Hi there, this is Harry.
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In the Advanced English Lesson today we're looking at different verbs about movement, ok, now these will be really important, particularly for those of you who are preparing for exams whether it be the FCE or CE or the IELTS exams. There are 18 actually in this particular list, so we'll go through them.
So first one is SO, S O A R.
So and when something soars it goes up very quickly and usually very suddenly.
Like rockets soar up into the sky so when you hear the countdown 10 9 8 7 6 etc and then boom the rocket will soar up into the sky very very quickly.
Or prices can soar when there's rampant inflation, so if the price of petrol goes from two dollars or two euros for a litre up to three dollars or three euros in the space of a few days or weeks we might say prices at the petrol pumps have soared recently, they've gone up really, really quickly.
Number two is this word, hurtle, yeah.
So be careful with the pronunciation, you'll see the spelling appearing on the screen here.
H -U -R -T -L -E. Hurtle.
So this is when something is falling, but a little bit out of control.
So for example, if you're like me, not such a good skier, and when you get to the top of the blue run, you look down and go, uh -oh, and then you make a mistake, and then you hurtle down the slope a little bit out of control like a big snowball, yeah, okay.
So to hurtle means to fall very, very fast, yeah, so he hurtled down the slope when he lost his balance trying to stand up and ski properly.
He just missed his turn, okay, so to hurtle.
And I can hurtle out of control.
Perhaps it's an airplane that the pilot has fallen asleep at the control or he's had a heart attack and the plane hurtles out of control, so it's going in lots of different directions but falling very very quickly until the copilot is able to take over and get control to hurtle.
Number three is to zoom okay so lots of things can zoom okay you can zoom in with your telephoto lens on your get very very close to it even though you are quite a distance away so you can zoom to bring you closer to the animal or piece of wildlife that you're trying to photograph without frightening it away okay zoom or trains can zoom through the station when they don't stop if you've ever stood on a platform and a train goes by without stopping and wow you can Feel the pull of the wind as the train goes by.
Zoom! One minute's there, the next zoom, it's gone.
Or watching a Formula 1 race on the TV and you hear this noise of all these wonderfully high performing engines.
Zoom, zoom, zoom! As they pass by the camera on your screen.
Okay, to zoom. Number four, whiz.
Whiz is another good movement, sound, and verb.
to whiz through something means to go through something very quickly.
So perhaps you are a speed reader, yes you can read very quickly and you it doesn't take you long to get an understanding of what an article is or a book is about.
So you can read it quickly so you've just got some books from the library and after a couple of hours you've finished one of the books already and your mother or father turns and you say wow you whizzed through that really really quickly meaning you read with great speed, okay?
So, to whizz means to go quickly.
You can whizz around the shops if you're in a hurry, you're going to the supermarket to buy the weekly groceries but you're a little bit of a hurry so you've got a good idea of what you want, you've got a mental note of the things you bought the last time or the things you usually buy, so you whizz up and down the different lanes in the supermarket with your trolley.
boom up and down whizzing around and you eventually get back to the the starting point back to the the checkout.
okay so to whizz through something so watch out for the preposition to whiz through or you can whizz around the supermarket number five roll across well this is what happens when something is usually a round circular shape it will roll like a football or a can or table tennis ball or a tennis ball, a car, if you take the handbrake off the car and push the car, it will roll across the street.
Okay, so anything that rolls end after end, something that's circular like a globe, or if you have a roll of carpet that you're getting ready to put down in your new living room or hall and you drop it, it will roll across the floor or the roll of wallpaper that you're going to use on the walls.
It will roll across the floor if you drop that.
So anything that is circular, anything that is round, the action, the movement will be to roll across the floor.
Number 6. This is the word plunge and number 1 we use the word saw so this is the exact opposite so when something goes up very quickly we talk about sore or soaring prices, when something falls really quickly we talk about plunge or plunging prices.
So if the gas crisis is ever over and the supply far outstrips demand then we might see an end to rising gas prices in fact they may plunge on the market.
The reports in the papers will say crisis in the gas market prices have plunged for the second week in a row.
So to plunge means to fall very quickly, or you can plunge into the water so you jump off a very high cliff into the water below, you plunge the depths of the sea, you go down and down and down and eventually then the force gravity will bring you back up so to plunge means to go down but to go down really really quickly.
