Hi there, this is Harry and welcome back to advanced English lessons with Harry,
where I try to help you to get a better understanding of the English language.
So that you can communicate with people, you can help hopefully get through those interview
processes. Step one, step two. Whatever it is, improve your business English. So we
look at things like expressions, phrasal verbs, idiomatic expressions, for capillary grammar,
everything and anything that will help you to improve your performance in English.
So in this particular lesson, we're going to look at some vocabulary that I think would be
really useful. Particularly for those of you who might be doing some proficiency exams in English,
where you want to improve your vocabulary, particularly for the spoken and the written
test. So we're going to be looking at vocabulary for describing memories. Things that you want to
remember, some things that you want to recall. If you want to talk about your childhood. If
you want to talk about past job experiences, or your sporting achievements, whatever it might be,
you need to rely on your memory. And these will be words associated, there'll be verbs,
there'll be nouns and adjectives that you can use in connection with that particular topic.
So we can often blot out. Means to forget something with... something bad happened, Ah,
I blotted that out, I've really forgotten about it. So your friend might be saying to you, Do
you remember that teacher at school? You know, the one, he always used to throw something when
he wants to get somebody's attention. You didn't really like you. Ah, I have blotted it out. I've
blocked it. I mean, I don't try to think about the bad thing. So you know, I haven't thought about
him really, until you mentioned it, I blotted it out, I blocked it in my mind. So when you blot out
something, you try to blank or forget and not remember something, you do it to deliberately.
Evoke. Well, to evoke something, somebody says something, which remind you, which
evokes memories. So again, when this school friend tells you about the teacher, reminds
you about the teacher who used to be a little bit aggressive or physical, it evokes memories,
bad memories of things that happened and then it comes back to you, you say, Oh, yeah, I remember
the time when he hit me on the head with the ruler or he threw something at me. Yeah. So you
can evokes memories. So when we evoke something it we recall, perhaps something bad, not always,
but perhaps something bad that happened. You could be talking about changing jobs,
and it evokes memories of your past experiences good or bad that you had perhaps a few interviews
that didn't quite go well, or some exams that didn't quite go well. And maybe you scraped
through or you didn't get the results that you hadn't intended or had hoped to get to evoke.
Recall. Well, recall is all about memory. When we recall situations, we recall events, we recall,
means we bring back memories. To recall. I recall meeting him many, many years ago. I can recall
the first time I met him or the first time I went to that school. Memories come back to us.
Remind. Well, we can remind ourselves to do something tomorrow. We can remind ourselves
to do something next week, we can remind our kids not to forget our grandmother's birthday or their
grandfather's birthday. So we can remind give somebody a little bit of a prompt, or something
can remind you of something. Yeah. So you're talking to your friends, meeting them after a
number of years reminds you of the good old days. Reminds you of the good fun you had at school.
Reminds you of the times when you played football together, reminds you of the time when you got
into trouble taking apples from the orchard. Yes, all of these little memories that you
can bring back something happens. Somebody says something that reminds you of a particular event.
To reminisce. Well, when we reminisce we sit back and we think and we talk about the good old times
or the bad old times. So we reminisce over a beer with our friends. People like to reminisce
because it's good. You can remember really happy times about holidays, sporting events,
the life of your children, so much to reminisce as to recall or remember particular events in your
life that you make you feel good. We reminisce. It's good to sit back and reminisce about the old
days. The old times. Yeah, some people don't like it. They think you shouldn't live in the
past and of course the right you can't live in the past. But you can remember the past because
lots of things happened. And as you get older, you have lots of experiences you build up this
library of events in your life. And you can recall them from time to time to reminisce.
And as always, if you do really, really enjoy this particular lesson, then like the video,
okay, and if you can, please subscribe to the channel because it really, really helps.
Suppress. When we suppress means to keep something down. So suppress an emotion,
suppress our feelings. Now, some people will tell you, psychiatrist or psychologist will tell you,
it's a bad idea to suppress your emotions, you should let them out. If you're feeling angry,
go into the forest and shout and scream or kick a tree. So to suppress something means to keep
it down, not to let it out so we can suppress memories we can forget or try to forget about
bad things that happen that we don't really want to remember. Yeah, so and we're usually pretty
good at that. Our memory is pretty good at that. And often, we just remember the good times. Ah,
summers used to be much better when I was a kid. Yeah, well, of course, you probably do
remember the good times when you're swimming and you're playing football and doing other things,
and you forget all the wet rainy days that you had, and the bad times because our memory
naturally suppresses those bad thoughts or bad emotions or bad feelings to suppress to keep down.
Come back. Well, memories can come back to us with a little bit of a jog. We jog our memories,
meaning we give it a little bit of a gentle shake. That could be your metaphorically,
somebody starts talking about something and you say, Ah, yes, it's coming back to me. Now,
that guy... Remember that guy? Or remember that girl? Oh, yes. She was beautiful. I
really fancied her. Yeah. So something comes back to us. We recall it. Somebody mentioned
something that leads to another point. And then yes, these memories, these pictures,
these images, come back to us come flooding back. If they come back to you in lots of
amounts, lots of images. And you start then reminiscing quite freely. Yeah, to come back.
