Your English Five a Day #7.1

E118: Welcome to the English Like a Native Podcast with your host, Anna! Join us on Week 7, Day 1 of the Your English Five a Day series, where we explore five essential vocabulary words each working day. This lineup starts with "rivalry," a noun capturing the essence of competition, moving on to "invert", "compelling", "malevolent", and the noun "tension". We see these words skillfully weaved into a captivating story about Kelly, Daniel, and a shocking proposal that challenges their marriage.

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Transcript

0:01

Hello and welcome to the English Like a Native Podcast. My name is Anna and you are listening to Week 7, Day 1 of Your English Five a Day series. In this series, we explore five pieces of vocabulary every day of the working week from Monday to Friday. So let's kick off week seven with a noun. And it is rivalry, rivalry. How do we spell that? R I V A L R Y. Rivalry. Rivalry. This is the competition for the same object or for superiority in the same field. Have you ever experienced a rivalry? Have you had to compete for something at work or within your social circle, or at school, university? As my background is in acting, I've had many rivalries over the years, competing sometimes with my friends for the same roles. And I guess you could say that within the YouTube space, there are many rivalries between creators of the same types of content. But in reality, It's more of a camaraderie than a rivalry. We are more supportive, especially in the English teaching world and the language teaching world on YouTube. We are more supportive of each other than we are competitive. And I wouldn't describe us as rivals. Okay, I'm digging a hole. We are all very much friends in the English teaching world! That's what I'm trying to say. There's no rivalry here. So let's go to our example sentence."There has always been an intense rivalry between the top tech companies, with Apple and Samsung probably being the biggest in smartphones." Number two on our list is a verb and it is invert. Invert. To invert something. We spell this I N V E R T. Invert. This means to turn something upside down or change the order of two things. You invert it. Here's an example sentence."In some languages, the word order in questions is inverted. For example, the verb comes before the subject of the sentence." Okay, going on to number three. Here we have an adjective, compelling, compelling, how do we spell it? C O M P E L L I N G. Compelling, compelling. If something is compelling, then it makes you believe or accept it because it's so strong. So usually compelling is used to describe a reason or an argument or a case that you're trying to make. So, if you're arguing for something, you're giving reasons why something should happen, then if your reasons and arguments are compelling, it means they are very strong, they are believable, they are acceptable. For example, if I want to eat my breakfast at dinner time, I like a bowl of cereal for my dinner, and you say,"Well, you can't have a bowl of cereal for dinner. Cereal is a breakfast food." And I say,"Well, hang on a minute. It's my body. I should be allowed to eat whatever I like. And for your information, I always have a cooked meal at breakfast time that includes black beans and herbs and eggs. So why can't I have my cereal at dinner time? What does it matter to you?" And then you say,"Oh, well, you know, I can't really dispute what you've just said there. It is your body, you can eat whatever you like, really, and you do seem to have very balanced meals throughout the day, so it shouldn't really make any difference having cereal at dinnertime. And it's none of my business." So I just made a compelling argument and gave compelling reasons as to why I should have breakfast at dinner time. But here's another example sentence."I really don't want to try Zumba. But you do make a compelling argument as to why I should give it a go, so OK, sign me up." OK, moving on to number four, and it is malevolent. Malevolent. This is an adjective, and it's a word that I really struggled for a long time to pronounce, malevolent. This adjective is spelled M A L E V O L E N T. Malevolent. Malevolent. This means causing or wanting to cause harm or evil. So if you are the kind of person who wants to harm someone, then you could describe yourself as malevolent. But I'm sure that actually doesn't describe any of you listening because I'm sure you're all very peaceful and kind and compassionate people. So we would often refer to evil characters as malevolent. So here's an example sentence."Cinderella's stepmother was a malevolent character set on destroying her stepdaughter's dreams." And our final word for today is another noun. We started with a noun, we are ending with a noun, and it is tension. Tension. The spelling is T E N S I O N. Tension. Tension. Tension describes a feeling of fear or anger between two groups of people who do not trust each other. So there are often tensions within the household, especially when there are teenagers in the house. I remember there being a lot of tension between my mother and I when I lived at home aged 15. So here's an example sentence."Why is there so much tension between you and your brother recently? Did something happen whilst you were away together?" Hopefully there's no tension in your household at the moment. Or at work. Oh, there's nothing worse than going to work, walking into the office and there just being some tension in the air. Like,"What's going on here? What's happened?" Right, so that was our five for today. Let's revisit them. We had the noun rivalry. The competition for the same objective or thing or superiority. We had the verb invert to turn something upside down or to change the order of things. We had the adjective compelling to make a reason or an argument so strong by making it believable or acceptable. We had the adjective malevolent, which is wanting to cause harm or evil. And we had the noun tension, which is a feeling of fear or anger between two groups of people who don't like or trust each other very much. Okay, let's do our pronunciation. So please repeat after me. Rivalry. Invert. Compelling. Malevolent. Tension. Fantastic. Let's bring everything together in a little story. Kelly opened the door and was instantly struck by the tension between the two men inside. One man, Daniel, her husband, was standing uncomfortably close to the other man, Sam, her boss, who was sitting in a relaxed pose wearing a malevolent smile on his face. Everyone froze for a few seconds, the men, seemingly unwilling to acknowledge Kelly's unexpected appearance. Kelly cleared her throat."Ahem. Is everything okay?" she asked. Sam stood up, coming face to face with Daniel, pausing for a moment. Both men had their eyes locked on one another, until finally Sam laughed and turned to Kelly."I'll leave you two to have a little chat." And he walked out of the room."What was all that about?" she asked. Daniel looked irritated"He wants to sleep with you!" In disbelief, Kelly replied,"Don't be ridiculous, Daniel. Don't do this again. I like my job, and I'm not going to let you create some stupid rivalry with my boss based on your own insecurities. Sam does not want to sleep with me." Daniel gently placed his hands on her shoulders, looked her directly in the eyes and said,"He has offered me a million pounds to sleep with you." Disgust washed over her. How dare Sam make such an indecent proposal? And how dare he assume that the proposal should be directed at her husband, as if he owned her body, and could sell it to the highest bidder? For hours they discussed the proposal, as horrifying as it initially seemed. They did have a lot of debt, and though he felt angry, Daniel believed this was the answer to all of their financial problems. He put forward a compelling argument in favour of the proposal, but Kelly had huge reservations. Could she disrespect herself and her marriage vows? Would it solve their problems, or would this just open another can of worms? Kelly finally asked,"If this situation was inverted, and a woman proposed to buy a night with you instead, would you be as keen to do it?" Without hesitation, Daniel responded,"Of course!". A fresh tear rolled down her cheek."Does our marriage mean nothing to you? Are our vows so hollow that someone can pay to break them?" Before Daniel could respond, Kelly was gone. And that, ladies and gentlemen, brings us to the end of today's episode. That was Week 7, Day 1, and I do hope you found it useful. Until next time, take very good care and goodbye.