Hello everybody welcome to Let's Talk, the place to boost up your English language skills.
My name is Michelle and today I'm going to tell you, ‘how I learned hundred new words
in one week’, can you believe that? It's possible to learn hundred new words of English
in just one week. But before we find out how you can do that I want to share something
with you. So let's look at this diagram, what do you see here? There are four different
levels of English, so most people start their English learning journey at the basic level,
right? And then eventually they get to the intermediate level, but what happens here?
They get stuck and that happens because their focus is only on grammar and they forget to
learn new words, phrasal verbs and conversational phrases. So this is what you need to change,
you need to think about how you can be the very few who move to the advanced level and
not just their that you even move to the fluent level of speaking English and to do that my
friends, you need to know some really useful English words and you need to stop using some
common words which are a part of your vocabulary right now. So let me tell you how did I learn
hundred words in just one week. So let's talk about it, there are some of these words that
you can see on the screen amazing, honestly, just, that, next, small… do you use these
words? Are these common? Well I'm sure these words are super common and there was one point
in time when I used to use it all the time and then I realized that these words are hindering,
as in stopping my vocabulary from growing and that was the point I decided that I needed
to throw away, yes I needed to throw away these words from my daily conversation and
that is what we are going to do today. Today in this lesson, I'm going to give you five
new words for each of these words, okay? And that means you'll almost learn 35 new words
in just a few minutes, so imagine how much more can you learn in a week. Now let's begin
with our first word which is “amazing”. So let's now find out what does amazing mean?
I'm sure you already know, amazing is a very common word and we use it when we are surprised,
“Oh wow! You got a new car, it's amazing”, right? Or sometimes when you're extremely
happy, “Oh! You know something amazing happened with me today”, have you said that? I'm
sure. But now we need to cut out this ‘amazing’. Look at all of these sentences, I've got five
sentences here, tell me what's common? Just the word ‘amazing’, okay another amazing
and amazing, again amazing and amazing, how does it sound? Sounds boring. And your English
would sound basic when you keep repeating words like this. So what I'm gonna do is,
I'm going to help you get rid of these words and I'm gonna give you a new word for each
of these sentences. So let's begin with the first one. “It’s amazing to see you”,
right, don't you say that when you meet somebody after a long time, okay? How can you change
that? What else can you say? Well you can say, “it's wonderful to meet you” and
no more amazing, okay? The next one, “yesterday's match was amazing”, you know that moment
when in the match you're just like at the corner of your seat and you're wondering about
which team is going to win… and just in a moment the game has changed, okay because
your favorite player hit six, what's that moment called? It's more than amazing, it's
miraculous… yes as if a miracle just happened. Okay, moving on to the next one, “your speech
was amazing”, now when you hear someone's speech and you thought it was great you say
‘it's amazing’ but I'd say that you should say, “it's remarkable” yes. So remarkable.
Of course the meaning is same but it's just the impact that the word creates. Okay, “it's
amazing how much weight you've lost”, so you see somebody after a long time and you
see that they've lost a lot of weight, what do you say? Well I'd suggest that you say,
‘incredible’. “It's incredible how much weight you've lost.” “You look amazing
in that dress”, now this one is really common. People might have told you or you might have
told it to someone else, but now you have an alternative, you can say that “you look
stunning in that dress”, okay? So guys, here are a few alternatives, a few options
to the word, “amazing” and I'd say that you must add five of these to your vocabulary.
So here are five new words for the word amazing, now let's move on and find five new words
for the word “went”, now what does went mean? It's pretty simple, it means to go from
one place to another, but it is the past form, okay? So many ways to move from here to there.
Now let's look at a few sentences and try to replace ‘went’ with more interesting
English words. So again we have, “went to the park”, “went to Singapore”, “went
to the mall” and we have “the thief went away quickly” again very repetitive and
very boring. So let's look at the first one, “I went to the park”, well how did you
go to the park? You can talk about that action, so I'm sure you “walked to the park” then
why not say it, right? So instead of ‘went’ you just say “I walk to the park”. Now
let's talk about “going to Singapore” how did you go to Singapore? You must have
flown, right? Then again, why not just say “I flew to Singapore” instead of saying
that you ‘went to Singapore’. Okay, “I went to the mall”, did you take a bike?
In that case the best word is to say you “rode to the mall”. Okay, now look at the word
“Ria went to the office”, maybe she drove, quite easy. So again “Ria drove to the office”.
So what we're doing is, we're just talking about the actions we did instead of using
the word ‘went’, that’s pretty easy. And then we have “the thief went away quickly”,
you can replace this too, you can say “he ran away quickly”, I'm sure instead of walking
slowly, he ran away real fast. So this is how you will replace the verb ‘went’ with
other interesting verbs, just remember you can use the action that you did instead of
the verb ‘went’. Okay now this is ‘went’ and let's talk about the next one which is
the word, ‘honestly’. Now what does honestly mean? It's pretty easy, it's used to add emphasis,
which means “honestly, I love you”, okay? We say that, don't we? “Honestly, I'm saying
the truth”, but what were you saying earlier? Were you lying? Okay so this means that when
you add honestly, you're kind of repeating yourself, okay? You can use some other words
to say the same thing, let's find out what are our options… So let's look at these
sentences and see how ‘honestly’ has been repeated and this is quite unnecessary, here
we go. Four times we've used the word honestly, now we're going to find four new alternatives
to this word. So “honestly this shirt suits you”, okay we can say “frankly”. Now
when you're talking to a friend, you can tell them the truth, what if it doesn't suit them?
