This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 225.
Are you apoplectic? Three tips for understanding business vocabulary.
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Offer ends August 10th. allearsenglish.com connection hello aubrey good morning how's it going i'm great lindsay how are you feeling good excited but i have a question to start off today you ready awesome yes all right so have you encountered any words in english recently that were new to you has anything come up Yes, absolutely.
I was reading a book called Dark Matter, which is a great book, by the way.
And there were several, this author used a lot of words that aren't used very often in daily conversation.
So I started adding some to like a vocabulary notebook and looking at most of them I could tell from context what they meant.
Right. But one of them I remember was commensurate.
Yes. It was one of those where I'm like, I have heard this word.
I know I should know what it means. I had to read the sentence carefully to figure out in context what it meant.
Yes. And it just means like proportionate.
Right. We'll often hear salary will be commensurate with experience means like proportionate to something else.
Right. We don't hear that word very often in daily conversations.
Well, we certainly don't use it in conversation, right?
You see that if you read like job ads a lot, you see it in there.
But otherwise, yeah, you're right. It doesn't come up that much.
Totally. Exactly. So this is interesting.
We're answering two listener questions that were very similar about this, about unfamiliar vocabulary that you're learning.
How should you track it and how can you make sure to use it so that you actually learn it and can access it?
Exactly. You guys learned so much vocab here.
We want to make sure you can absorb it and start to use it.
But first, Aubrey, what should our listeners do on Business English right here?
Yes. Hit follow right here on the podcast.
You guys, we have so much great vocabulary strategies for work, especially if you work in English.
So be sure to follow the podcast. 100%, guys, hit that follow button right here.
Wherever you listen, don't forget, it could be Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen, hit the follow button.
We have two questions that were kind of similar.
Can I read Prejot's question? Yes. All right.
So Prejot Deshmukh says, you have a great approach to teaching English.
Well, thank you. But my question is how to improve our vocabulary because you use some words that are alien to us.
I'm sure a lot of listeners have had this thought before.
Absolutely. I have this thought when I was reading this book, I had this thought, okay, I'm hearing, and whenever I read a book in Spanish or French, there will be a lot of unfamiliar vocabulary.
So what do we do? How do we improve our vocabulary, but not get overwhelmed?
And we got a similar question. I could read this one from MB.
Okay. who said, I noticed you started receiving questions from the audience.
I do have a question. I love learning English and I enjoy studying it.
I read English books and articles and I fully understand them, but my struggle is with vocabulary.
Whenever I come across a new word, I make sure to know what it means, how to use it, and I write a blog post with that word in my mind.
However, I have piles of vocabulary added to my dictionary and my notes app.
I just keep forgetting them and I don't seem to find an efficient way to keep them anchored or memorized.
Do you have any questions? Do you have any suggestions?
Thanks a ton, MB. Such a classic question, classic problem, right?
Oh yeah, absolutely. For anyone learning a language and even in your first language, like with this book I read, I'm like, okay, there's a lot of words here I haven't learned. yeah this is kind of why we built the all ears english app now business english does not go into the app but that is if you do listen to all ears english our other show and you listen inside the ios android app you get to highlight seven keywords per episode save them and review them in your special list every day so that is something to know guys keep that in mind but we're going to give some tips today right yes and one of them is to use that app actually so yes as a little hint for the future No, we're going to share three tips, guys, for building your business English vocabulary or your vocabulary in general.
These tips can be used anytime you listen to or read English.
So whether you're listening to this podcast, the Elders English podcast, there are some specific things that you can do to make sure you learn this vocabulary and are able to use it.
Yes. So let's go into the first one. Right.
Let's let's get ourselves ready. So the first one.
What is it, Aubrey? What's the advice from us?
First one is to try to determine the meaning of an unfamiliar word from context.
Don't go straight to the dictionary. You're going to lose time looking up the definition, looking up example sentences.
Instead, you are at the level where you may be able to read the sentences around a word, think for a second, and figure out what it means from the context of the sentence.
Well, you're also going to lose connection.
Let's imagine you're walking the city streets with someone that you want to connect with and they say a word.
And if you go down to your phone, now you're on your phone.
Or even if it's a dictionary on the phone.
There's a lot of research that says that as even if you're not looking, I saw this recently.
They say that even if you're not looking at your phone, if you have it in your hand, the person you're with automatically realizes that they are not the number one priority.
Isn't that incredible? That makes sense.
Yeah. And it's really hard to not be checking, checking, text checking, right?
To be looking at it. And it's true. You sort of tune out the other person and it really destroys connection.
Yeah. So don't let that happen, right? Use the context.
OK, we have an example to help because this is a skill you have to develop.
It's not going to necessarily be automatic for you to be able to determine the context.
So I pulled the sentence where I saw this word commensurate in this book.
