Advanced English Vocabulary Words to INSPIRE
Hey everyone I’m Emma!
Welcome to another mmmEnglish lesson.
Now I know that many of you are desperate to expand
your vocabulary and start using more sophisticated
English words so today let’s focus on some words
that can inspire.
Inspire you and inspire the people around you.
In English, there are many ways to say the same thing.
You know a lot of simple vocabulary already which is
awesome but if you want to earn the respect and the
attention of people around you,
using interesting, thoughtful and meaningful words is
definitely something that you want to work on.
Words are powerful man!
And the words that you choose to use tell people a lot
about the type of person that you are.
Expanding your vocabulary and using
inspiring words can make you more successful
in business, in school, in life, right?
Your words can make others want to be around you.
They command respect.
People are more likely to trust you
or to follow your advice if you use powerful words.
And the words that you use don’t just affect others,
using powerful and positive and inspiring words
will also have a positive impact on you.
Today I’m going to give you six inspiring words
that you should learn
and start using as soon as possible.
I’m going to show you how to say them because really,
if you can’t pronounce these words correctly,
it’s difficult to deliver an inspiring message, right?
I’ll tell you what they mean and I’ll show you
how to use them correctly.
Make sure you turn on the subtitles down there
if you need to and if you would like to translate
this video for your friends or for others in your country,
well that would be pretty damn cool too.
The link to do that, to translate the video
is in the description.
Alright let’s start with the word ‘inspire’.
Yeah if you’re going to inspire people with your words,
you’re going to have to know how to use them, right?
If you inspire someone,
you make them want to do something,
you make them feel confident and excited
to try something. Maybe something new
or maybe something that they haven’t done
in quite a while. Let’s start with pronunciation first.
Inspire.
So that middle syllable is the stressed one.
In my accent, you can’t hear that final R sound
but you would in an American accent.
And in the past, it’s ‘inspired’.
Now that final D is a soft D sound
So when it’s spoken, you hardly hear it.
Inspired.
So hear how the air doesn’t come out.
I feel inspired by her.
Not inspired by her but inspired by her.
So I’m catching that sound before I release it.
So someone can inspire someone
to do something, right?
A friend inspired me to run a marathon.
The orchestra inspired her to study music.
His brother inspired him to travel the world.
Right? So if someone inspires someone else
so the structure is always the same, right?
But you can also be inspired by something.
She was inspired by her boss.
I was inspired by the speech.
Who inspires you?
Is there someone in your life who makes you
excited to do something and makes you want
to do something?
Tell me about that person in the comments.
Tell me who inspires you.
You can also say that they’re an inspiration
or that they are inspiring.
So if you’re thinking of someone who inspires you,
try to use all of these words, all of these words from the
‘inspire’ word family to talk about them.
Now when you’re feeling inspired,
you may need some motivation
to help you take action, right?
Motivation is the reason why you want to do something.
It’s all of the things and the feelings that make you
keep working hard to reach your goals
or to finish something.
You want to become a more confident English speaker
for a purpose, right? It could be to get a better job,
it could be to meet people from other countries,
to study abroad, maybe you’d love to travel.
These are all reasons or your motivation to learn
the language, okay?
So motivation is like a better, more sophisticated way
of saying reason.
You can ask people “What’s your motivation
for learning English?”
Now there’s a lot of syllables to pronounce here.
Motivation.
So words that end in -tion like this one
are usually stressed on the syllable before last
so it’s motivation.
And listen to that last syllable as well.
Motivation.
That last syllable is unstressed,
the vowel sound reduces right down to the schwa
so it’s short and low in pitch.
It’s not
It’s motivation.
My sister Jill works full-time and she studies
medicine at night school.
And that sounds crazy, right?
But her kid’s education is her motivation
for studying at night school.
Now you’ve got the motivation let’s expand
your vocabulary a little because we can use the verb
to motivate,
to motivate someone to do something,
to also express these ideas.
She needs people around her who motivate
and inspire her to succeed.
There are also two adjective forms
that you need to know, the -ed and the -ing forms.
Motivated and motivating.
As soon as I lost a few kilos,
I was motivated to lose more.
His speech was really motivating.
There is another adjective, ‘motivational’.
He’s a motivational speaker.
So I’m curious. What or who
motivates you to keep going?
Tell me about that person in the comments.
I want to take a quick minute to talk about a project
that I’ve been working on. It’s called The Ladies' Project.
Now The Ladies' Project is a community
especially for women who are learning English
and what makes this community so special
and why you might be interested to join it yourself
is that our goal is not to push you to sit exams
or to get another certificate.
Our goal is to inspire you to build confidence
and to keep you motivated and to transform you
into the confident English speaker
that you dream of being
and we do this by helping you to meet
other women who are just like you.
We have conversation topics and lessons
that allow you to have really meaningful, interesting
conversations every day
about things that are really important to us as women.
Not like stuff in a textbook, you know what I mean?
So The Ladies' Project is not an online course,
it’s not another language app, it’s a community,
a social network with real people,
amazing, inspiring women from all over the world.
We all want to have the courage to speak in front of
strangers and to express our thoughts
and our opinions, right?
But you know what?
Becoming a more confident English speaker is not
something that you can do alone.
The Ladies' Project is a place where women from
lots of different cultures can safely meet
speaking partners online and feel comfortable
to speak in English while they build confidence together.
One conversation at a time.
If you follow this link up here you can take
a tour of The Ladies' Project. I’ll show you what it’s like
inside and explain a bit more about the amazing
benefits of being part of this community.
