STOP FREEZING in English when you CANT REMEMBER a word Improve English Conversation
- Hello, everyone.
And welcome back to English With Lucy.
It’s so annoying when it happens,
you are talking freely
and happily in English,
and then (dramatic
music) everything stops.
The world stops, your mind stops,
and most frustratingly,
your conversation stops.
You’ve blocked.
You can’t find that perfect word.
You may even feel that you
do actually know that word
deep in your head,
you just can’t remember it.
Perhaps, you don’t even know it at all.
You’re reaching for it,
but it’s just too far away.
What can you do?
When I was actively learning Spanish,
this happened to me all of the time.
I can still feel the anxiety in here.
I’m now fluent in Spanish.
And although it happens
with much less frequency,
it does still happen,
especially if I’m feeling a bit rusty.
If you feel rusty in a language,
it means that you haven’t practised enough
and you’ve regressed slightly.
I mean,
I still get word block in English
and that’s my mother tongue.
It happens to almost everyone.
Today,
I am going to help you with
your blockages (laughs)
and give you five things
that you can use to fight
against this.
five things that you can do
when you can’t remember a word.
Number one,
this is potentially the most
exciting segment for me.
And I can’t believe I haven’t
taught this to you before,
because although these aren’t real words,
they are very commonly used.
They are called placeholder names.
So you can use placeholder
names or unknown name terms
in place of the word or phrase or name
that you’re searching for.
Now in English,
we have loads of these and
we use them all the time.
My mum is constantly forgetting
words and she comes up
with the most amazing
placeholder names to replace
the words that she is lacking.
So just to be clear,
these are words that replace
a word that we can’t think of,
we can’t remember, or we don’t know.
So firstly,
we use lots of extensions of thing.
We can say thingy, for example.
And we typically use
this to refer to a thing
that we don’t know the name of.
“The doctor gave me a thingy
to help me deal with my stress.”
I might be referring to a
stress ball or some fidget toy
or something.
I don’t know the word.
So I use thingy.
I just think it’s worth noting,
this is all an informal speech.
We wouldn’t use this in
academic text or in exams
or in a business meeting.
Well, you might, it depends
on the corporate vibe.
Another very popular one is thingamajig,
thingamajig.
This can also refer to people.
So if you can’t remember someone’s name,
“Did you talk to thingamajig last night?”
Did you talk to unknown person last night?
Thingamabob.
Thingamabob is almost exactly the same.
It can refer to objects or to people.
“Have you spoken to thingamabob recently?”
I can’t remember their name,
I’m hoping you know who I’m talking about
and can say their name for me.
Or, “My hairdresser gave me a thingamabob
to help hold my hair in place.”
He gave me some hairspray,
I’m guessing.
We also use some
extensions of what as well,
watchermacallit.
A watchermacallit is very popular.
“Did you pick up a
watchermacallit at the shop?”
This could be anything, can of tomatoes,
a watermelon.
Who knows?
Depends on the context.
We also use whatsitsname.
Whatitsname.
Watchermacallit seems
to be more for things
rather than people.
Whatsitsname can be people or things.
“Did you see any
whatsitsnames at the shop?”
Now we do have a few
specifically for people.
Whatshername or whatshisname?
There is another one, or two actually,
‘cause it’s masculine and feminine
that my mother uses a lot
and therefore I have always
used a lot.
But when I started
using it with my fiance,
he was quite surprised.
He thought it was quite rude.
It is whatsherface and whatshisface.
If we can’t remember the name of someone
“Oh, did you see whatsherface?
Whatsherface?”
Or, “Oh, whatshisface
was there last night.”
And I remember Will being really shocked
like, “Where did you learn
these strange words?”
But my mum uses them all the time.
So maybe note these ones down,
but be careful who
you use them with.
(laughing)
Finally,
we use a lot placeholders with doo,
doo.
And it just goes to show
that it depends on the family
because in my family, we never
use placeholders with doo,
but in Will’s family, they
do use doo all the time.
The one that they use a lot is doodah,
doodah.
And this refers mainly to
people, but also to things.
So I think Will’s mom told me
once, “Oh doodah got engaged.”
I was thinking, “Doodah?
Who’s doodah?”
But no, doodah is a name
used when you can’t remember
the person’s name and you
expect the other person to know
who you’re talking about.
Doodad is the same thing,
normally referring more to things.
“Can you go into the garage
and see if there are any doodads?”
And hopefully your speaking
partner will understand
what you’re talking about.
Now, number two is more of
a general recommendation
and this segment is sponsored by Lingoda.
It is study every day to
try and avoid becoming rusty
as I did with Spanish.
Taking a class every day
is a great way to avoid
that rustiness problem.
Lingoda are running their language sprint.
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What are you waiting for?
Number three is try to describe
the word using simple terms
or generic terms.
Oftentimes, we over-complicate
things by wanting to find
a very, very specific word.
And as a result,
we put a stop to our
conversation flow and in the end
make everything really
awkward whilst we’re trying
to desperately think of something.
That can wait.
You can make a mental note and
search for that word later.
I think it’s better to just
search for a simple word
that is good enough in the moment.
For example, imagine you
can’t remember the word puppy.
You could just say baby dog.
It’s not overly correct,
but it will do.
Or if you can’t remember
the word paediatrician,
you could just say a doctor for children.
That leads me on to number four.
If it’s a little more complex,
you could try to describe
the purpose or the use
for something or someone.
For example,
if you wanted someone to
pass you a pencil sharpener,
but you can’t think of the word,
you could say, “Oh, can
you pass me that thing
that’s used for making pencils pointed?”
I’ve just said the use.
And it’s very clear what I would like.
Another example, say,
I’ve met someone and they are really nice
and they are a librarian and
I’m trying to describe them
to someone but I’ve
forgotten the word librarian,
I could say, “They work in the place where
you can borrow books.”
Librarian, very clear, very obvious.
The final recommendation, number five,
is to use approximations.
This is when you use phrases such as,
it’s like, it’s sort of, it’s kind of,
it’s kind of like, it’s sort of like.
An example is the word jumpsuit or romper
in American English.
If I don’t know the exact word for that,
I would say, “It’s kind of like a dress,
but with trousers as well.
So hopefully even if you
didn’t know what a jumpsuit
or a romper is,
you might now understand it
because I’ve described it
as a dress but with trousers or shorts.
Now using three, four and five instigates
a great learning opportunity.
The chances are that your speaking partner
will know the words that
you are searching for
and they can help you as well.
You can set this off by
saying at the beginning
of a conversation, “By the
way, if I use the wrong word,
feel free to correct me.
Don’t feel rude to interrupt me.”
I always said this in
Spanish and it was amazing
how much people genuinely
wanted to help me.
And it was really nice when we could laugh
at my mistakes together,
‘cause let’s face it, when
you’re learning a new language,
it isn’t easy to make
jokes in that language.
So a really nice way to have a
laugh is to laugh at yourself
and your language mistakes.
I think it also makes the other
person feel more comfortable
as well.
Right.
That’s it for today’s lesson.
I hope you enjoyed it
and I hope you learned something.
If you have any more ideas or
recommendations for overcoming
language block,
please leave them down below
in the description box.
No, don’t put them in the description box,
put them in the comments section.
The description box is mine.
The comments section is yours.
Also feel free to share any
funny language block moments
you’ve had,
times where there is just a word that is
impossible to describe.
Don’t forget to check out
the Lingoda Language Sprint.
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along with all the dates and
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If not already, who knows?
I will see you soon for another lesson.
(blows a kiss)
(upbeat music)