Vocabulary Hack: Sound smarter and avoid mistakes

Start speaking and writing at a more advanced level with this easy trick! You'll improve your job prospects, get higher grades, and sound smarter altogether. In this video, I'll show you how to use compound adjectives. These are adjectives built of more than one word. You'll see common examples that you can use, and learn how to write them correctly. I'll also teach you how to avoid a common error that many English learners make, so that you can write correctly and confidently. Impress your friends, co-workers, and teachers by using compound adjectives. Want to practice what you've learned? Do the exercises at https://www.engvid.com/vocabulary-hack-compound-adjectives/

TRANSCRIPT

Hi. 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. Okay? 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. Right? "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. All right? 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." Okay? 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. All right? "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. All right.

The last one here, okay: "The city had so much rain that it broke all previous records." Okay? Or we could say: "The city had" or "The city received record-breaking rainfall." Okay? So, again, "record-breaking" is the compound adjective here.

All right. 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. All right. "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 the tiger. 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. All right.

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. Remember? Okay.