Essential Vocabulary for English Language Learners

T2: Adjectives and Verbs

• Addicted: Liking something very much.
• Adventurous: Willing to try new and often difficult or dangerous things.
• Aware: Knowing that something exists, or having knowledge or experience of a particular thing.
• Bothered: If you are bothered about something, it is important to you and you are worried about it.
• Cautious: Taking care to avoid risks or danger.
• Critical: Saying that someone or something is bad or wrong.
• Decisive: Able to make decisions quickly and confidently, or showing this quality.
• Hopeless: Very bad at a particular activity.
• Impressed: Feeling admiration or respect for someone or something.
• Jealous: Unhappy and angry because you want something that someone else has.
• Loyal: Always liking and supporting someone or something, sometimes when other people do not.
• Mean: Unkind or unpleasant.
• Apologize: To tell someone that you are sorry about something you have done.
• Compare with: To say how one person or thing is different from another.
• Cope: To deal successfully with a difficult situation.
• Depend on: To need the help and support of someone or something in order to exist or continue as before.
• Do without: To manage without having something.
• Have heard of: If you have heard of someone or something, you know that that person or thing exists.
• Laugh at: To show that you think someone or something is stupid.

T4: Health and Emotions

• Faint: To suddenly become unconscious for a short time, usually falling down.
• Feel dizzy: To feel as if everything is turning around, so that you feel ill or as if you might fall.
• Get in panic: You have a sudden strong feeling of fear that prevents reasonable thought and action.
• Go over and over in your mind: To think repeatedly about an event that has happened.
• Have an upset stomach: To have an illness in the stomach.
• Have difficulty sleeping: To not be able to get to sleep easily or quickly and/or to wake up frequently during the night.
• Lose your appetite: To not feel like eating.
• Lose your temper: To suddenly become angry.
• Calm down: To stop feeling upset, angry, or excited.
• Come down with: To become ill, usually with a disease that is not very serious.
• Come around: To become conscious again after an accident or operation.
• Get down: To make someone feel unhappy or depressed.
• Get over: To get better after an illness, or feel better after something or someone has made you unhappy.
• Throw up: To vomit.

T5: Time and History

• Ancestor: A relative who lived a long time ago.
• Century: A period of 100 years.
• Citizen: Someone who lives in a particular town or city.
• Decade: A period of ten years, especially a period such as 1860 to 1869, or 1990 to 1999.
• Found: To bring something into existence.
• Get the vote: To be allowed to express your choice or opinion in an election.
• Inhabitant: A person or animal that lives in a particular place.
• Myth: An ancient story about gods and brave people, often one that explains an event in history or the natural world.
• Tribe: A group of people who live together, usually in areas far away from cities, and who share the same culture and language.
• All the time: Continuously.
• Constantly: All the time or often.
• From time to time: Sometimes but not often.
• Most days/weeks/months: Almost every day/week/month.
• Occasionally: Sometimes but not often.

T7: Actions and Movement

• Kneel down: To go down into, or stay in, a position where one or both knees are on the ground.
• Lean: To move the top part of the body in a particular direction.
• Mumble: To speak too quietly and not clearly enough for someone to understand you.
• Rush: To hurry or move quickly somewhere, or to make someone or something hurry or move quickly somewhere.
• Sigh: To breathe out slowly and noisily, often because you are annoyed or unhappy.
• Slap: To hit someone with the flat, inside the part of your hand.
• Swing open: To open easily and without interruption.
• Tap: To knock or touch something gently.
• Tremble: To shake slightly, usually because you are cold, frightened, or very emotional.
• Wander: To walk slowly in a relaxed way.
• Whisper: To speak extremely quietly so that people cannot hear.
• Whistle: To make a sound by breathing air out through a small hole made with your lips, or through a whistle.
• Before long: Soon.
• For hours/weeks on end: Weeks without stopping.
• For some time: For a long period of time.
• In no time: Very soon.
• The week before last: The week before the one that has just finished.

