Intensifiers and Downtoners in American English Conversation - Free Educational videos for Students in K-12

Intensifiers and Downtoners in American English Conversation - By JenniferESL

Transcript


00:00	Hi everyone . I'm jennifer from english . With jennifer
00:04	. Do you like getting compliments ? What would you
00:07	like to hear someone say ? What would make you
00:10	feel good ? You're awful at english , You're awfully
00:15	good at english . Mhm . Personally I'd never dream
00:19	of telling someone that they're bad at anything because every
00:23	one of us has room for improvement . Right ?
00:26	You're here , you're studying with me . So you're
00:28	already on your way to speaking better . English .
00:32	My compliment to you is you're awfully good at english
00:36	, awful by itself means bad , awful or awfully
00:42	before an adjective means very or really you're awfully good
00:48	. It's awful , expensive . It means very or
00:52	really It's a strange difference in meaning , right ?
00:56	Would you like to know other words in american english
00:59	with strange differences in meaning stick around and you'll learn
01:03	some . I want this to be a super useful
01:07	, highly effective and crazy . Good lesson . Mhm
01:18	. There are different kinds of adverbs in english .
01:21	The first kind you probably learned were adverbs of manner
01:24	. They answer the question how talk loudly , walk
01:29	, fast , dance Well you also learned adverbs of
01:35	frequency when you learned how to answer the question how
01:37	often I often forget how old I am . I
01:42	never get up before five . Now we're going to
01:47	focus on adverbs of degree , You learn two of
01:50	them . When you learned how to make comparisons ,
01:52	you learned more and less . For example , someone
01:56	can feel more confident or less confident when they speak
01:59	english . Hopefully after this lesson you'll feel more confident
02:04	. This refers to higher and lower degrees . We're
02:08	going to study and practice two groups of adverbs of
02:12	degree intensive fires and down toners intensifier , Czar ,
02:19	adverbs of degree that increased the strength of a word
02:23	. I'm sure you already used the adverb very a
02:26	lot extremely is another useful adverb used in many different
02:31	contexts . I think parker is very exciting but also
02:37	extremely dangerous . The intensive fires so and really are
02:45	used a lot in conversation , potato chips are so
02:50	unhealthy but really , really good note in very informal
02:58	english , you may hear real used as an adverb
03:02	as an intensifier . Someone might say , oh the
03:05	food was real good , I don't recommend this use
03:09	but be ready to hear it and understand it When
03:16	we use intensive fires in conversation , we can use
03:19	our voice for emphasis . You can hear that long
03:23	vowel sound in the stressed syllable as in so unhealthy
03:29	. Very exciting . Really good . We also double
03:37	some intensive fires or use them in combination . Very
03:42	, very expensive . Really , really nice . So
03:46	very good . And in conversation we can use these
03:52	combinations . Good and nice sand to intensify common adjectives
04:02	. Professional dancers make all the moves look nice and
04:05	easy . Everything they do is nice and smooth ,
04:12	blend some fresh fruit with fruit juice , yogurt or
04:16	coconut milk , freeze the mixture overnight and then you're
04:20	frozen fruit . Popsicles will be good and ready to
04:22	eat the next day . So nice and easy means
04:29	very easy . Nice and smooth means very smooth .
04:35	Mhm . You can't make this kind of phrase with
04:38	any adjective , but some combinations are common . Nice
04:42	and easy , nice and smooth , nice and slow
04:46	, nice and handy , Nice and clean . Good
04:52	and ready . Could mean very ready or completely ready
04:59	completely is another intensifier . It suggests that something is
05:04	the most it can possibly be . For example ,
05:07	I was completely confused . I didn't understand anything completely
05:13	is like totally and absolutely 100% to also falls into
05:23	the category of intensive fires . But remember that two
05:27	means that equality has gone beyond some acceptable limit .
05:33	Honesty is good , but some people are too honest
05:37	and say everything . They think two can be used
05:42	for criticism . Someone can be too harsh or too
05:45	judgmental . If we're being critical , we can use
05:51	the adverb hell in reaction to someone's behavior . For
05:56	example how rude meaning very rude . That was very
06:01	offensive . But we can also use how if we're
06:04	pleasantly surprised how sweet meaning . Very sweet . Let's
06:14	test your familiarity with other intensifier is used in conversation
06:19	, choose the advert . That sounds most natural in
06:22	the situation one . Mhm . I think I've changed
06:37	my mind . Don't worry . We'll be perfectly safe
06:42	. Perfectly safe means completely safe . Two . Mhm
06:51	. Mhm . You're going to quit . You're not
06:59	serious , are you ? I'm dead serious . I
07:02	hate this job . Dead serious means absolutely serious .
07:09	Mhm . Three . Mhm . Mhm . Am I