You could still say “frankly, this shirt doesn't suit you”, right? Because you're
talking to your friend, so it's better to use the word “frankly” instead of ‘honestly’.
Okay, “speaking honestly, I love you”, now when you love somebody, you don't do it
with a half-hearted emotion, it's the full hearted emotion, how can you say it? You can
say, “wholeheartedly” that means with all my heart. “Speaking wholeheartedly,
I love you.” Now, “if I'm allowed to speak honestly…” so whenever you want to say
the truth, you need to be one thing, and that is ‘free’ so did you get it, how can you
replace it? “If I'm allowed to speak freely…” Okay so before you start saying your idea,
you can start it with this sentence, “honestly, I don't trust this business idea” well over
here you just saying the truth, you can say ‘honestly’, but if you think you're repeating
yourself, you'd rather say “plainly”, which means, “quite simply”, oh there
we have another one, so just look at it, you have endless options to replace these simple
and repetitive English words in our conversations. So that was ‘honestly’ and now let's look
at how we can replace the word, “just”. Now this is such a common word and you use
it to fill your gaps, it's a filler word. So whenever you're saying something and you
don't know what to say, sometimes you add the word ‘just’ and it also makes your
sentence weaker, it kind of takes away the meaning. Okay let's look at four sentences
here and we have just here, we have just here and we have just here and here too… We're
going to cut it out and we're going to find the alternatives. So “he's just like his
father”, you could say that “he's precisely like his father”, which means a lot or nearly
like his father. Okay “he just escaped the accident”, okay so when you escape an accident,
it's always very narrow, this means that you could have almost got hurt, but you were saved…
so what can you say, “he narrowly escaped the accident”, okay? “This computer is
just not working”, let's find out what's the alternative, “simply not working”
and “they just shifted to Delhi” so instead of saying that you could say, “they've recently
shifted to Delhi”, because you are timing an action, you're saying that when did that
action happen, okay? So you would say, “They’ve recently shifted to Delhi”, which means
just a short time ago. Okay moving on to our next word which is, “that”. Now this world
is so common, we always use it in our sentences and usually, incorrectly. Let me tell you
how… So basically it's not used to refer to people when you're talking about people
you need another word, let's find out which word is that… so over here we have that,
that and that which we need to get rid of, so let's find out… “I have several friends
that live in Mumbai”, no! “I have several friends who live in Mumbai”, yes now this
is a correct sentence. Now you tell me, “I know many people _____ work in a bank”,
we're again talking about people and you read here that ‘that’ is not used to talk about
people, so what can you fill here? Well I hope you got it “I know many people who
work in a bank”. I'm sure you got this one right. And the last one, “I know many trainers
on YouTube who teach English”, well that another correct sentence, so do remember that
don't overuse the word ‘that’ and remember to use it correctly. Okay now that's ‘that’
and let's find out the next one, so this is the word “next” and we often use it to
talk about what's coming after, okay so to say something that that's coming immediately
or it's coming after. Let's look at some sentences and try to get rid of this word next movie,
next to the hotel, next manager and next video… Okay let's find out what can we say instead,
so “I'm waiting for Salman’s next movie” no! “I'm waiting for Salman's upcoming movie”,
okay? So “upcoming” you could even say “forthcoming” movie you have that option.
“the bank is close to the hotel”, because we're talking about distance so when two things
are near you, could say it's close. “he is the next manager of our team” guess what,
when one person comes after another person in a particular position you can use the word
“succeeding” which means this person is leaving and another person is succeeding him,
which means replacing him. But replacing as you know is not very positive, so it's better
to say succeeding because that's a more positive word. And then you have “my next video…”
well I would love to use the word ‘following’, “my following video will be more interesting”.
Okay so that's how you can get rid of the word ‘next’ which is super common and
we use it a lot in our English. Now we have the word “small”, again whenever you want
to talk about size either it's big or it's small but it can actually be something else,
let's find out what… Okay so it's obviously used to talk about something that is not big.
Let's look at a few sample sentences… too small, small, small and more of small… So
let's find out how to get rid of them, “this font size is too small, I can't read” so
maybe what you need is a lens or maybe what you need is a microscope, let's find out the
right word… you could say “microscopic”. So when something is so small that you almost
need a microscope or a lens to read it, you could say “it's microscopic”. “The car
is small we all won't fit” so guys whenever you want to talk about space and an area which
is very congested, you could use the word “compact” it's an appropriate word to
talk about space so when an area is crowded or congested you could say it's compact because
it's small and not many people can fit. “It's a small mistake”, you could say that “it's
a negligible mistake” which means a mistake that can be ignored and that's why it says
“please forgive him, it's a negligible mistake”. “There's a small drop…” okay so guys
when there's a change in something which is unnoticeable okay, such as “there's a small
drop in profits this month”, which means it's so small that you almost can't notice
it, so you could use the word “insignificant”, say it again ‘insignificant’. Okay, “this
computer is very small” so guys when something is really small, as in an object… you don't
have to just say small, you could say that “it's toyish”. Toyish means almost like
a toy that it's so small that it looks like a toy, I can't even believe it's real. So
this is how you can get rid of these common words from your daily vocabulary. Did you
see just a few minutes and you were able to learn 35 new words in English. So what do
you think, is it possible for you to learn 100 words in a week? I'd say you can learn
up to thousand words in a month if you take the challenge. So this is my challenge to
you now, please tell me in the comments if what you learned today was productive and
how are you going to take up this challenge and now find out new words for some common
words that you overuse in your conversations every day. Thank you so much for joining me,
I'll see you soon in another lesson, till then keep learning and keep speaking English,
bye-bye.