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Ok, this is the vocabulary lesson for the New Year’s Resolution article. Let’s get started.

First of all, let’s start with the title. A resolution is a decision or a plan or a goal. In this case, new year’s resolutions, it really has the meaning of a goal. Something you plan to do or want to do, by a certain day. You might say I’m going to lose 10 pounds by April 1st. That’s a resolution. That’s a decision.

Ok, a little bit later, you see the word vague. I asked “do you have formal written resolutions or just a vague plan?” So something that is vague, it means, it’s not clear, it also has the idea of not detailed.

So you might have a general idea. “oh, I want to be healthy”, but maybe you don’t have a very clear, definite, detailed plan like “I will lose 15 pounds”. That’s a formal clear plan. A vague plan is something like, “I want to lose some weight”. It’s not clear, it’s not detailed, so vague.

Alrighty, tradition, we see the word tradition many times in this article. I’ve used tradition in past articles, but a tradition, it’s kind of like a habit. But it is a habit that goes through time. it’s more like a cultural habit or maybe a family habit or a ritual.

So, it’s an action that you do again and again and again. Maybe every year, maybe every month. In this case, it’s every year. Every new year, we make a resolution or a list of resolutions. What will I do next year. These are my new year’s goals. Well that’s a tradition, right? It’s something that we do year, after year, after year. We’ve been doing it for many many years, that’s a tradition.

Can you see the word mythical? Janus, a mythical king of early Rome. Mythical means imaginary. It has a little bit of a religious idea. So, in this case, this guy Janus, he was not a real king. There was never a king Janus in Rome. But they made him up. They made an imaginary king, named Janus. Kind of like a god. You know, a religious king.

And he was a symbol for wisdom, for looking Forward into the future and looking back into the past. So that’s a mythical king not a real king, imaginary religious king.

Ok, we see, they placed him at the head of the calendar. If you use that at the head of something, it means at the beginning of something, at the start.

So, for example, you’d say he is at the head of the line. It means he is at the beginning of the line. You’re waiting in line while the first person is at the head of the line.

All right, ancient means very old, of course. Janus was an ancient symbol, Janus was an old, old symbol.

And Also, that little history about Rome and new year’s, they would exchange gifts. To ‌exchange means to trade. You give me something, I give you something. We are exchanging. We are trading gifts. So they exchange gifts at the beginning of every year.

And you see that the Romans had a solar calendar, it’s the same basic calendar we use now in America. A Solar calendar, solar means sun, from the sun. So, the other kind of calendar, most common is a lunar calendar. Lunar means from the moon or about the moon.

The Chinese calendar is a lunar calendar. It’s based on the moon. The American calendar, the Western calendar is based on the sun, it’s a solar calendar, solar.

Ok, we see the name Julius Caesar in this article. Julius Caesar was a very famous emperor, very famous king of Rome. There is a Shakespearean play. A play by Shakespeare about Julius Caesar. Probably, maybe the most famous Roman king, Roman emperor.

All right, so let’s see what else. we have the word accurately in that same sentence. Accurately means correctly. It means close to the truth or close to what you want. So the Julius Caesar’s calendar was more accurate. It was closer to the real situation. In this case, the sun and the movement of the earth.

And reflect, you see. His calendar accurately reflected the seasons. Seasons that basically is spring, summer, winter, and fall. So the calendar was important because they needed it for farming and they wanted the calendar to reflect the seasons.

Reflect means imitate or copy or to be close to something, to be very like something else. So, his calendar reflected, accurately reflected, closely reflected, closely imitated the seasons.

Ok, then next you see the Romans name, the first month of the year after Janus. So that’s where January comes from. January comes from the god’s name Janus. It’s the first month. And Janus was the god of beginnings and he also was the guardian of doors and entrances.

A guardian is a protector, so someone who protects something is a guardian. For example, someone who protects a child, we say that is the child’s guardian. Ok, so he was the guardian of doors. I don’t know what that means exactly, but they put his picture above their door.

Ok, and Janus was always depicted with two faces. Depicted mean shown, shown in a picture. It comes from picture, depicted. So, it means pictured as or shown as. So when they drew a picture of Janus, he always had two faces, one on the front of his head, and one in the back. He was depicted, he was shown, with two faces.

All right, a little later in that paragraph, they talk about some more traditions in Rome. One tradition was to give branches from sacred trees for good fortune. They would give each other branches. A branch is a piece of a tree. And a sacred tree, sacred means holly or religious or special. So, maybe they had some special tree, they thought It was religious, they thought it had special power. So that was a sacred tree.

