Your English Five a Day #25.4

E246: 🎙️ Welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast with me, your host, Anna. Dive into Week 25, Day 4 of Your English Five a Day, where we enrich your vocabulary with five delightful pieces every weekday.

🌟 Today, we embark with the idiom "leave no stone unturned", followed by the verb "envision". Next, we decorate our language with the verb "adorn" and then focus on the noun "aesthetic". Lastly, we take a look at the noun "accomplishment".

👰🏽🤵🏽After some pronunciation practice and a quick quiz to recap, we get stuck into today's story, where an enthusiastic yet inexperienced woman is tasked with planning her best friend's dream wedding in Southern France. Through meticulous planning and attention to detail, she crafts a fairy tale celebration, culminating in a joyous and unforgettable event.

⭐ ENGLISH LIKE A NATIVE PLUS ⭐

Join English Like A Native Plus - a membership allowing you to access the bonus episodes, plus live classes and all podcasts' transcripts & vocab lists. Become a Plus Member here: https://englishlikeanative.co.uk/elan-podcast/

If you enjoy this podcast, please leave a rating/review - it is a simple, free way to support us.

Transcript

0:00

Hello, and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast. My name is Anna and you're listening to Week 25, Day 4 of Your English Five a Day. This is the series that aims to make your English vocabulary as healthy as possible by feeding it with five pieces of vocabulary every day of the working week from Monday to Friday. We start today's list with a delicious idiom and it is leave no stone unturned. Leave no stone unturned. We spell this, leave, L E A V E. No, N O. Stone, S T O N E. Unturned, U N T U R N E D. Leave no stone unturned. This means to leave do everything you can to try and discover something. So, it's about putting in maximum effort and leaving nothing undiscovered or unexplored. So, if you are searching specifically for something, let's imagine that a crime has been committed. Someone has stolen your garden gnome, your prize possession. The centrepiece of your garden, your beautiful, little, fat garden gnome, with his fishing rod, has gone missing in the middle of the night. And you are determined to catch the criminal who has stolen your gnome. Well, you will do everything. You will comb the garden for clues. You will knock on all the neighbours' doors to see if anyone heard or saw anything. And putting in all that effort and searching every area of the garden and doing everything you can to uncover the truth is leaving no stone unturned. It's like you're literally turning over every stone to look underneath it to see if you can find what you're looking for. Here's another example,"When it comes to finding the perfect wedding venue, Sarah was determined to leave no stone unturned in her search for the ideal location." Okay, moving on to the next piece today, we have a verb and it is envision. Envision. We spell this E N V I S I O N. Envision. Envision. To envision something is to imagine something in your mind. To see it. To visualise it in your head. It's very similar to envisage. Envisage, which is also very common in this country. So, here's an example sentence,"John closed his eyes and tried to envision a peaceful beach, feeling the warm sand beneath his feet and the gentle breeze on his skin." Okay, next on the list is another verb, and it is adorn. Adorn. We spell this A D O R N. Adorn. To adorn something is to decorate it, particularly with something beautiful. You might adorn it with jewels or with shells or with glitter to make it really beautiful. So, you're adding beauty to something. So, we might talk about a crown being adorned with diamonds or a dress being adorned with pearls or lace, making it more beautiful. Here's an example sentence,"Tabitha used delicate lace to adorn her wedding gown, it was like something out of a fairy tale." Next on the list is aesthetic. Aesthetic. We spell this A E S T H E T I C. Aesthetic. Aesthetic. Aesthetic. So, aesthetic describes the study or the appreciation of beauty, or art, or how something looks, or someone or somewhere looks and thinking how beautiful it is. Here's an example sentence,"The artist's unique use of colour and composition greatly enhanced the aesthetic of their painting." So, I often comment on the aesthetic of hotels or beautiful buildings if we go and visit old English manor houses. I usually am admiring the aesthetic that has been created. I actually follow many accounts on Instagram that show beautiful interior design and I admire the aesthetic. So, next on the list is a noun, again, and this is accomplishment. Accomplishment. We spell this A C C O M P L I S H M E N T. Accomplishment. Accomplishment is a successful achievement or something that has been achieved. So, if I manage to stuff 20 marshmallows into my mouth without swallowing even a tiny little bit, then that would be quite an accomplishment. At least in somebody's book. What else would be a good accomplishment? Producing two young boys is an accomplishment in my book. Still having all the hairs on my head after coping with two young boys is quite an accomplishment. If you could list your top accomplishment in life, what would it be? Here's another example,"Winning the championship was a great accomplishment for our junior team, we haven't won a tournament in over 15 years." So, that's our list. Let's do a quick recap. We started