Here is a quote for you.
There are three things we cry for in life.
Things that are lost, things that are found and things that are magnificent.
That's a quote by Douglas Coupland, who is a Canadian journalist and novelist.
It's true that when we lose something, it can be terrible losing a person in our life, or losing something material as well.
And finding it again can also be wonderful.
Crying can mean, well, crying for things which make us sad or crying for happiness.
In my life, I've lost a lot of things, or rather I did when I was a lot younger.
But I had an older sister, I have an older sister, who gave me this piece of advice.
She said whenever you get up from a place, turn round before you leave and look to see if there's anything left on the table, on the chair where you've just been sitting.
And I learned that piece of advice, and for many years now I've lost very few things.
One example is my umbrella, or should I say my wife's and my umbrella, our umbrella.
We took that umbrella with us when we went on honeymoon, when we got married.
And we still have it today.
And we use it.
We take it out whenever it rains.
Not that it rains so much here in Seville, but we've given it lots of use.
And we still have it.
We haven't lost it after 20 years of marriage.
Today I'm going to look at vocabulary which talks about losing and finding things.
And these words are B2 words, so this is going to be a B2 podcast.
And then there'll be a story where I'm going to use the words.
So, here we go.
Hello and welcome to Practicing English.
My name is Mike Bilbre and these are podcasts for students of English at B1 or B2 levels.
For transcripts, please go to practicingenglish.com.
Would you like to see my books for learning B1 and B2 level English?
Then go to the show notes at your podcast app, and just below today's lesson you'll see a link to Amazon and there you'll be able to read about my new B1 book and my B2 book.
Check it out today.
Right, the first thing to say is that I'm going to do things a little differently today.
I'm going to read through some words which are B2 words for finding and losing things.
And then I'm going to read the story and ask you to listen for the words and the context they're used in in the story.
You can find these words and the audio script of the story at my website, which is practicingenglishcom podcast 288, and also at your podcast application, where you have the show notes.
My first word is vanish.
To vanish.
To vanish is to disappear.
Here's an example.
My wallet seems to have vanished without a trace.
To vanish seems almost mystical, almost magical.
Something disappears and we just have no idea where it could be.
Without a trace, it means there is no clue at all.
Where it could be.
Without a trace.
Vanished without a trace.
My next word is a more formal word.
Locate.
So that's like a Latin-based word.
So that's why it's more formal.
To locate is to find something.
It took hours to locate the missing documents.
To locate them.
To find them.
My next one is to restore.
Again, it's more of a formal word.
It's a Latin-based word.
It has sort of two meanings, really.
The first meaning of restore is if we have a work of art, like a painting, and it has been damaged or it has slowly lost its colour.
If it's a painting, for example, over the years we can work on that painting or an expert can work on it and restore it to its original colors.
And then, also, it has this meaning, again, of losing something.
For example, the stolen jewelry was restored to its original owner, restored to somebody, meaning it was stolen.
The police found it and gave it back to the original owner to restore something to somebody.
To find it and give it back.
My next one is, well, it's a word that you know, disappear.
But the V2 derivative of this word is disappearance.
So that's the noun.
Okay, so that would be useful for doing the B2 FCE exam, Cambridge.
Well then, if you're doing part three and you have to know the different derivatives of the words, if you remember, and so disappear would be disappearance in the noun.
The disappearance of the important files was never explained.
The disappearance of Next one.
Again, it's the noun of discover.
Discovery.
So another useful word for part three of the FCE reading and use of English test.
I made a discovery last night.
I found snails on my cabbages in the garden.
A discovery.
The discovery of the new world by Christopher Columbus.
The next one is also a noun.
It's interesting how a lot of the nouns are less frequent than the verbs or adjectives.
And it is search.
So, to search, as you know, is the verb, but it's also a noun.
A search.
A search was made for the missing hikers.
At the moment, they have not been located.
Now, here's another word which is actually B2, it's a verb.
It's not very common, but it's in the B2 glossary.
To seek, S-E-E-K.
Now, this is quite formal, or it could be literary, what you find perhaps if you're reading a novel.
But also formal, and I've seen it in job advertisements in the newspapers.
We are seeking top secretaries for our London office.
We are seeking.
We are looking for.
Seeking sounds more formal.