T8: Describing Places

• Affordable: Able to be bought or rented by people who do not earn a lot of money.
• Close: A close community is one where people who live in the same area all know each other well.
• Diverse: Varied or different.
• Industrial: Connected with industry, or having a lot of industry and factories, etc.
• Inner-city: In the central part of a city where people live and where there are often problems because people are poor and there are few jobs and bad houses.
• Relaxed: A relaxed situation or place is comfortable and informal.
• Remote: Describes an area, house, or village that is a long way from any towns or cities.
• Residential: A residential area has only houses and not offices or factories.
• Rural: Relating to the countryside and not to towns.
• Trendy: Modern and influenced by the most recent fashions or ideas.
• Urban: Belonging or relating to a town or city.
• Welcoming: Friendly or making you feel welcome.
• As if/ as though: In a way that seems to show something.

T10: Expressions and Feelings

• At fault: Responsible for something bad that has happened.
• At risk: In a situation where something bad is likely to happen.
• By accident: Without intending to.
• By chance: When something happens because of luck, or without being planned.
• In advance: Before a particular time, or before doing a particular thing.
• In all: Used to show the total amount of something.
• In detail: Including or considering all the information about something or every part of something.
• In secret: Without telling other people.
• Out of character: Unusual in terms of someone’s personality.
• Out of nowhere: If someone or something appears out of nowhere, it appears suddenly or unexpectedly.
• Angel: Someone who is very good, helpful, or kind.
• Boiling: Very hot.
• Bright: Having the possibility of success or happiness.
• Flood: To fill or enter a place in large numbers or amounts.
• Foggy: Vague and unclear.
• Freeze: To suddenly stop moving, especially because you are frightened.
• Frozen: Not moving, absolutely still.
• Grill: To ask someone a lot of questions for a long time.
• Hit: To affect something badly.
• Lift: To make someone happier.
• Sail through: To succeed very easily in something, especially a test.
• Stormy: Full of difficulties or fights.
• Weigh up: To consider something carefully, especially in order to make a decision.

T12: Social Interactions

• Amuse: To make someone laugh or smile.
• Cheer up: If someone cheers up, or something cheers them up, they start to feel happier.
• Congratulate: To tell someone that you are happy because they have done something good or something good has happened to them.
• Highlight: To attract attention to or emphasize something important.
• Promote: To encourage the popularity, sale, development, or existence of something.
• Reassure: To comfort someone and stop them from worrying.
• Speak out: To say in public what you think about something such as a law or an official plan or action.
• Spread: To make a lot of people have a certain feeling.
• Stimulate: To make someone excited and interested about something.
• Both: Two people or things together.
• Either: Used when referring to a choice between two possibilities.
• Either or: Used to refer to a situation in which there is a choice between two different plans of action, but both together are not possible.
• Neither: Not either of two things or people.
• Neither or: Used when you want to say that two or more things are not true.

T14: Transportation and Communication

• Break down: If a machine or vehicle breaks down, it stops working.
• Drive off: To leave in a car.
• Hold up: To make something or someone slow or late.
• Keep up: To move at the same speed as someone or something that is moving forward so that you stay level with them.
• Pull into: If a vehicle pulls in or into somewhere, it moves in that direction and stops there.
• Pull out: If a train pulls out, it starts to leave a station.
• Pull over: If a vehicle pulls over, it moves to the side of the road and stops.
• Pull up: If a vehicle pulls up, it stops, often for a short time.
• Run into: To drive a vehicle into an object or a person in another vehicle by accident.
• Run over: If a vehicle runs over someone or something, it drives over them.
• Slow down: To become slower, or to make someone or something become slower.
• Speed up: To go or happen faster, or to cause something to happen faster.
• Agree: To say you will do something that someone asks you to.
• Confess: To admit that you have done something wrong or something that you feel guilty or bad about.
• Enquire: To ask someone for information about something.
• Forbid: To refuse to allow something, especially officially, or to prevent a particular plan of action by making it impossible.

T16: Marketing and Advertising

• Ad break: A short interruption of a television or radio program to broadcast advertisements.
• Appeal to: To interest or attract someone.
• Consumer: A person who buys goods or services for their own use.
• Launch: If a company launches a product or service, it makes it available for the first time.
• Sample: A small amount of something that shows you what it is like.
• Sponsor: To give money to someone to support an activity, event, or organization, sometimes as a way to advertise your company or product.