide told us amazing stories about the caves.
That version sounds much better, doesn’t it?! You can hear that that’s much more
descriptive, much more expressive and more likely to have your listener’s attention.
If you use those words, it’s no longer beginner’s English.
OK. Don’t forget, if you would like to consolidate your basic vocabulary, our Most Common Five
Hundred Words Course is available to buy on our website at adeptenglish.com. Lots of lovely
listening, which helps you practise just the five hundred most common words in English.
Wonderful!
Anyway, enough for now. Have a lovely day. Speak to you again soon. Goodbye.
That’s the end of this podcast – I hope you enjoyed it. You can listen to hundreds
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