And this was a sentence. The pedestrian and traffic levels were appropriate for a Friday night in New York City and the air carried a commensurate energy.
So now, granted, if I saw that sentence in, you know, salary will be commensurate with the position.
Oh, OK, I understand what's meant here. But this sentence, I had to look at the context like, all right, they're talking about a busy Friday night in New York saying the air carried a commensurate energy.
OK, means like similar energy. Oh, and I didn't need to look it up in the dictionary.
I could double check, but I would be able to just continue reading, recognizing like this is an unfamiliar word, but I know what it is in context.
I'm not going to break my focus. Keep reading.
Yeah, I like it. I love it. Don't break your focus.
Continue the conversation. Or if you're reading it, use that word immediately.
I love it. So it becomes clear when we look at the context.
I think maybe we have some bad habits from when we learned English originally or learned any language, the tendency to go straight to the book, to the dictionary, to the textbook.
But we have to get out of that, Aubrey. Yes.
And it can be a real problem. I started reading Don Quixote in Spanish and I was like, I'm going to look up every word and add words to my vocabulary list.
Guess how far I got in the book Don Quixote.
Do you think I finished that book? Absolutely not.
I finished like one page. Are you saying you got bored basically?
It just became too big of a chore to look up all of the words.
And I had piles of vocabulary like MB was saying, and I wasn't able to use any of that vocabulary and I gave up on the book.
Oh, my gosh. I mean, instead, let's focus on the interesting piece of that sentence.
The pedestrian traffic levels were appropriate for Friday night in New York and the air carried a commensurate energy.
Aubrey, I was just talking to someone about this the other night about New York City, a friend of mine who's a little older, who lived in New York for 15 years.
I don't know any other city that has a level of energy that New York does on a Friday night.
I mean, the energy is incredible. absolutely agreed and i've i've traveled quite a bit and i've lived in a few big cities but there was nothing like new york especially late at night it would still be loud and buzzy and the hum and not just tourists yeah locals and lots of people out really late lots of fun things to go and do very lively electricity running through the veins of the city so if you are looking at your phone looking up oh is it an adjective is it a verb looking up the parts of speech what are you missing?
You're not going to think to start that conversation.
Isn't New York really a live city at night?
Isn't that amazing? What other cities do you love?
That's the connection moment, right? Yes, exactly.
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Let's go to our next tip here. So I love what MB was saying.
She's clearly or he is clearly keeping some kind of vocabulary notebook or spreadsheet.
And for Prejat, maybe not. Right. If you're hearing new words, you need to be keeping track of them.
But should you be making piles and piles of vocabulary, Lindsay, what do you think?
Oh, my gosh. I really I advise against that.
Piles are so stressful. Piles of anything are stressful.
Stressful piles of anything, be it laundry, vocabulary, you don't want piles of anything.
The problem is if you have piles of new vocabulary, you won't ever get to actually using it and being able to access it for those conversations to make connections with people.
So don't add every new word, whether it's our podcast, a book you're reading, you want to choose a few words that you find interesting, that you know you'll be able to use in conversation.
Right. Record those to keep from getting piles of vocabulary.
I love that idea. So you're saying less is more, right?
Less is more. And then like you said, Lindsay, there are lots of, there are software, there are apps that can help you with this.
For the All Ears English podcast, if you get our app, we've done all the heavy lifting for you.
We've chosen those interesting words. We define them.
You just tap them. You get the definition, an example sentence.
You can add it to your vocabulary list. And then as you find yourself mastering them and being able to use them in conversation, you can remove them.
Right. How cool of a feature, right? As you said, we've done the heavy lifting.
And so we've selected, you know, you might hear in this episode today, you might hear 25 words that you don't know what they are.
You become a little stressed out. No. we've we're going to give you at least for the all ears english podcast the five that really matter that will be useful that will be helpful and those are the ones you should add or break it down to just one select just one of those that we've highlighted in the app for you and the other piece when you go with less is more you come out with just one that means you're going to actually learn how to use that one word in a more flexible way because then your task is to go figure out five different ways to use that one word Exactly.
Think of the end goal, right? The end goal is to actually be able to use this vocabulary.
So if you have piles and you're never able to actually use any of it, you're not meeting the goal.
Whereas if you learn five new words in a day or a week and you're able to use all five of those in English conversations going forward, now you're reaching your goal.
Yeah, that's really what moves the needle, right, Aubrey?
Yes, absolutely. Okay, number three. What's our last suggestion here?
Yes. This is very linked to number two. You must use the vocabulary that you're learning ASAP and often.
So you want to use it as soon as possible in an actual conversation.
You can create role plays, you know, give yourself a chance to practice these out loud before you even have a chance to speak with someone in person.
Use it as soon as possible. Use it often.
So it actually becomes part of your active vocabulary.
I love that idea. I love that idea. So good.
Make yourself use it. Figure out situations where you'll encounter it.
