This is an All Ears English podcast episode 1503.
Up your English game with these five new words.
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Let's get an upgrade to your English.
Level up and listen in today for five new words using the prefix up in English.
Find out what they are and how to use them to connect.
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Hey, Lindsay, how are you?
Awesome, Michelle, doing well.
What about you?
What's going on in your world?
I'm good.
I'm good.
I'm excited to record today.
And today's episode is actually going to be about something a follow up.
You know, guys, every once in a while, we'll be recording an episode.
And you might hear me or Lindsay say something like Oh man, we have to do an episode about that in the future.
And, you know, so this is one of those.
Yeah, we really come up with our ideas pretty spontaneously, either while we're recording or from your questions, which you You can always send us your questions, guys or just out in the world on the street.
I came up with one today when I was just out walking my dog.
So that'll be another good one.
Looking forward to that.
So what are we getting into then today?
Well, today we're going to be talking about up as a prefix, right?
Because we were talking about updos.
Yes.
And an episode, it was episode 1455, seven ways to describe a beautiful woman's hair in English.
So I believe it was that one.
Okay.
Where we were talking about this, but we also did so happen that the next episode, 1456 was, was crank up the volume to use natural phrasal verbs in English.
And yeah, with crank up.
So yeah, this is... Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So many episodes with up in it.
I know.
And guys, I know.
I mean, we're also doing with Aubrey, we're doing a series on phrasal verbs.
So you're going to hear more over there where you use up as a part of a phrasal verb.
But it's important, right?
These little prepositions, they do matter.
And you need to know the native ones, the natural ones, not the textbook ones.
Okay for that connection.
That's what it's all about.
Absolutely.
So some of these are just with up in the, you know, in the expression because I liked them.
But some of them are more as a prefix.
So we're going to give you some cool new words, some expressions to use with up.
Yes, I like it.
Let's dive right into them, Michelle.
Okay, definitely.
All right.
So what is the first one, Lindsay?
Okay, upsell, upsell.
So, for example, when you try to get someone to buy more than they intended originally, who does this a lot, Michelle.
Is it like the phone company, maybe?
Well, salespeople.
Yeah, for sure.
For sure.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
So like, yeah, it could be the phone company.
I mean, when you think about it, like, I feel like that always happens, right?
When you are trying to purchase a new phone plan.
And then they it could be like the phone company tried to upsell me with a better plan, but I didn't take it.
Yeah.
Sometimes the upsells can be, you know, really worth it.
I mean for somebody.
But sometimes they're not worth it for you.
But it can be tempting to do it because it's like ah, it's cheap, you know.
I know.
I know.
Have you ever called to cancel something, some kind of subscription, maybe cable or phone, and you end up like signing on for two more years?
Yeah.
I feel like that happens with Dan with the radio, like the Sirius radio.
Oh, okay.
Do you have Sirius?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And this reminds me of an episode of Friends.
Maybe some of our listeners have watched this episode where they're trying to quit going to the gym or leave the bank and they just can't do it.
That's hilarious.
I bet that's a funny episode.
I love it.
Yeah, gyms do that too.
Gyms above all because their whole business model is about getting people to sign up in January.
And it's all about that January sign up for sure.
Love it.
Right, right, right, right.
Exactly.
Oh my gosh.
Lindsay, what's the next one?
Okay.
Like this one too.
Upscale.
So this is something that is fancy, high end.
For example, let's just go to a dive bar.
I'm not in the mood to pay more for an upscale place.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah, I think that's a really good one.
Definitely good to talk about.
You know restaurants or maybe party or you know, so it could even help you know what to wear, right.
Like, is this an upscale event?
Yeah, that would actually be a great thing to say, instead of asking someone oh, is this a fancy event?
Which sounds a little juvenile sometimes when we say that, right?
Is it fancy?
I think it sounds a little juvenile.
Instead, you can say, is this upscale?
Is this an upscale venue?
Right, right, right.
That's a more formal way to say it.
Definitely.
Yeah.
So upscale, that is a good one.
Oh, man, I don't know the last time I went to an upscale event, Lindsay.
I know.
I was gonna ask you, do you like to go to like upscale restaurants and go out?
If you have some extra cash?
Do you like I mean, not in pandemic times, obviously, let's imagine a non pandemic world.
Yeah.
It's a nice world.
Do I like to go?
– To go to fancy restaurants, high-end restaurants, or would you rather – On occasion.
On occasion.
I'm not like super huge into super fancy restaurants.
If I had the money to just splurge on that stuff right away, maybe I'd do it.
Yeah.
I tend to sometimes feel like the upscale restaurants give you less food and sometimes I don't really get it.
I don't know.
What do you think, Lindsay?
Yeah, I have kind of mixed feelings.
I would.
If I had, you know, 100 to spend, I wouldn't necessarily spend it to go out to an upscale restaurant.
I'd probably go and travel somewhere or go do some sport for a day outside.
But yeah.
Sometimes it's nice to taste really, really good food, but that doesn't have to come just from an upscale place, I guess.
Right?
I mean, there are some places that have really really good food so you don't need huge portions.
But they don't have to be fancy, but often they are.
Right, right, right.
Exactly.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Today we're learning a bunch of words with up, but it might be easy to get confused with so many words that start the same way.
So the best way to make sure that you remember them next week and can use them in a conversation the week after is to add them to your personal power list on our iOS app.
Go to allearsenglishcom, forward slash bonuses to start your seven-day free trial, and it's coming soon for Android.
But for now, on iOS, go to allearsenglish.com forward slash bonuses.