Now, if we do find something, and especially if we find something unexpectedly, we didn't expect to find it well then we have the phrasal verb to turn up.
My dorky finally turned up.
It was under the sofa.
My door key finally turned up.
So I wasn't really looking for it, but there it was under the sofa while I was doing the vacuuming.
To turn up.
Next one is to go missing, which is not actually in the P2 glossary, but...
It's a nice combination of the words.
Something is missing.
The action, the active form of the verb is to go missing.
Several files went missing after the office renovation.
They went missing.
So that's the collocation that we use there.
Meaning they have disappeared.
Now we have another phrasal verb.
A bit like turn up.
But turn up, if you think about it, something turns up is a non-transitive verb.
It means it doesn't have a direct object.
This one does.
Come across.
I came across these old photograph albums in the attic.
Again, so it means finding something, perhaps unexpectedly again.
But there's a transitive form, so it has a direct object.
We came across these old photographs.
Compare to turn up, which is the old photographs turned up.
To hold onto.
Now, to hold onto means do something so you don't lose an object.
For example, when you buy something.
If you say to the shop assistant that perhaps you'd like to take it back if you're not certain that you want to keep it or are you going to try it on at home well then the shop assistant might say to you make sure you hold on to the receipt, and then you can return the jacket or the jeans or whatever it is.
Hold on to something, keep it, and don't Lose it.
And my final one is, again, it's a noun of the verb to replace.
And so the noun is replacement.
A part of the car engine is worn.
The garage are going to find a replacement.
So they're going to find another one to replace the old one.
So we've got different nouns there in my list.
Disappearance ending in ance.
Discovery ending in ery.
And we've got replacement ending in ment.
Right.
Those are the words.
I'm now going to read you a story.
Just listen out for the words.
I'll say which ones were mentioned in the story after i finished.
Here we go with the story, though now this is actually a true story and i've actually used the original names, i don't think it matters much.
This story has been publicized so many times, it's even ended up in english textbooks, but it's about losing something, the object being restored to its owner.
It's called the lost ring.
Mary grahams, a woman from alberta canada, lost her diamond engagement ring in 2004 while she was working in a garden.
The ring slipped off her finger But although she made a long search for it, in the end she believed it had gone missing forever.
Mary was very disappointed about the disappearance of her ring, but she didn't want to worry her husband.
Instead of telling him, she decided to buy a replacement ring and wore that for many years.
Thirteen years later, Mary's daughter-in-law made an interesting discovery.
She was picking vegetables from the same garden when she pulled up a strange carrot.
Around the carrot was a gold ring.
When the family cleaned it, they realized it was Mary's original engagement ring.
It had finally turned up.
Mary was over the moon!
Despite being in the ground all that time, it was in perfect condition and did not need restoring.
It even fit her finger.
The family believes the ring had fallen into the soil years earlier and as the carrot grew, it passed through the ring.
The story quickly became well-known around the world and reminded many people that although things can go missing, they may turn up again, even after a long, long time.
Okay, so that's the story.
Interesting story, isn't it, really?
Fascinating one.
How the...
The carrot grew inside the ring.
Okay, so the words which I used for my original list were a long search.
Okay, the noun of to search.
And then phrase collocation go missing.
It had gone missing forever.
And then the disappearance of her ring.
The word replacement.
But interestingly, I used it here as an adjective.
As many nouns can be used as adjectives.
And I said that she decided to buy a replacement ring.
A replacement or a replacement ring.
So using here a noun as an adjective.
Her daughter-in-law made an interesting discovery.
And it had finally turned up.
And then it did not need restoring because it was in very good condition.
Other words in the story, which are B2.
Well, the engagement ring.
If you were wondering what that was, perhaps from the context it was quite obvious.
An engagement ring is before you get married.
Perhaps the man may give to the woman a ring of promise, to promise to get married.
And then, perhaps afterwards, the couple will have a wedding ring.
But an engagement ring is to celebrate their engagement, which is a promise to be married.
And there was a nice expression there, that Mary was over the moon.
The moon in the night sky.
To be over the moon is a B2 expression, which means to be very happy.
Really happy, because something good has happened.
That's all from me until next week.
I'll be back with another B1 and B2 podcast.
Have a peaceful weekend.
Don't lose anything.
Things are precious.