Number seven whirl around well whirl means to go around almost in circles okay so if I look outside I will see bits of paper, bits of twigs from branches whirling around with the strength of the wind so they are almost going in circles because the wind is blowing constantly from all different directions, so that s to whirl around or if you go to the old fashioned dance clubs and dance halls people used to enjoy whirling around the dance floor with their partner, they whirl around the dance floor or boyfriend or partner speaking to his or her partner might say, come on, go for a quick whirl around
the dance floor one more time and then we'll go home.
So to whirl around, to dance around ok?
It means to spin around or to move very quickly.
Ok? To whirl around.
Number eight is this word you might have heard of.
Woosh. Ya, that's the sound it makes.
Woosh. And again, look at the screen for the spelling of the word. Just be careful with the pronunciation.
Whoosh. And this is the sound the wind makes as it whooshes through the trees.
You hear the rustling of the leaves in the autumn, the dry leaves and the wind blowing through the tree.
You get that whoosh sound.
Or in the winter when the trees are bare, the wind will blow in an unstoppable way through the trees.
Whoosh. Whoosh. So the movement of the wind.
Whoosh. Ok, to whoosh through the trees.
Number nine, a little bit slower now so we will slow it down a bit.
The word is crawl. To crawl means to move very very slowly.
Crawl. Ok, so if your car is in trouble and it's got some mechanical difficulty and you crawl along the street until you get to the garage looking for help.
Something's wrong with my car, I can't get it to go out of first gear so I had to crawl here.
Or if the traffic is really heavy and your car is fine but you're just not able to go very fast because there's too much traffic, you get to the office and say, aw I'm sorry for being late, the traffic just crawled along today I don't know what happened so moved really, really slowly.
And crawl is often the first action of a young child just before it begins to walk.
So, for several months the child will crawl along the floor on its hands and knees, yeah.
It moves he or she slowly as they crawl along.
And then as they get a little bit more adventurous, they crawl along but a little bit more quickly and when you thought the child was behind you, you look around and she or he is somewhere else in a different room.
But crawling means that action being on the hands and knees or something that moves really really slowly.
Okay so that gets us up to number 10.
Now number 10 is all about military steps, marching, okay so the marching of the soldiers.
You hear the noise left, right, left, right, left, right as they march in unison along the parade or around the parade under the watchful eye of their corporal or sergeant or whoever is in charge of that Part of the the military at the time so they March okay, so it's a forced Step.
It's a regular beat okay So March one two one two and we can also have the marching of a brass band And they March up and down the streets playing their brass Instruments their horns and whatever it might be so the marching of the band.
So it's very musical very rhythmical okay, so, but it's a little bit like that military step, they are all marching in line, one behind the other to march. Number 11 is to leap.
Leap is a jump, yeah?
Usually, leaping into the air, leap from one stone or rock to the other.
Yeah, one giant step, yeah, one leap.
Lots of animals leap, yeah?
When you watch them, they don't just run, run.
They run and they leap across the ground.
So it helps him to go a little bit quicker to leap.
Number twelve to drift. This often refers to water and ships and boats, not always but most of the time.
So, you can drift out to sea.
So if you're unfortunate or not so careful and you're lying on one of these air beds on the sea and then the current or the wind takes you out you drift out to sea and it could be very very dangerous so you have to be very very careful or if the boat isn't tied up to the edge of the river or the lake with the currents under the water or the tide it will drift out it will drift out into open water or it will drift away meaning it'll just Disappear and you won't be able to stop it, or you won't even be able to to find it so you can say drift out or Drift away yeah number 13 creep now This is again is another
action another slow action But usually it's something when you're trying to do something unseen or unheard or in the quiet or secret Okay, so he crept up the stairs as he came in late at night because he didn't want to wake the rest of the family But of course as he tried to creep up the stairs the stairs were creaking.
Yeah Let's go everybody knew who it was and what time it was and the next morning Ah, we heard you coming in.
We heard you creeping up the stairs so as the parents do at Christmas they creep down the stairs to put out all the presents under the tree so the children will get a great surprise on Christmas morning when they wake up, so they creep up the stairs or creep down the stairs, okay?
Or burglars, they creep around the house not to disturb the residents or the neighbors so that they can steal what they came to steal, So they crept around the house in darkness, trying to find the jewels, or the money, or whatever they were after to creep, okay?
Number 14, limp. If you've got a sore foot, a sore leg, a knee you hurt playing some sport, then you'll know all about this word, because it's very difficult to put your weight, your full weight on your foot, your ankle, your leg, or your knee, because it really hurts.