The next one, I really like this one.
I think that we can identify with this one, Lindsay.
Uproot.
Yeah.
So to uproot is to move from a stable place like your home to somewhere else to be pulled out.
Like imagine like the roots of a tree being pulled out of the ground.
Right, Michelle?
Right, right, right.
Definitely.
So, for an example, you could say something like I don't want to uproot our whole family just because I got a new job.
So I'm imagining there maybe the mother or father is being offered an opportunity to move their family somewhere far away and they are expressing that their family has roots in a certain place.
Maybe the kids are in school, whatever it is.
And they say, oh, I don't want to do it.
Oh, my gosh.
Yeah.
By the way, this is something that's really common in American culture.
I mean, it was in the 80s and the 90s.
I think maybe now with more people working remotely online, it'll happen less.
But...
You know, I remember when I was a kid, I was seven.
My best friend, she moved away.
Then she moved back.
Then she moved away again.
Like her dad, worked for an insurance company and he was getting moved to Georgia, to Chicago, to all over the place.
And I was just I was sad.
I was destroyed.
My best friend moved away. you know?
Yeah.
But so common.
It's so common.
Yeah.
Definitely.
Oh my gosh.
I know that it can be, it could be traumatic as a, as a child if you have to move somewhere far.
If you think about that as a kid, like your very best friend just leaving, and you don't understand it you, you know.
No one's really explained why.
It's just like, it's kind of crazy.
I don't know.
That's really common in our culture for sure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.
All right, let's move on.
We got a couple more.
So let's do the next one is to up your game.
That's a good one.
That's a good one.
I love it.
I love this one.
Yeah.
It's to do better.
It's to work harder, right?
You've been kind of at the certain level and now you are adding to it, right?
So you could say you have to up your game if you want to get into Harvard.
Yeah, I love it.
It's kind of similar to the term level up, right?
To level up.
Yeah, up your game.
I say this all the time.
We need to up our game with this and this and this.
We need to improve and do better.
Raise the standard.
Right, right, right.
Definitely good for business, for sure.
Really good for business, for sure, for sure.
An upstanding citizen is our last one for our listeners.
What's that mean, Michelle?
Well, an upstanding citizen is basically a good person who follows the rules, right?
You can use upstanding by itself as well, but here we're using upstanding citizen, this little chunk.
You could say something like, I don't believe she would do anything wrong.
She's an upstanding citizen after all.
Yeah.
And guys don't get this one confused with outstanding person.
Like an outstanding person, outstanding event.
I don't know.
Different, right?
Just listen closely.
Make sure you don't get those two words confused.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Exactly.
Exactly.
That's important.
You don't want to confuse those.
So also, I wanted to alert our listeners of one more episode they could listen to with Up.
So with Upgrade, because I was going to do Upgrade and then I realized wow, we have a whole episode.
It's upgrade your English with one special word.
So that's episode 1258.
So another good one to listen to.
So we're not going to talk about upgrade really, because you have to listen to that episode.
Okay, cool.
So a lot of these phrases are about getting better, upgrade up your game level up.
Yeah, but guys, go check out the I mean, Michelle, a lot of good words here.
I think these are definitely going to be going in the iOS app.
What do you think?
Oh my gosh, are you kidding?
Yeah, for sure.
These are great ones for the iOS app.
Guys, we chose some really natural ones.
But you know, of course, when you hear a word with up, You know at the beginning you think of getting better, getting greater.
You know getting bigger in some way.
So, you know, always when you see a word with up at the beginning, you can kind of alert yourself.
Even if you don't know what the word is, you know, you can kind of start to make some guesses.
Oh my gosh, you have to, guys.
This is the way you take clues when it comes to language learning.
I mean, I know I did that when it came to SATs, right?
You study vocabulary, you study the roots of the words, not just every word.
So then you get an idea of what that word means.
You don't have to memorize every single word, guys.
I love it.
Definitely.
By the way, Michelle, where can our listeners get that iOS app?
You can get it at allearsenglish.com slash bonuses.
Yeah, awesome.
And guys, the Android app is coming this year.
I'm so excited.
You'll hear more soon, but it is coming.
Oh my gosh.
I'm excited because I'm an Android user.
So guys, we are going to up our game with this new app.
Big time.
I mean.
So many of our listeners are now going to be able to listen in the app and therefore create their vocabulary, personal vocabulary list.
See the transcripts right there inside their phone.
I mean, it's going to change your game, guys, when it comes to listening to this podcast.
So just tune in, stay tuned in.
You'll hear more about it soon.
Okay.
Awesome, Lindsay.
So what's the takeaway for today?
The takeaway, guys, these words and expressions, they're useful, they're common, they're native.
And I like what we said just now, Michelle, pay attention to like what up really means.
And you can infer the meaning of these words if you just know that up is in that word, right?
You can already get halfway there by knowing the meaning by connecting the dots.
Right, right, right.
Exactly.
So definitely like perk your ears up when you see that you know.
Think, wait a second.
I can guess the meaning of this word.
I can connect the dots.
I like that, Lindsay.
I like that expression.
What does that mean?
To connect the dots?
Oh my God, that's our bonus expression for today.
Also probably going in the iOS app.
So that means find the patterns.
Right.
Find the pattern, read between the lines, understand what's really going on behind the scenes with things.
It's like a shortcut to find the answer to things.
Yeah, definitely.
Okay.
I love it, guys.
All right.
Well, thank you for listening.
And Lindsay, thanks for talking about this today.
Good one today, Michelle.
I'll talk to you soon.
Take care.
Bye.
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