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Full video: 12 VERY USEFUL ADVANCED ADJECTIVES FOR THE CAMBRIDGE ENGLISH EXAMS | C1 and C2 vocabulary

Course: Precise words and opinionsSection: Advanced adjectives for English examsSubtitles: en

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0:00

hello and thank you for joining me again

0:02

and welcome to

0:03

any new viewers my name is ben and this

0:05

is to the point english

0:07

and today i'm going to teach you 12

0:11

advanced proficiency c1 c2 level

0:15

adjectives but they will impress the

0:18

examiners

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if you're planning to take an english

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exam which

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i know many of you are but also just for

0:25

general english they are

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good adjectives to include in your in

0:29

your day-to-day use

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and that's the idea these are adjectives

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that you can use in many situations

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uh because especially in the exams you

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don't know

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what the subject is going to be in the

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writing and the speaking parts

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in particular but there are certain

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adjectives you can use which are

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suitable for almost

0:51

any subject now i know many of you have

0:55

been waiting for this video for a long

0:56

time you've

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probably been losing sleep while you're

0:59

waiting

1:00

but that worries me a little bit because

1:02

you shouldn't really be depending on a

1:05

youtube video to expand your vocabulary

1:09

you should be doing that by yourself day

1:12

to day by reading

1:13

and watching film series and just

1:15

keeping your own

1:17

vocabulary dictionary really but as many

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of you are preparing for the cambridge

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english exams

1:22

you may need some help and i'm happy to

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help and these adjectives will really

1:27

give you

1:28

an advantage in the exams okay so let's

1:31

do this

1:32

[Music]

1:37

so the first adjective we're looking at

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today is a synonym

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of important important is a good

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adjective but it's not very impressive

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so a good alternative is paramount

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so paramount basically means important

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or very important

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but as i said if you can use this in the

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exam it will really

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impress the examiner let's have a look

2:00

at an example sentence

2:01

reducing carbon emissions is paramount

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in order to combat climate change

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okay so that's one of the most uh

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popular subjects

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in the cambridge english exams it seems

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to be in almost

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every exam in some form or another

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environment and climate change

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so paramount paramount here is used

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instead of important

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another way we use paramount is

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in the fixed expression of paramount

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importance reducing carbon emissions is

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of

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paramount importance in order to combat

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climate

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change okay you have two two options

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there

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and the next example is really the

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opposite it means

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unimportant and it's trifling

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trifling this is a really really good

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proficiency word

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as i said it means unimportant so you

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can use use it

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in any situation where you want to to

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emphasize that

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in your opinion or maybe in reality it's

3:00

just not important

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but really we use this adjective

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more often in a negative way to say that

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it's important which is a very english

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way

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of of speaking really we often use the

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negative

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to emphasize the opposite as i'll

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explain it with this example

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choosing a university is no trifling

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matter for young people

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so here rather than saying choosing a

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university is an important matter for

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for young people we're saying it's no

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trifling matter

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which is a very common structure

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because it really emphasizes and it's

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sort of suggesting that maybe some

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people think it is unimportant but by

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saying it's no trifling matter

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it really emphasizes that in your

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opinion it is important

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and the third adjective is riveting

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and riveting means very interesting

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extremely

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interesting so again interesting is a

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good adjective it's

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fine but in the exam you really want to

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impress the examiners in the speaking

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and the writing

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so riveting is a really good adjective

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you can use it

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in reviews or just to express your own

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opinion about

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about a topic for example i found ben's

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last video

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absolutely riveting i'm sure that's true

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right

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um so yeah riveting just extremely

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interesting

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and the next adjective again is the

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opposite so it's boring

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excuse the interruption so yeah the next

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the next adjective is the opposite so

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it's

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extremely boring and it's dull

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dull you may be familiar with this this

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adjective it's an advanced

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maybe proficiency but it's definitely a

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strong advanced adjective

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and we often use it to describe people

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so a dull person

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for example my english teacher is so

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dull

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i can't stay awake in his class

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okay again that's not referring to me of

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course my videos are riveting my classes

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are riveting but

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um yeah so dull is often used to refer

