Vocabulary Hack: Sound smarter and avoid mistakes

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I'm Rebecca from engVid, and this lesson is a vocabulary hack.

What does that mean?

It means that this lesson will allow you to learn something to do with vocabulary very quickly,

and also will enable you to improve your vocabulary tremendously with just this

one little trick.

Now, what does it have to do with?

It has to do with something called "Compound Adjectives".

Now, that doesn't sound very exciting, but it is actually really exciting.

Let me show you what it is and how to do it.

Okay? How to use it.

So, first of all, what's an adjective?

An adjective is a word that describes, usually, a noun.

For example, if we say: "He is a tall man", "tall" describes the man, so "tall" is the adjective.

"It's a sunny day", "sunny" is the adjective.

"We had a big party", "big" is the adjective.

So that's an adjective by itself.

Now, what does the word "compound" mean?

"Compound" means more than one.

So when we have compound adjectives we have two or more words that are used together,

but kind of as one unit, to describe a noun.

Let's see how it works.

Now, for example, before I show you this, let me give you two sentences.

So sometimes people write like this or speak like this:

"Tom Cruise is an actor. He is well-known."

Now, these are two simple sentences, but it's kind of a very basic way to speak.

So if you want to speak more formally, or more academically, or more professionally,

then you could take those two sentences and make them into one sentence.

For example, you could say...

Instead of saying that: "Tom Cruise is an actor. He is well-known",

you could say: "Tom Cruise is a well-known actor."

Now, when we use "well-known" like this, we have to hyphenate it.

We put that little dash in the middle, that's called a hyphen,

and then this becomes a compound adjective which describes the word "actor".

Let's take another example: "We decided to go to New York at the last minute."

Or I could say: "We made a last-minute decision to go to New York."

Now, the second way is a little bit higher English, more advanced English.

"Last-minute" in this case is the compound adjective, which remember is connected with

a dash or a hyphen.

The third example: "They live in a country where people speak English."

We could say that, but it is better and more advanced to say:

"They live in an English-speaking country.",

"English-speaking" is the compound adjective.

The last one here, okay: "The city had so much rain that it broke all previous records."

Or we could say: "The city had" or "The city received record-breaking rainfall."

So, again, "record-breaking" is the compound adjective here.

Now, just to show you how important it is for you not to forget the hyphen, let's look

at these two sentences.

Now, the first one says: "I saw a man eating tiger."

Now, what does that mean?

Well, let's see if there's any difference between that one and the second one.

"I saw a man-eating tiger."

Any difference?

All right, so there is a difference, there is a big difference, especially for the man.

"I saw a man", so this is like the man, and he was eating tiger.

He was eating some tiger meat.

Okay? The man was eating the tiger.

But in this one: "I saw a man-eating tiger", "man-eating" is an adjective which describes

That means the tiger is the kind of tiger that eats people, and that's called man-eating.

So, the meaning is completely different when you add the hyphen, so don't forget to add that.

Now, this is another very important thing to remember when you're doing...

Or using compound adjectives, and that's when you use compound adjectives that have numbers.

This is such a common mistake, even at advanced levels.

But now that you're watching this video, you have a chance to get rid of this mistake forever.

And if you don't make this mistake, you will get a much higher score-I assure you-on your...

Any exam and also when you apply for a job, or when you're looking for a promotion because

this is a very sophisticated thing to correct.

It's an advanced correction, but it's a really easy correction, and that's why this is a

vocabulary hack.

So let's look at what it is.

So, let's take this sentence first: "The contract was for five million dollars."

That sentence is not wrong or anything.

It's just okay, but if we want to express it in a different way, this is what you have to do:

"It was a five-million-dollar contract."

Now what happens?

All of this: "five-million-dollar" becomes like one adjective unit to describe the word

"contract", so we have to hyphenate it.

"Five-million-dollar" we hyphenate those three words.

Plus you're probably wondering:

"Hmm, Rebecca forgot to put the 's' there because we're

talking about five million, and that's more than one and it's plural."

Yes, of course, you're right.

So here we said: "Five million dollars".

But when we use it as an adjective we drop the "s", and that's the mistake that people make,

but not you anymore.

So now we have to say: "Five-million-dollar contract",

not "five-million-dollars contract".

All right, the next one, a similar example with the numbers because this is where most

people make the mistake.

Not so much here, but here.

"The conference was three days long."

That sentence is okay, but if we want to express that in a little more advanced way, we would say:

"It was a three-day conference."

Again, "three-day" is the compound adjective-right?-for "conference",

and because it's a number we

don't add the "s" there, we say: "three-day conference",

not "three-days conference".

And this is such an important thing to correct that next we're going to do some exercises

so you can really master this.

Okay, so let's practice that last part where I said that many students make mistakes and

it has to do with the numbers.

Now, of course when you go to our website and you do the quiz there, you can do a quiz

on everything that we've learned today about compound adjectives, but today on the board

right now let's just focus on the compound adjectives that have numbers.

Now, there's a clue here and I'm going to tell you what it is actually after we do the

So, let's pretend that we're going to make these sentences, and all of them start with

the words: "It's a _______ course."

Now, here I'll tell you how long that course lasts.

So if we want to make that into a compound adjective, what do we say?

six-month course."

We took off the "s".

Now, here I've written them in numbers just because it's easier.

But the general rule is: If you're writing a number which is 10 or lower-okay?-then you

can spell it and you should spell it.

If your number is over 10, then you can use the numbers.

So, for example, in this next one: "It's a _______ suitcase."

The suitcase weighs 20 kilos.

So we can say now that:

"It's a 20-kilo suitcase."

No "s".

And here I put "20-kilo" like that hyphenated because this number is more than 10.

That's a general rule.

The most important thing is that if you're writing a document, stay consistent.

If you're using numbers, use numbers; and if you're using letters, use letters.

But as I said, generally numbers that are lower than 10 are written out because they're

shorter and easier to read like that.

Also, just a little something, nothing to do with compound adjectives, but remember

it has to do with numbers, that any time you start a sentence, you cannot use a number,

the numeral like this.

You can only use the word, the spelling of the number.

It doesn't matter what size the number is.

So, don't start a sentence by saying: "5 parts of this..."

You have to write out the word: "Five", "F-i-v-e" or "Sixty".

Let's continue.

"It's a _______ TV series."

It has five parts.

"It's a", what would we say?

"five-part". Okay?

I'm not going to write them all for you, because I think you got it.

So here because it was less than 10, I'm writing it out as a full word.

And here: "It's a _______ report", it has 60 pages.

"It's a 60-page report."

What about this one?

Flight: "It's a _______ flight."

It lasts for eight hours, so we could write out:

"It's an eight-hour flight."

Number six, say it with me: "It's a _______ break."

Lasts for 15 minutes, so we say:

15-minute break."

Number seven: "It's a _______ farm."

It has 20 acres.

An acre is a unit of measuring land.

So we say: "It's a 20-acre farm."

And the last one: "It's a _______ race."

It goes for 10 kilometres, so we say: "It's a 10-kilometre race."

I know it seems like: "Okay, yeah, I got the point",

but there are many, many people around

the world who make this mistake and I don't want you to be one of them.

Not anymore, right?

Now, to really understand this compound adjectives very well, please go to our website at www.engvid.com.

There you can do a quiz on some more of this, plus what I taught you earlier

about compound adjectives in general.

Also, please subscribe to my website at...

Sorry, on YouTube so you can continue to get lots and lots of English lessons that you can...

That will help you to learn English faster.

And hopefully more joyfully.

All the best with your English.