And they gave these branches for good fortune. Fortune means luck, good luck. So they give each other these little pieces of trees for good luck. “Hope you have good luck next year. Here is a piece of a sacred tree”, a holly tree, a religious tree.

All right, we see the word imprinted, the coins in Rome are imprinted with the god Janus. So maybe it’s a gold coin, it has the god Janus, imprinted. Imprinted just means printed. The same basic idea, it’s printed. It means to write or to press something onto a page in this case onto a coin.

All right, we see the word commitment. A new year’s resolution is a commitment that an individual makes. A commitment is a strong decision to do something. It’s not a normal decision it’s very strong. I will do this. Absolutely, a hundred percent. I am making a commitment. So a commitment is a decision to do something and its very strong.

We also see the word habit. A habit is something you do again and again and again. You usually don’t think about it. It might be good, exercise can be a habit, if you always exercise every day, that’s a good habit. If you smoke cigarettes, that’s a bad habit, right? You smoke them all the time. You’re doing it every day. But it’s a bad habit. It’s not healthy.

Ok, and it says that, often a lifestyle change that is interpreted as advantageous. That’s one kind of commitment, one kind of resolution. People make a lifestyle change, a change in the way they live. They interpreted this change as being advantageous. To interpret means to understand something or to think about it in a certain way.

Ok, so to interpret, it means to understand something a certain way. It can also have an idea of translation. If you interpret one language into your language, it means you understand that language in your own language.

If I interpret Spanish to English, it means first I see the Spanish and then I change it to English. That’s how I understand it, I interpret it that way.

Ok, advantageous means helpful or good or beneficial. So advantageous means it’s good for you. Say this is advantageous it means this is good for you. It will help you. Ok, so most resolutions, most new year’s resolutions, most new year’s goals. You want to do something that will help you. That will improve your life.

Ok, in the next page of the learning guide we see, go into effect. Most commitments on new year’s go into effect on new year’s day. Go into effect means begin or start. It’s pretty simple actually. So, if something goes into effect, it Starts, it starts working, starts happening, it goes into effect.

And to remain means to stay, to not change. It can mean stay in one place if you are talking about location or it can just mean the situation does not change, it remains the same, stays the same.

All right, to achieve means to do something, to accomplish a goal, to reach a goal, to do something you wanted to do, that’s achieve.

And to set, to set a goal means to make a goal. To create a goal. So you say I set a goal, we use set the verb set with goals a lot. Those two go together. To set a goal. We don’t say to make a goal so much. It’s not wrong, but we usually say to set a goal. I don’t know why, but we do.

Ok, in the next paragraph, you see the verb maintaining, that many new year’s resolutions, involve maintaining peak vitality, physical fitness or appearance. Maintaining means to keep something the same. So, you’re working so that it will stay the same. So, it’s not really improving and it’s not getting worse, but it’s staying the same.

For example, you maintain your car. To maintain your car sometimes you must fix it. You must give it oil. You must change the tires. You’re not making the car better, but your preventing the car from getting worse. You don’t want it to get worse. That’s maintaining.

So, some new year’s resolutions involve maintaining peak vitality. Vitality means strength or health. So, vitality usually is talking about a person’s body and if you say he has vitality, it means he has a strong body, he has a healthy body. He has vitality. So, vitality is physical energy, physical strength, physical health.

And peak means top or the best. If you say he has peak vitality, it means he has very high strength, very good health. He’s at the top. The best health. You can also say this team, this football team is at the peak. It means they’re at the top, they’re the best team.

All right, you see the word reduce here. Reduce means to make less, to lower or to make less. Some people want to reduce their intake of alcohol or tobacco. Intake is pretty clear actually. It’s two words, in and take. So, it means to take in.

In this case we are talking about eating and drinking. It means taking something into your body, putting it into your body. So when we’re talking about food, it means to eat. If you talk about alcohol, it means to drink. That’s intake. To eliminate intake of alcohol or tobacco.

And then finally we see the word sensibly in the last sentence. Resolutions to eat sensibly are quite common. Sensibly means in a smart way. In an intelligent way. To do something that’s smart or intelligent. So if you eat sensibly, it means you eat in a very smart way, which usually means eating healthy food, right?

So, eating junk food, eating candy and drinking cokes, and eating nothing but junk food, that’s not sensible. That’s the adjective, sensible. It’s not smart, right? Eating sensibly means eating lots of vegetables and lots of fruits. Eating in a smart way, sensibly.

Ok, that is all for today’s Effortless English lesson on vocabulary. I recommend listening to this lesson a few times. That will help you remember the vocabulary better, then listen to the mini-story.

Ok, talk to you later. Bye-bye.