07:20	calling too late ? Not at all . Not at
07:24	all , means it's completely fine . It's not too
07:27	late . Mhm . Four . Yeah . Yeah .
07:35	Yeah . Yeah . Where are you ? I don't
07:41	know . I'm totally and utterly lost . You can
07:44	say totally and utterly or totally and completely lost .
07:52	Five mm . Mhm . Why are you mad ?
08:02	Because that was so not fair . So not fair
08:06	means that was totally unfair . Mhm . If intensify
08:13	your strengthen equality , what do you think down toners
08:17	do ? You may know the expression tone it down
08:21	? For example , a friend puts on makeup and
08:23	asks for your opinion . I'm trying a new look
08:26	. What do you think you say ? It's fun
08:29	. It's bold but maybe for work you should tone
08:32	it down , meaning use less . Remember this example
08:37	when we talk about down toners down toners are adverbs
08:41	that lesson or weaken equality . Let's go back to
08:48	giving compliments for a moment . You just gave a
08:51	presentation . Which complement would you prefer to hear ?
08:55	That was good . That was rather good . Neither
09:01	is bad but personally I'd want to hear the first
09:05	. That was good . Rather good means somewhat good
09:10	. It's not up there with very rather is less
09:13	intense rather good . Could suggest slightly better than expected
09:19	rather and slightly are comin down toners . Let's remember
09:26	that adverbs modify other words more specifically adverbs modify adjectives
09:32	, verbs and other adverbs . There are even adverbs
09:36	that can modify whole sentences , intensive fires and down
09:41	toners can modify adjectives and adverbs but more often we
09:45	use them with adjectives . So those are the combinations
09:49	I'm focusing on here in this lesson but I do
09:52	want you to be able to recognize intensive fires and
09:55	down toners before other adverbs . For example , news
10:00	reporters talk extremely fast . Student drivers drive rather slow
10:08	. Okay let's see if you're familiar with other down
10:13	toners . I'm going to mix up some intensive fires
10:16	with words and phrases that tone down equality . Can
10:21	you sort these phrases into two groups ? Words that
10:24	express a higher degree and words that express a lower
10:28	degree . Mm Yeah . Mhm . Mhm . Here's
10:49	how I'd sort them as promised . Here are four
10:55	intensive fires that have a surprising change in meaning crazy
11:00	. Doesn't mean insane . Super . Doesn't mean excellent
11:05	. Stupid . Doesn't mean dumb or unintelligent , wicked
11:09	does not mean evil . These words simply mean very
11:14	or really you won't find these words on every list
11:21	of intensive fires and down toners because first of all
11:24	, not all sources agree . Second , many of
11:28	these are very informal and used only in casual conversation
11:34	personally . I didn't know that the word wicked meant
11:37	very until I moved to New England . Then it
11:40	seemed like every statement of praise in every complaint .
11:44	Had the word wicked . A wicked , hot day
11:47	, a wicked good game , Wicked hard work .
11:53	So some informal adverbs may be limited to a geographical
11:57	region or perhaps they're used more within a certain age
12:00	group . For example , I'd forgotten about Stupid Good
12:04	. I don't use it , but some people do
12:07	. I asked my 15 year old son to help
12:09	me come up with a list of informal ways to
12:12	say very good And he recalled that one Stupid good
12:16	means very good . And don't forget there's a whole
12:22	category of profane words . I don't drop F bombs
12:25	with any frequency , but when I get emotional and
12:28	may use a close substitute like freaking , it's freaking
12:32	cold out there freaking can function like an intensifier meaning
12:36	very freaking is far less offensive than the F .
12:40	Word . One last note is that we can use
12:45	adverbs to be more polite by being less direct .
12:49	Down toners overlap with a whole category of words that
12:53	allow us to be vague in english . We can
12:56	choose to be less precise and less direct to avoid
13:00	offense . We call this hedging . It's a topic
13:06	worthy of another video . So for now I'll limit
13:09	myself to a couple of examples . Your speech is
13:14	too long . You need to make it shorter .
13:19	Your speech is quite long . Perhaps you can make
13:22	it slightly shorter . It's really late . I need
13:28	to leave now . It's rather late . I should
13:33	leave pretty soon . Do you feel the difference in
13:39	certainty and politeness ? I hope the lesson was very
13:45	useful and rather interesting . Please like and share the
13:49	video with others who'd like to feel more confident and
13:51	sound more natural in english . That's all for now
13:55	as always . Thanks for watching and Happy Studies .
14:01	Thank you to all the members of my channel and
14:04	use super and truly marvelous . Members look out for
14:07	the next bonus video . Follow me on facebook twitter
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14:20	I can help you learn english each and every week
14:24	. And hey , don't forget to subscribe to my
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