To apply, you do need to be a woman.
You need to have an intermediate English level or higher
and you’ll also need to register a credit card.
The Ladies' Project is a paid community.
I’m completely thrilled to be finally mentioning
The Ladies' Project here on my channel.
It’s something that I’ve been working on for
quite a while now,
something that I’m really passionate about.
And guys, dudes, I know that this project is not for you
but if you have a female friend or a family member
who you want to help them to develop some confidence
using English, then I’m sure they’d love
to hear about The Ladies' Project.
And I would love your help in sharing it.
Learning a new language, using big words,
speaking out loud, all of this takes courage.
Now courage is the ability to do something even though
it might be scary or dangerous or difficult at times.
It relates to your emotional strength.
To do something that you are scared to do,
so it’s kind of similar to bravery.
Hands up if this is a little difficult to pronounce.
There are quite a few different ways to pronounce the
OU in English words.
I talked about them in this lesson actually.
Courage.
In the word ‘courage’ we use the as in ‘up’ vowel sound.
This is the strongest syllable so you need to
make sure that you’re pronouncing it right.
And the final consonant sound might be a little
tricky too. The sound.
So to make it, I’ve got my tongue behind my teeth
and pushed up to the top of my mouth
but the edges of my tongue are pushed or pressed up
to seal the sound in.
Okay before the air gets released.
Notice the movement in my lips as well.
Courage.
Now the verbs ‘have’ and ‘find’ are often used
with the noun ‘courage’.
He has the courage to do the right thing.
Or she found the courage to stand up
and speak at the rally.
Now it’s definitely worth knowing the adjective
‘courageous’ as well.
Courageous.
She’s a very courageous woman.
And if someone doesn’t have the courage,
well you can, of course, encourage them, right?
Encourage sounds really similar to courage.
The pronunciation is almost the same
but the meaning is a little different.
If you encourage someone, you give them hope
and confidence and support to achieve something.
You don’t just tell them that they can do it but you help
them to believe that they can.
By encouraging someone, you can help them
to find courage that they need.
And again, we encourage someone to do something.
Their cheering encouraged me to finish the marathon,
even though I was exhausted.
Her parents encouraged her to study medicine.
So now let’s expand a little.
Something or someone can be encouraging, okay?
That was an encouraging sign.
I think we’re on the right track.
You can also use the noun ‘encouragement’.
And you can use it with verbs like ‘give’ and ‘need’.
I think she needs a little encouragement.
Her teacher should give her some encouragement.
So it’s an uncountable noun, right?
It’s really common to hear this word used
with a quantifier like ‘some’ or ‘any’,
‘a little’ or ‘a lot’.
Empower.
To empower someone is to give them the strength
and the confidence
or the authority to do something.
The Ladies' Project empowers women to speak English
with strangers.
Even the word itself sounds powerful.
Notice that the first vowel sound is actually a short
sound even though it’s spelled with an E it’s not
It’s ‘empower’.
So the second syllable is the stressed one.
And that final syllable is unstressed,
it’s the schwa sound and you don’t hear me say that
Empower.
And surely you’ve noticed the word power in there, right?
To empower someone is to make them stronger
and more confident to do something
and it’s often used to talk about giving power
or strength or control to someone who doesn’t have it.
But don’t be confused. If you are empowered,
it doesn’t always mean that you are powerful.
These two words have quite different meanings.
So for example: The CEO wants to empower
his management team to make strategic decisions
for the company.
What makes you feel empowered?
Or have you ever
empowered someone else in some way?
You’ll hear the -ed and the -ing adjective forms here.
So something can be empowering
and you can also feel empowered, okay?
And it’s worth knowing the noun ‘empowerment’ as well.
Empowerment.
Education is a tool for empowerment.
These words and their word families are challenging,
challenging to pronounce and challenging to use
these different types of words correctly
but if you’re still here you’re still working hard,
then you’ve got perseverance.
So someone with perseverance keeps trying to succeed
even when it’s difficult. Even when things are hard,
they keep going.
When they get stuck, they find a way around it.
When they fail, they try again, they don’t give up.
So perseverance,
it really isn’t something that you can learn.
You either have a really strong desire in you
to achieve something or you don’t.
So I’ve got a question for you.
Do you have the perseverance
to become fluent in English?
Can you keep going even when it’s difficult?
Since you’re here and you’re practising with me
I know that you don’t give up easily.
You have perseverance or determination.
You’re very determined.
Or tenacity,
you’re very tenacious.
These are all synonyms of perseverance.
Let’s focus on the pronunciation for a second.
Perseverance.
That third syllable is the stressed one.
Don’t forget that consonant sound at the end,
that double consonant.
Perseverance.
Now it’s really common to hear the verb ‘persevere’
in difficult situations, right?
She chose a difficult career path but she persevered
and she graduated with the degree that she wanted.
Can you think of anything that
you have persevered through?
Any of the mama’s out there, well, you’ve
persevered through childbirth, right?
Anyone who’s failed their driver’s license
several times before, maybe before they finally got it,
well you persevered as well.
So I hope this lesson has inspired you to be
a little more courageous with your English vocabulary
and that you’re motivated
to use these words again soon.
If you’re feeling a little uncertain or a little unsure
about how to use some of these words,
then practise by writing some sentences
in the comments below so that I can check them for you
I’ve also got a little quiz over on the
mmmEnglish blog so you can test
what you learned here today.
The link is in the description below this video
or there’s a link somewhere around right now.
And now it’s time for our next lesson.
See you in there!