Now on to the nouns. Everything we have is stored in our mind. We remember things in our memory.
We the mind. Yeah, we sometimes you have a good memory. Yeah. Sometimes it's on our mind, we can
have something that we want to talk about people who say, I've had something on my mind for a few
days. I want to talk to you about it. And what was it? Yeah, I had something on my mind to tell
you or I forgotten. I remember it later and I'll talk to you about it. And so it can be on your
mind. Yeah. You could ask somebody the question. Do you have something on your mind? You look as if
you have something on your mind. You look as if there's something you want to talk about.
Nostalgia. Well, this is the noun about those old days, the things that we like
to remember from the past nostalgia. People like nostalgia because it's a trip down memory lane,
as we say which it gives them the opportunity to tell the friends, tell the family, Ah,
in my days, it was like this. I remember when I was your age. I remember the first job. I remember
that summer. I remember the first trip. That's a bit of nostalgia, it's the way to to recall the
past the good times. Okay, so old people, of course, they like a bit of nostalgia, because
perhaps they don't get the opportunity to have those sort of experiences now. And all they've
got are memories. Yeah. So a trip down memory lane is really, really good. And unfortunately,
if you're the grandson or granddaughter, Yep, you got to listen to granddad or your
grandmother because, yeah, they want to do it and it can be fun. So a little bit of nostalgia.
And then recollections. Yeah, so this is the noun recollections. These are things that we remember,
we have good and many recollections. Or perhaps we have very few recollections of certain parts
of our life. Some people have really good they can remember when they were three or four. I can
only remember I think, when I was five, someone I went to school for the first time ever, very,
very clear recollection of my first day at school, it wasn't so good,
but I have a very good recollection of it's, some people have really great recollections
of every part of their life. So it's about remembering something that something that
creates a picture in our minds that we can call back or recall at any time.
Adjectives. So we use the word evoke before so evocative. Something that is evocative causes
us to remember something. So an action can be evocative. So somebody writes a
book that could be quite evocative, or there's a movie you watch that could be quite evocative,
or a speech you listen to that could be quite evocative and it promotes or, in some ways stirs
some memories for you. So you begin to remember things. Perhaps some things you don't want to
remember some things you prefer not to remember. So speeches, talks, documentaries, books, movies.
Lasting. We can have lasting memories, memories that last for a long time,
we can have lasting memories of childhood, lasting memories of a relationship,
lasting memories of some success that we had in some sporting endeavours. So when we have those
lasting memories, that really means we'll never forget them. It's not so difficult to recall
them. And we can have many pleasurable moments recounting or retelling those particular stories.
Unforgettable. Well, when experiences or memories are unforgettable. It means Yeah,
we we will never forget off, I had some unforgettable times with my friends or with
my brother or with my family or some unforgettable holidays in the south of France, when we we spent
times very easy simple times in some campaign or something mobile home, whatever it might
be. But they're unforgettable memories, because they're full of good images full of sunny days,
nice evenings, whatever it is, they're unforgettable, something that you cannot forget.
And then finally, fond memories. Yeah. So when we have fond memories,
memories that we are very fond of that we like so fond is sort of a bit like love is not as strong,
but we fond memories of a friend, fond memories of our first pet fond memories of spending summer
weeks or months with our grandparents, perhaps when we were sent out of the city
to the country life and we have fond memories of that time helping grandmother hoping grandfather,
whatever we were doing fond memories, meaning good, nice, bright occasions that we can remember.
And then we have this expression to bring back memories. Well, what brings back memories,
actions, talking to people brings back memories, sitting and pondering or thinking about the old
days, bring back brings back memories. So lots of things bring back memories we need, as we said
before, a little jog, a little push, something to remind us something, that kickstarts the memory.
People, other people talking about their life, then you start thinking about yours, and it brings
back memories. Some cases bring back sad memories. Hopefully for you, it brings back happy memories.
Okay, so these are all vocabulary that we use, advanced English vocabulary for describing
memories, and particularly if you're going to get ready, as I said, for some proficiency exams,
these are words and expressions that you can use. So we've got verbs to blot out,
to evoke, recall, remind or to recall to remind, reminisce, reminisce, suppress,
come back. Okay, and then we've got nouns, mind, your mind, nostalgia,
recollections, and then with adjectives, evocative, lasting, unforgettable, fond,
and then an expression, bring back memories, bring back memories.
It can be really, really important for all of us and any of you out there where whatever you're
doing, but particularly if you're thinking of doing or you're about to do some proficiency
test in English, you'd really need to have good vocabulary and know how to use these verbs,
these adjectives and these nouns, particularly when you're writing so
you can avoid repetition. It's really important not to repeat the same word over and over again.
Try to practice them, try to practice them in your writing. If you need some more,
you need some examples. Come back to me and let me know and I've tried to help you. As always,
I appreciate you listening and watching and join me again soon.