So you are forced to limp around.
So you can't put all of your weight on that left or right leg.
So you have to almost hop, yeah?
So you limp. You drag your leg a little bit.
And somebody says, what happened to you?
You're limping. Ah, you know, its one of those silly things.
I told the friends that I play football with them and I really, I haven't played football for years.
Of course, five minutes in, somebody tackled me, that was it, twisted my ankle and I've been limping all over the weekend.
Well, you know what you should do with that?
You should ice it, but plenty of ice, that's what you should do, ice it, okay?
That's a family joke in this house, to ice it.
Anytime something goes wrong with somebody, ice it, ice it.
So when you're limping, you've hurt your leg, then yeah, you need to be careful about you limp.
Yeah, you can't put all of your weight on that left foot or the right foot.
You have to limp. or some unfortunate dogs or cats that have been hit by a car or just old age for the dog, they limp around the house.
They limp around the garden because they are not able to put all of their weight on that leg either to limp.
Number 15, stagger.
Another interesting movement of the legs.
Yes, we stagger down the stairs in the morning when we've just got out of bed and we're not really with it yet and we really need a cup of coffee to wake us up.
So we stagger down the stairs.
Of course, if you've had one or two drinks, more than you should have had, you're definitely going to stagger.
You'll stagger along the street, home from the pub.
The morning comes, and the partner says, What time did you stagger home at?
I heard the door opening, I heard the door banging, I heard you falling about the stairs.
You must have been in an awful state.
you were staggering here and staggering there, okay.
So stagger can be self inflicted because you've had too much to drink.
You can stagger because you're sick, not feeling so well.
Perhaps you're going to faint and you stagger over to the chair to sit down.
The temperature outside is touching 38, you're really needed to bring some water.
You can feel the heat and you stagger around the park, not feeling so good, so you find a park bench and you eventually sit down.
so to stagger. Number 16 here is slide.
To slide down. When you take the kids to the park, they love playing on the playground so you've got swings, roundabouts, all sorts of things and of course you've got the slide and the slide is literally you sit on the top and slide down, that's the motion, that's the action, that's the movement from the top to the bottom to slide down and in the past tense slid.
He slid down on his bum okay so if you take the kids skiing and you go in one of these little rubber rings down a little slope you slide down to the bottom or he slid down on his bottom because he couldn't control the wheel of the tyre okay slide slid and usually with that preposition down to slide down okay and you can use it in lots of different ways, again if we use it in a sporting context.
If a tennis player hasn't been playing well for several months, he hasn't been winning any competitions or qualifying for the important rounds then he will slide down the points table so he's not winning enough points and the people behind him are overtaking him and now he's number 20th in the world rankings when used to be number eight so he has slid down the table and he needs to improve his performance otherwise he's not going to get invited to the big events to slide down.
Number 17 rush okay when you're in a rush you're in a hurry when you're in a rush you are running around quickly grabbing this grabbing that so you get up late out of bed you know run down the stairs and your partner says you got time for breakfast no no I'm in a rush I have to rush I have to go very very quickly I've got a meeting in oh my god in half an hour I really need to go so you have to rush okay or you're meeting friends for coffee I said look I can only stay for a few minutes I have to rush home it's my wife's birthday I promised I would take you out yeah so to rush means to do something
quickly, to do something in a hurry not necessarily so well planned and usually because you're late for something.
You've left it late to get up, you've left it late to buy that present for your wife, you've left it late to get to the office, so inevitably you have to rush to get there, to rush.
And then finally, stroll.
Stroll around the place as if there's no tomorrow, yeah?
You just stroll around the park not in a rush you stroll around the shopping center doing some window shopping yeah the impresario who's introducing the theatrical performance comes onto the stage strollers across the stage ladies and gentlemen it's my great pleasure this evening to welcome you to blah blah blah blah blah so strolls onto the stage and makes the announcements OK, so these are all different verbs connected with movement words and verbs that you can use in all of those proficiency exams, particularly in writing but also in your speaking tests.
You've got 18 of them, so lots of them to choose from.
I suggest you pick a few, practice and see what action activity you can associate with them and see how you can use them.
And, as always, you know the by now if you don't understand any, or you need some extra help or you need some other examples, yeah, you just drop me a line www .englishlessonvia Skype .com Very happy to hear from you, very happy to help you.
So this is Harry, thanking you for watching, for listening, and as always, join me for the next lesson!