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to a person

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of course dull is also an adjective to

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describe sort of

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low light a dull day is when there's no

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sun it's very cloudy

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but in this case we're referring to

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boring

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and the next adjective is a synonym of

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good very very good or excellent

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and it's outstanding so if something is

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outstanding

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it's so good that it stands out so it's

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noticeable

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that it's so good so we use it in quite

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an emphatic way

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for example i think you make an

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outstanding point

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so this could be in the part of the exam

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when you're discussing

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uh part three for example the diagram

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and you're trying to agree

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and take a decision um and rather than

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just say

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i think you make a good point you can

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really exaggerate why not

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just i think you make an outstanding

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point

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boost your partner's confidence too and

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the next one again is the opposite

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so it's bad something that is bad or

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very bad

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and it's dreadful dreadful so this is

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quite a common word

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especially in british english i'm not

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sure if they use it so much in american

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english but in british english

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it's pretty common and it just means

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very bad so the example i think it's

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dreadful

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how people treat animals sometimes

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so it's very bad terrible awful all

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those cinnamon

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all those cinnamon all those synonyms

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but

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um dreadful is is a very good one it's a

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very proficiency level

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adjective now the next two adjectives

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number seven

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and eight are really useful for

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answering the first question in the

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speaking which is usually

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where are you from so these are good

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adjectives to describe

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where you live for example quaint

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now quaint means like pretty or

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different different in a pretty way okay

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so for example i live in a quaint

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village in the southeast of the country

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so instead of just saying pretty or

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charming you can say quaint it's a very

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high level adjective but maybe you don't

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live

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in a pretty village or a quaint village

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so if you think your neighborhood is not

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so

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nice maybe you think it's ugly you can

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use the word hideous

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hideous means extremely ugly and you

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could say something like

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my neighborhood is hideous but the

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people are nice

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okay and the next one is baffling

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baffling now baffling means

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difficult to understand or confusing

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or extremely surprising so

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it's baffling that some people believe

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the earth is flat

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okay so it's extremely difficult to

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understand it's just

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unbelievable really baffling it's so so

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confusing

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and then again sort of the opposite more

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or less is

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straightforward straightforward which

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means

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simple and easy the solution to the

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problem is straightforward in my opinion

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so the problem has a simple easy

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solution in my opinion it's not

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complicated it's not confusing it's not

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difficult it's

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straightforward and the next adjective

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is a synonym of big

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because you could use big in many

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contexts

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many different situations you may need

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to use big

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but in this case sizeable is an advanced

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or proficiency

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alternative sizable the company invested

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a sizable amount of money in the project

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so it's often used for quantities often

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money really a sizable

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quantity a sizable amount of money so

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it's

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it means big but it's not

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emphatic in this case it's not very big

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it's just quite big sizable

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as with everything in english it depends

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on your intonation a lot if you say i

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was a

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sizeable amount of money then that

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sounds like it's a lot

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but if you if you're using neutral

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intonation it just means quite a lot

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and again the opposite is small

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so a good adjective for small is poultry

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poultry so nurses are paid a poultry

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salary

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considering how hard they work

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so again it's it's small but it's

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extremely small it's almost like it's

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insufficient uh part of the meaning of

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poultry is that it's so small it's

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insufficient so that's why i use the

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example of nurses

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salary to really emphasize that these

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are

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the type of adjectives that you need to

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use

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in the exam or introduce into your your

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day-to-day vocabulary

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12 adjectives are not really enough but

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it's a good start and it gives you an

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idea of the type of

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adjectives you need to use depending on

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the subject you'll need to use other

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adjectives so that's why i say you need

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to just be building your vocabulary

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more and more but adjectives in

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particular

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are a very good way to go from an

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intermediate or

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upper intermediate level to advanced and

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proficiency if you have a good range and

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command of the adjectives

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you can really really boost and level up

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your your english okay thank you for

10:20

joining me again

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um hit the subscribe button if you found

10:23

this video useful

10:25

and i'll see you very soon for another

10:26

video take care bye

10:33

[Music]

10:36

you

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