aubrey what i'm starting this with a very serious question aubry
do you feel like you have a large vocabulary yes i do my vocabulary is quite massive and impressive
there are times every now and then i'll use a word um it happened recently i said exacerbate and
someone was like excuse me i'm like oh that just means to make it worse and they're like i've never
heard that word they had to look in the dictionary so even compared to a lot of natives i think i do
probably mostly from reading a lot yeah same here quite an exclusive vocabulary yes you as well
yeah totally um yes and my 11 year old son has an enormous vocabulary adults are always impressed
with how eloquent he is but the reason the reason we're talking about vocabulary today guys
is because of course you need to have a pretty a pretty substantial vocabulary to do well on the
ielts exam and we're always getting questions from students especially regarding unfamiliar
vocabulary in reading right um so that's what we're focusing on today we're going to give you
guys a couple different strategies to figure out unknown words but this advice comes with a caveat
that's also one of my favorite words right now um what does caveat mean or caveat means there's
a warning here sort of there's something we need to tell you about this information that's vital to
know it's such a great word um it's french isn't it caveat yes that is french right okay so anyway
um this warning guys is that don't get too don't drown yourself in these unknown words don't focus
on the things that are unknown and uh push aside the knowledge you already have and the strategies
for finding answers because you don't need to understand every word to get the right answer
in ielts reading right yeah in fact a lot of the most unfamiliar words the the most uncommon words
will be a distraction from the answer and so don't spend a lot of time getting bogged down trying to
figure out very difficult words recognize that they might be distracting you and the answer is
not by that word totally so guys the uh crazy looking words that you've never seen before
you probably don't need to know what that word means having said that though we do know a lot of
students um still don't have enough vocabulary to find the answers and understand what they need so
we're gonna give you guys some help today to figure out these words that you need to know to
get the answer so aubry what is the first way we can guess the meaning of a new word yes check and
see if the word has a suffix or a prefix something that's coming before or after which will give you
a hint as to its meaning for example anti will will mean it's the opposite of something right
we're going to give you a couple others here that you can look out for in order to figure
out the meaning of a word yeah exactly so knowing all the pieces of words guys this is so important
um and it's quite fun actually um i i find it really fun when i see like a long word
that is unfamiliar and yes it this does still happen to native speakers right we don't know
every single word in the english language but when we see new words that are really long i love being
able to parse out the pieces and like riddle out what the meaning is like it's fun i think of the
word anti-disestablishmentarianism the first time you see that word you're like okay let's pull
this word apart and i love all the different parts it's so fun it's so fun um it's like a puzzle you
know so anyways here's a couple examples guys so prefixes pre is actually a prefix um what does pre
mean that means before so some good examples are predestined you see destin or destination destiny
in there and pre before so that'd be something that was destined to happen before something else
yes so it's something that was um meant to be we could say right like this thing that
will happen it we it's supposed to happen right this thing is supposed to happen we planned on it
so preview view you know that word guys that's like look at see watch so preview means to
look at something before right so a preview for a movie that's the ad you see to get you to
want to watch the movie before it comes out yes and then think about the prefix non which means
the opposite or on right like non-plussed is a very good word right jessica what does that mean
nonplussed is an adjective meaning like you are not very pleased with this thing
so let's see if we could figure this out from the root word and the prefix so
plus you can picture that the plus sign it's a positive right and then a non is like oh
not positive so you can totally guess what this word means right it means not positive and that
and that's correct like that is exactly what it means you feel not positive about something
that's a great adjective for ielts speaking and writing by the way right very high level
definitely sneak that into your speaking exam into your essays and yeah just think about non
nonverbal not any word if nones before it's the opposite of something that something is not that
exactly i love it um and then suffixes so for example a n t as a suffix means a person so an
assistant right assist to help so an assistant is a person who helps like that is their job or e-r-y
usually a place of work a business right so bakery for example a place where things are
baked and sold um and then also armory so armor arm these are these are old words for like weapons
right so an armory is a place where weapons are made or sold yes awesome this will help a
lot guys just first step check for a prefix or suffix and try to pull apart the meaning that
based on the roots and the prefixes and suffix the pieces of the word the building blocks of the word
i love it um now the second way you can figure out unfamiliar vocabulary cognates what what is that
aubrey yeah this is a word that is very similar in english to your first language so if you speak a
latin language there are a lot of cognates that are similar between the languages so here's an
example the word composition and then everything related composite compost these all are cognates
in english from the latin root companere i'm not sure how to pronounce that i don't speak latin
but it means to put together so when you know that root which may be very similar if you speak
italian spanish french any romance language then you're going to recognize that root for words in
your first language and you can figure out what that word means now this comes with a caveat as
well this comes with a warning that there are a lot of false cognates right jessica yeah totally
guys excuse me i'm fighting a little cold um yeah so this is where um learning on your own
is not always uh the only way to go right we we do need feedback from a native speaker sometimes
because if you assume that the word you're saying in english has the same meaning as it does in
your first language you may be incorrect right these are called false cognates or false friends
so for example embarrassed right embarrassed in english it's like oh i feel shame oh no but in
spanish embarassada means pregnant and hopefully those things are not it should not be related
there's a good one in french the word english pain p-a-i-n like something hurts you you're
in pain is spelled exactly the same as the word bread in french so it's funny restaurant
which means daily bread but when people who don't speak french read that restaurant name
they're like pain quotidian and they're like the word pain is in that restaurant
i don't know if i'm interested in that oh that's awesome um okay and then the third way guys and
honestly this is the most important skill to get used to i think um the first two strategies are
amazing but they're obviously not going to work for every word right what if there is no prefix
what if you don't know the root word meaning then you're just kind of lost right so
this next way guys is super important and it is a skill you can practice on your own
so this is deciphering what this word means from context right using context clues it means look at
the information around it understand what you can um and guess the meaning of that gap right what is
that unfamiliar word in the middle you're not sure of so i just looked at a recent headline in the
new york times to give you guys uh uh example of this so the title is more pandemic fallout
the chronically absent student so these days we know what most of those words mean right
and then we see chronically absent and we think okay i think absent means not there
right but this adverb is very important right what what is this describing exactly so then we
can look at the subtitle and it says at one middle school more than 40 percent of the students have
been chronically absent this year districts are going to great lengths offering gift cards
night classes to reach them so if we understand that sentence right school districts are trying
to give them presents offered night classes it means like these absences are a serious problem
so we can guess that chronically absent just means absent a lot and that is what it means yes exactly
even just from that title if you think about the context of the pandemic you know that absences
first children are happening a lot right you're aware of that you're keeping up with the news
so you know chronically isn't going to mean this doesn't happen very often right if it has to do
with pandemic you have that context clue of like what are absences like during the pandemic right
and then you're looking for the context clues the next sentence to pull out what does this mean and
here's um here's the last thing i'll say about this um just to extend on what you said aubry
because using your own knowledge of the world is also extremely important when you're making
educated guesses right so when we say context clues it's not purely the words that you're seeing
it's your own understanding of these ideas and the background and the context of this idea right so
our knowledge of what's happening in the world will help us understand these ielts reading
passages as well yes exactly so tap into that and make sure you're really expanding your knowledge
of the world reading the news listening to podcasts paying attention to what's going
on don't just take ielts practice tests because you do need to be aware of what's happening in
the world getting vocabulary from everywhere and then you will be successful on tuesday
all right guys so remember we have a free ielts quiz for you that comes along with free resources
based on the score you get so go right now to all ears english dot com slash my score and check that
out all right awesome aubry thanks for uh talking vocab today yes awesome see you later bye bye
you