When I lived in Japan, I put my vocab words all over my apartment with sticky notes.
That was just my apartment. I didn't have anyone that would say, oh, that looks terrible.
Take it down. So find your own way to do it.
Right? Yes. The biggest mistake you can make is to learn, learn, learn, make piles of words and then never actually use them.
So make that more manageable and less stressful, like you said, Lindsay, by having a smaller list of words instead of piles.
And then actively, proactively use those words in your conversation.
And that is going to become more daunting if you do have piles of vocabulary.
Like I have so many new words here, I'm never going to be able to add them all.
Right. So limit that in the first place.
All right. Let's go into a role play. Did we create a little role play for our listeners today?
What do you think? Yes. In this role play, Lindsay and I are chatting before a meeting, and we're going to use a vocabulary word that might be unfamiliar to you to give you a chance to try to figure out the meaning from the context.
Love it. Okay. Wow. Okay. Go for it, Aubrey.
I'll start us out. Ready? My neighbor's dog was apoplectic this morning when we walked past their house.
I couldn't believe it. Oh no, what happened?
Did anyone get hurt? No, luckily it was chained up.
It was barking and snarling really loudly.
I don't know what it was so angry about.
Ooh, I love this word. I've been wondering what this word means, actually.
Literally, I don't know what it means. Oh, I love that.
I love that I chose one. This was also from that same book, Dark Matter.
There were at least 50 words throughout the course of this book where I'm like, I don't know this word.
He was sort of sesquipedalian. Remember we talked about that as sort of like using big words just to use big words, but it was fun for me.
So I'm like, I'm learning new words. So what does it mean?
How do we figure out what this means? Let's see if we can figure it out in context, right?
So I called a dog apoplectic. This is our word.
Might be unfamiliar with it. Both Lindsay and I were before reading this book.
I did not know this word. What do you think from the context?
What might this mean? Apoplectic and what else do I say about the dog?
You said, so my neighbor's dog was apoplectic this morning when we walked past their house.
Did anyone get hurt? Sounds like he was maybe kind of aggressive or crazy, going nuts, acting out of the norm some way.
Yeah. And well, maybe this is normal for that dog, right?
We don't know. But it was barking and snarling.
And I say, I don't know what it was so angry about.
So clearly, this means extremely angry. And a person can be apoplectic.
A dog can be apoplectic. Imagine when maybe a politician gets really angry and irate, you could call them apoplectic.
Sure. When I see the word, I think about apocalypse.
I don't know if it comes from that or there's a root there.
Apocalyptically angry. Right, right, right, right.
I don't know if it's got the same, if the apo is like a similar root.
We'll have to dive into that in another episode another day.
But yeah, this is all literally, guys, I didn't know what that word meant, but I had wondered lately because I had been seeing it around.
I love it. I love that you learned a new word.
And this is interesting. It's fun to say with the two Ps.
Yeah. But from context, you can see how you would not have needed to look this word up in the dictionary.
Right. If you hear this conversation or you read it, you get enough information about how the dog was acting that you understand.
You wouldn't need to say, what does that mean?
Epiplectic. It's like, oh, it means it was angry and being aggressive.
And that's all you need to know. yeah that'd be a great other episode idea what could you say if you were me how could i respond to you if i didn't quite know from your first sentence what that word meant maybe i would take out oh no and i would say something like really what happened Does that make sense?
If you don't know, yeah. If you don't know what apoplectic means, instead of saying, oh no, you just be like, really, really what happened?
Give me more information so I can figure out what that word means.
Yeah. Let's do that in another episode. Guys hit follow so you can build that skill.
I think that's going to be a really useful skill for our listeners.
So good. Absolutely. Love that. What's the final takeaway for today?
Yeah, both of these listeners who wrote in and my guess is a lot of you out there listening do feel overwhelmed about learning new vocabulary.
If you're trying to understand every new word, if you're finding yourself with piles of vocabulary that you're adding to your list, you need to make it more manageable.
Okay, good stuff. Good stuff, guys. Don't be intimidated.
And the key piece here too is don't lose connection, looking up a word, putting your phone, your head in your phone.
Don't lose these moments, right? These moments matter.
So don't lose it. Right? Exactly. Right.
Yes. Have a smaller list. Use that vocabulary.
But most importantly, I love what you're saying there, Lindsay, right?
If you are stopping to figure out a word or figure out if it's an adjective or a noun, you may be hurting the connection.
So keep your eyes on your, you know, the person you're talking to.
Yeah. And I love that. Listen for an episode soon about what can you say if you didn't understand the word.
Oh, that's going to be a really, I wonder if we'll do that on business English or all ears English.
We will see. You better follow wherever it is.
You get to hear it. All right. Good stuff.
I'll talk to you soon. Aubrey. Have a good day.
Awesome. You too. Bye. Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.
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