with the idiom, leave no stone unturned, which means that you put maximum effort into finding something and you don't leave anything undiscovered or unexplored. Then we had the verb envision, envision, which is to imagine something in your mind. Then we had the verb adorn, which is to decorate or add beauty to something. We had the noun aesthetic, which is the study or appreciation of something beautiful. And then we had the noun accomplishment, which is something that has been achieved. So, let's now do this for pronunciation. Please repeat after me. Leave no stone unturned. Leave no stone unturned. Envision. Envision. Adorn. Adorn. Aesthetic. Aesthetic. Accomplishment. Accomplishment. Very good. Alright, let's test your memory. A long time ago, my grandma gave me a watch that was decorated with these beautiful, tiny little diamonds. What verb could I use to describe something that's decorated with something beautiful? Adorn. This watch was adorned with tiny little diamonds. I really enjoyed the beauty of it. I just really appreciated looking at this beautiful item. The watch didn't even work. I just liked the look of it because it was so beautiful. What noun could I use to describe this appreciation of beauty? Aesthetic. I just really enjoyed the aesthetic of the piece. And so, it was very important to me. And I had always imagined passing this heirloom on to my children when they got a little older. What verb could I use to describe imagining something in my mind? Envision. Yes. I envisioned passing this heirloom, this beautiful watch that's adorned with diamonds and just has gorgeous aesthetic. I dreamed of passing it on to my children. However, one dreadful day last week, when I went to my jewellery box, I discovered that the watch was missing."Dun dun dunn…" Someone had stolen it, but I was gonna find out who, and so I turned the house upside down. I interrogated every single person who had been in this house in the last seven days. I did everything. I put in maximum effort to discover what had happened to my watch. What idiom could you use to describe this effort that I'm putting in to discover my watch or what happened to it? I left no stone unturned. Absolutely. And you'll never guess what, after a few days of searching, it turned up. It mysteriously appeared on the kitchen table. Obviously someone had second thoughts and returned it, but I was happy to have achieved my goal of finding the watch. It was something that I wanted to achieve and I did achieve. So, what noun could I use to describe this successful achievement? An accomplishment. Yes, I worked hard and I got what I wanted. It was quite an accomplishment. So, this beautiful watch adorned with tiny little diamonds, gorgeous aesthetic that I'd envisioned passing on to my children went missing, but I left no stone unturned in my search for that watch and eventually it was quite an accomplishment. But eventually, I did get the watch back. So, let's hear those pieces once again in today's storytime. You stand on the balcony of the luxurious villa in Southern France, taking in the breathtaking view of the crystal blue sea and the golden coastline. In your hand is a wedding planner, filled with colour swatches, flower samples, and endless lists of to-dos. You take a deep breath and remind yourself of your purpose here to plan the fairytale wedding of your best friend Samantha, Sam for short. Sam has been your closest friend since childhood, and when she asked you to plan her dream wedding, you couldn't refuse. However, you have never planned a wedding before, let alone a fairytale one. But you are determined to give her the day of her dreams. As you flip through the planner, your mind races with ideas. You're going to leave no stone unturned in your quest to find the ideal location. You envision a grand ceremony on the beach, with the waves crashing in the background and the sun setting on the horizon. You see Sam walking down the aisle in a stunning lace gown, with a flower crown adorning her golden curls. But you know that a wedding is not just about the aesthetic, it's about the little details that make it special. You start making calls and sending emails, securing the best vendors for the day. You want everything to be perfect for the bride. Days turn into weeks, and the wedding planning is in full swing. You visit local markets to pick the freshest flowers, taste test cakes and sample different types of champagne. You also find a talented local musician to play at the reception. As the wedding day approaches, you can feel the excitement building up. You can't wait to see the look on the bride and groom's faces when they see everything you have planned for them. And finally, the day arrives. The beach is transformed into a fairy tale setting, with twinkling lights and a flower-covered arch. As Samantha walks down the aisle, her eyes sparkle with tears of joy. The ceremony is beautiful, and the party that follows is filled with laughter and love. As you watch Sam and her new husband dance under the starry sky, you can't help but feel a sense of accomplishment. Even though you had no experience in planning weddings, you managed to give your best friend the wedding of her dreams. And that, to you, is the most magical feeling of all. And that brings us to the end of today's episode. I do hope you found it useful. If you did, remember to give it a like, a rating or a review. And until tomorrow, take very good care and goodbye.